15th Sakyadhita International Conference Workshop: Art and Meditation with Dharmacharini Anagarika Kiranada

I came to meditation and to Buddhism more than forty years ago, through art. The first time I sat with meditation instructions, I went into a deep, pristine place where “self” was gone, there was no separation, and I merged into that inner space. I knew I had been there before many times with my artwork. Years of research with meditation teachers, psychologists, and fellow artists followed and I began to find some explanation for what I experienced with this “losing self,” merging, and deepening in meditation. With some interactive art experiences (simple drawing and meditative writing), I plan to lead participants into this realm. Special talent or experience in art is not necessary.

15th Sakyadhita International Conference Panel: Monastic Life in the Modern World with Nirmala S. Salgado

Based on research recently conducted in Sri Lanka, I will discuss how different types of institutions of Buddhist nuns promote specific communal rules and why they might address those rules in different ways. The paper will focus on communities of nuns that include both fully ordained bhikkhunis as well as sil matas, who dwell in teaching institutions and meditation centers throughout the country, and belong to a Theravada/Southern Buddhist tradition. I will demonstrate that while nuns living at the various centers focus on the cultivation of contemplative practices that are conducive to the eradication of obstacles on the path to nirvana, and aim at maintaining a disciplined and harmonious life in community, there are important differences in how and why nuns at different institutions engage monastic regulations.

15th Sakyadhita International Conference Panel: Translation as Contemplative Practice with Annie Bien

The Mahāyāna sūtra titled, The Prophecy of the Daughter Candrottarā, tells the story of the merchant Vimalakīrti’s daughter, Candrottarā, a young woman striving on the path to enlightenment. Instead of crying when she takes birth, she sings verses about the nature of birth. Pure in body and deed, beautiful to behold and without desires, she is drawn to the Buddha’s voice. The men of the city of Vaiśalī want to marry her, threaten Vimalakīrti, and terrify him. She remains unafraid, calming her father through her understanding of karma. She comforts both parents by agreeing to choose a husband, but asks to meet the Buddha first. On her way, the Buddha’s disciples appear, questioning her. Candrottarā debates with them that sexual identity ultimately has no relevance for attaining enlightenment. The Buddha, listens and is delighted. He prophesies her future enlightenment. Elated, she transforms into a young man to continue her enlightened activities in the world.

15th Sakyadhita International Conference Workshop: Mindful Chinese Calligraphy with Esther Liu

This calligraphic work was created by elders tutored by Esther Liu.

Chinese calligraphy is the simplest artistic endeavor, being composed of black dots and strokes. The beauty of strokes, composition and integration create various kind of charm in the implicit and symbolic artistic expression.

15th Sakyadhita International Conference Workshop: Hatha Yoga with Lyudmila Klasanova

Yoga is a practice of mind and body. The primary goal is to gain balance in one’s life and provide a sense of calmness and inner peace. Like other meditative movement practices used for health purposes, various styles of yoga typically combine physical postures (asanas), breathing techniques (pranayama), relaxation (yoga nyidra), concentration (dharana), and meditation (dhyana).

U.S. Women's Marches & Events

Image via UCI Law.

The inauguration of United States President Donald Trump on January 20th has become a rallying cry for activists throughout the United States. During the week of January 20th a number of events are taking place in support of women's rights, as well as the rights of minorities, the LGBTQI community, and the environment. Below are links to three major marches, as well as information on an event being held in Washington D.C. by Pema Khandro.


Women’s March on Washington:
https://www.womensmarch.com/

List of Sister Marches:
“Sister Marches are happening in cities across the country and around the world. Find one in your area here.” https://www.womensmarch.com/alaska/

Women’s March on NYC:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/womens-march-on-nyc-tickets-29464021682?aff=es2

More information being updated regularly on Lion's Roar:
http://www.lionsroar.com/buddhists-take-a-stand-the-march-on-washington-and-beyond


Women Meditation & Power with Pema Khandro Washington DC Jan 22nd

Explore how meditation enhances intrinsic power and celebrate the natural dignity of all human beings. Join Pema Khandro Rinpoche for a Buddhist teaching, meditation and prayer in honor of the historic Women’s March on Washington DC – Jan 21st.



This event falls on Sunday, January 22nd from 1pm -3pm. 
Free and Open to the Public.

Register Here Buddhist Women - Lets March Together
For more information on the walk email info@BuddhistYogis.org.

15th Sakyadhita International Conference Panel: Carla Gionotti on Identity and Religous Status

The Lives of the Twenty-four Jo mos of the Tibetan Tradition: Identity and Religious Status

Machig Labdron (Ma gcig Lab sgron)

As a tibetologist and a Buddhist practitioner, I deal with those peculiar feminine figures – earthly, divine, or archetypical – of the Buddhist Indo-Tibetan tradition that are recognized, according to a vision of equilibrium of genres and of a conciliation of genres, as a source of inspiration in the spiritual Buddhist path of contemporary women (and men). In my work, I came across an interesting Tibetan text that contains the hagiographies of twenty-four Tibetan ascetic women of the twelfth century. All except one of these twenty-four jo mos (venerable women or nuns), who were disciples of the great Pha Dam pa Sangs rgyas (died in 1117) are all supposed to have reached final enlightenment. Their life-stories are particularly inspiring and should be regarded, as reported in the Tibetan text, as a “message for future generations.”

Registration Now Open! 15th Sakyadhita International Conference on Buddhist Women

Visit the Sakyadhita International website to register

Learn More About the 15th Sakyadhita International Conference on Buddhist Women

The theme for the 2017 conference to be held at The University of Hong Kong is “Contemporary Buddhist Women: Contemplation, Cultural Exchange & Social Action.” This theme highlights the diversity of contemporary Buddhist women throughout the world.

For more information on the conference please visit the Sakyadhita International website and download a brochure.

15th Sakyadhita International Conference Panel: Kwong-Chuen (Kenneth) Ching on Filial Piety in Buddhism

Perfection of Filial Piety in Buddhism: A Study of Lady Clara Ho’s Social Welfare Activities in Hong Kong

Lady Clara
Photo Credit: BuddhistDoor

Lady Clara Ho’s social welfare activities to benefit Buddhism and society in Hong Kong during the 1920s and 1930s in Hong Kong are well known. Her early contributions included providing Buddhist education for nuns and laywomen, and general education for the poor. Later, she established Tung Lin Kok Yuen as a permanent institution for propagating Buddhism.

The strict application of traditional academic disciplines such as sociology, psychology, and anthropology to explain religious behavior tends to reduce research findings to collective behaviours and neglect individuals’ search for meaning in the religious context. Some theorists using liberal feminist methodologies have also been critiqued for neglecting to study individuals’ everyday lives. This research gap may also extend to the study of Lady Clara’s social welfare activities.

20 Nuns Conferred Geshema Degree by H.H. Dalai Lama

On Thursday, December 22nd, twenty Tibetan nuns have been awarded the Geshema degree, the highest academic title in Tibetan Buddhism. The degree was conferred by His Holiness the Dalai Lama at a ceremony to honor the nun's achievements at Drepung Monastery in Mundgod, South India.

At the conferment ceremony, His Holiness the Dalai Lama spoke about the immense importance of gender equality in education. His Holiness also emphasised the need for secular ethics to make modern education more holistic.

“Through the power of education, women have been able to rise up to prominent roles including leadership in various societies. Education has played a big role in the advancement of gender equality and material development,” His Holiness said.

15th Sakyadhita International Conference Workshops: Eva Yuen on ZenVisual

Ways of Seeing - 2014 Eva Yuen Solo Exhibition

The Art ZenVisual workshop- the ways of seeing through sketching

Aim: participants learn about the cognitive process of seeing through sketching, which involves perception and conception, so to understand how to look into the intangible qualities of the objects and how to record such observation visually.

15th Sakyadhita International Conference Workshops: Ruth Richards and Vivian Ting Chuk Lai on Chaos Theory, Gender & Buddhism

Designed by Chevanon - Freepik.com

 

Chaos, Creativity & Gender

Do join us for a new type of dialogue we hope can help transform society. Our manifest world is full of change, complexity, and surprise. It is not all linear, predictable, or due to limited factors showing simple, or controlling relationships. We are all profoundly interconnected and interdependent, as Buddhists know well. This is now becoming more clear to Western science due to advances including Chaos and Complexity Theory. At a metaphorical level, such advances can be used in engaging and colorful ways to open up and advance understanding of our mutual effects on each other (all of us), the multiplicity and unpredictability of factors in our lives, the wonder and humility of emergent systems and events, the importance of lovingkindness, compassion, equanimity and sympathetic joy, and other spiritual virtues as we advance together, our roles as “open systems” in dynamic interaction, and features that at once honor modes where women have brought great value and benefit, while revealing other areas of stereotyping and gender polarization in society. Women and men alike can benefit.

15th Sakyadhita International Conference Panel: Pema Khandro on Buddhist Identity & Self Esteem Without Self

Pema Khandro with Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo at the 14th Sakyadhita International Conference.
Photo by Olivier Adam.

Becoming Vajrayogini: Buddhist Identity & Self Esteem Without Self

As Buddhism has crossed borders in the global context, contemporary Buddhist women have drawn heavily on positive female iconography from Tibet: becoming Vajrayogini, praying at the feet of White Tara or echoing the aspiration of Yeshe Tsogyal or other female heroines. What is the philosophical basis of this adaptation if any? While the availability of such positive iconography should not be mistaken as representative of female equality in Buddhist history, does it express a positive potential for how Buddhist philosophies can arise in the lives of western women today?

Awakening Buddhist Women Awarded Top 50 Buddhist Blog Award

Sakyadhita: Awakening Buddhist Women  has been selected by a team of panelists as one of the Top 50 Buddhist Blogs on the web! We are very honored to have been awarded this recognition and sit among the ranks of other amazing Buddhist blogs available online. Thank you!

The Best Buddhist blogs list was complied from thousands of top Buddhist blogs in their index using search and social metrics. This is the most comprehensive list of best Buddhist blogs on the internet.


These blogs are ranked based on following criteria

• Google reputation and Google search ranking
• Influence and popularity on Facebook, twitter and other social media sites
• Quality and consistency of posts.
• Feedspot’s editorial team and expert review

To view the complete list of Top 50 Buddhist Blogs please click this link.

15th Sakyadhita International Panel: Bee Scherer on Buddhist Tantric Thealogy?

Tara Kalasan Tara 8th c. famous Tārā temple near Yogjakarta, Java (Indonesia).
Photo by Patrick de Vries & Bee Scherer.

 

Buddhist Tantric Thealogy?

The Genealogy and Soteriology of Tārā

Tara Bodh Gaya
The wish-fulfilling Tārā;
Pala era (?) relief at the
Mahābodhi temple in
Bodh Gayā (Bihar, India)
Photo credit Patrick
de Vries & Bee Scherer

The-a-logy can be seen as a feminist religious subversion of (hetero-)patriarchal theology. Thealogy stresses nurturing, motherhood and wisdom; the body and the embodied spiritual journey in aid of liberating women (and men) from patriarchal silencing, power, and oppression. Thealogical narratives have employed empowering female divine archetypes such as Ishtar, Isis, Gaia, Demeter, Diana, Sophia, and the Virgin Mary. I argue that Tārā can provide (and is indeed already providing) such an empowering frame in contemporary global Buddhist traditions.

15th Sakyadhita International Conference on Buddhist Women

15th Sakyadhita International Conference Workshop: Rotraut Jampa Wurst on Sakyadhita Herstory, LGBTQQI, Buddhist Women and Science Fiction, and Dharma Rap

Rotraut Jampa Wurst leading the Dharma Rap Workshop at the 14th Sakyadhita International
Conference held in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in 2015. Photo by Olivier Adam.

The 15th Sakyadhita International Conference on Buddhist Women

What an auspicious conference we will celebrate in Hong Kong in 2017! You know, it's Sakyadhita's  30th Anniversary!!! Unbelievable, isn´t it? Thank you to Venerable Karma Lekshe Tsomo, who keeps this wonderful project going over so many years, as founder, former Sakyadhita International President, and also as the one who is taking care for all the Sakyadhita branches around the world.

We all, my Sakyadhita sisters, we have to meet on this very, very special Sakyadhita conference, and we have to share Sakyadhita's herstory.

Spotlight On: Three Newly Emerging Theravada Bhikkhuni Projects for the 2600th Bhikkhuni Sangha Anniversary

Photo courtesy of Karuna Sevena.

This year has seen the dedication of two Bhikkhuni monastery projects in the west, while another is taking momentous steps forward. This is especially momentus as the Global Bhikkhuni Sangha celebrates its 2,600th anniversary between the full moon of September 2016 and the full moon of September 2017. To read more on the Bhikkhuni Sangha please read Ven. Ayya Tathaaloka's article from BuddhistDoor Global here.

☸ 

May the Dhamma flourish!

Interviewing Buddhist Women: Jacqueline Kramer, Part 2

Jacqueline Kramer with Susan Pembroke, founder of  the Alliance for Bhikkhunis
and Insight Meditation Ventura

In this two part series, Ven. Adhimutta interviews Jacqueline Kramer, author of Buddha Mom and 10 Spiritual Practices for Busy Parents. To read Part 1 please click here.

Ven. Adhimutta: How did you become involved with Sakyadhita International (SI) and what are your her opinions on women in Buddhism?

Interviewing Buddhist Women: Jacqueline Kramer, Part 1

Photo Courtesy of Luboš Račanský, "Love." Creative Commons.

In this two part series, Ven. Adhimutta interviews Jacqueline Kramer, author of Buddha Mom and 10 Spiritual Practices for Busy Parents. Stay tuned for Part 2 in September.

Ven. Adhimutta: What led you to be interested in Buddhism? 

Jacqueline Kramer: I was led to Buddhism at a very young age. I had the good fortune to have a mother who was a mystic and spiritual seeker. She was meditating and practicing yoga in the late 1950’s. My birth religion is Judaism and my mother taught Sunday school at our local temple. They didn’t have her continue teaching because she was too ecumenical for them. She imparted this openness to all wisdom paths to me. When I was around 11 years old, she asked me if I wanted to commit to Judaism and become batmitzvahed. I told her there were certain things Judaism taught that I couldn’t go along with. She said, that was fine, but I had to continue my religious training somewhere. I chose a Vedanta temple I had visited in Hollywood. This is the wonder of my mother - she drove me to that temple to hear the sermons every weekend. Then in junior high, I got hold of the Paul Reps book, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, and carried it around in my purse. I loved its direct, clear expression and have since returned to the koan practice it introduced to me.