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).

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.

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?

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.

80th Birthday Celebration: Ven. Pema Chodron

Today we celebrate the birthday of one of Sakyadhita International's co-founders, Ven. Pema Chodron who was born Diedre Blomfield in 1936 in New York City. She grew up in a Catholic family in New Jersey, earned a master's in education from the University of California, Berkeley and taught elementary school in California and New Mexico. In 1972, after 2 marriages and 2 children, she discovered Tibetan Buddhism. From 1974 until his death in 1987, Ven. Pema studied under Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, founder of the Shambhala school of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism. In 1981, at the age of 45, Ven. Pema became the first American in the vajrayana tradition to become a fully ordained Bhikshuni. 

We invite you to celebrate Ven. Pema's 80th birthday with an article that first appeared in Shambhala Sun (Sept '98), republished here with the gracious permission of Lion's Roar.

Ven. Pema Chodron, a co-founder of Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women,
at the 1st Sakyadhita International Conference held on Bodhgaya, India in 1987.
Pictured top row, 2nd from right.

Announcement: Sakyadhita E-Book Now Available

 

The Compassion and Social Justice E-Book is now available online as both a PDF and a Bookmarked PDF. Please visit our Sakyadhita Publications Page to view our E-Publications, as well as available print publications and conference materials.

Additionally, Buddhist Women in A Global Multicultural Community is also available as an e-book.

15th Sakyadhita International Conference: Call for Papers

The 2017 Sakyadhita International Conference theme, “Contemporary Buddhist Women: Contemplation, Cultural Exchange & Social Action,” highlights the diversity of contemporary Buddhist women throughout the world.

Buddhism is a significant cultural force in our world, influencing virtually every sphere of human activity from business to popular music. This global spread of Buddhist ethics, iconography, meditation, and philosophy is having an impact on science, psychology, government, and the arts. Today, women have more pathways to self-enrichment than at any time in recorded history. Whether the choice is career, family, or monastery, women are expanding beyond traditional roles in creative and beneficial ways. Women also take different paths and approaches to spirituality. Depending on their cultural backgrounds and personal interests, they may be inclined to meditation, scholarship, social activism, or the arts. The 2017 conference theme is broad enough to encompass the many aspects of what Buddhism means to women and to embrace the range of Buddhist women's experiences.

The Sweetest Daughters of the Buddha

by Dita Sudarmawan 

Indonesian Volunteers with Ven. Karma Lekshe Tsomo at the 14th Sakyadhita International
Conference held inYogakarta, Indonesia during the summer of 2015.

Imagine that you are a young woman with a very limited view of yourself and your future. And then one day, you learn that an organization is having their international gathering in your hometown. They put a call out for volunteers, and you find yourself saying “yes” to their request for assistance. And that “yes” leads to a chance encounter that alters your view of the world and what you choose to do with your life.

Hardita “Dita” Libriasanti Sudarmawan was 23 years old when she agreed to volunteer at the 14th Sakyadhita International Conference held just outside of her hometown, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in June 2015 where she lives with her mother and brother. As the conference planning evolved, she found herself leading a culturally diverse group of dedicated volunteers in an uncharted adventure. Together, they created fond memories for all!

This is her story.

Announcement: Sakyadhita International 2014 Newsletter Now Available

Reflections from the 14th Sakyadhita International Conference: Nurturing the Theravada Bhikkhuni Sangha

Munissara Bhikkhuni

Photo 1: The Stage at the 14th Sakyadhita Conference

At a Sakyadhita conference, you are in the company of a lot of “firsts” in Buddhism. You might find yourself sharing a meal with one of the first bhikkhunis ordained in the Theravada tradition in Thailand or Indonesia or Vietnam. Or sitting on a bus next to one of the first Western women ordained in the Tibetan or Korean tradition decades ago when such a thing was a real rarity. Or having tea with one of the first scholars to document the life and work of this or that under-studied, eminent woman in Buddhist history. Indeed, amazing, pioneering women (and men) from various Buddhist traditions were present in force at the 14th Sakyadhita International Conference in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, from 23–30 June this year, which was attended by over 1,000 monastic and lay participants from 40 countries.

The latest in a series of conferences organized every two years since 1987 by the Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women, this year’s conference was themed “Compassion and Social Justice.” One of the most important social justice issues in Buddhism’s own backyard, of course, is the lack of equal opportunity for ordination and Buddhist education for women. Although many other important matters were discussed at the conference, this article will report on this topic, and particularly the situation of Theravada nuns, while drawing on experiences shared by other traditions.