hungryghostgrrl-blog

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The 13th Sakyadhita International Conference on Buddhist Women January 5-12, 2013 is in Vaishali (Bihar), India.

This year's conference theme, "Buddhism at the Grassroots," highlights the efforts and achievements of Buddhist women who work to alleviate the sufferings of living beings "on the ground." Presenters will share their own work and a variety of approaches, including social activism, performance, education, meditation, and philosophy.

For Buddhist women, Vaishali is twice notable. First Lord Buddhaordained the first woman, his stepmother and aunt, Mahaprajapati, at Vaishali. Second he delivered his last sermon at Vaishali and announced his Parinirvana there. Vaishali was also the venue for the second Buddhist Council a hundred years after his demise.

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Ven. Robina Courtin interviewed on a variety of topics in this clip.

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“Perhaps the most important text regarding women [in Buddhism] is the story of the foundation of the order of nuns. In the account, the Buddha’s aunt and stepmother, Mahaprajapati, approached the Buddha and requested that women be allowed to go forth from the worldly life and enter the order. When the Buddha refused, Mahaprajapati and a number of other women shaved their heads, put on monks’ robes, and followed the Buddha and his monks on their travels, their bare feet bloodied on the path. The Buddha had ruled that monks must receive the permission of their parents to go forth from the household life … but not the permission of their wives. The women who followed the widow Mahaprajapati were the wives of men who had become monks. Feeling pity for them, [a male disciple named] Ananda approached the Buddha and requested that the women be allowed to enter the order. The Buddha refused. Ananda then asked whether women are capable of following the path to enlightenment, and the Buddha conceded that they are. Ananda persisted, however, and after his third request, the Buddha relented, but only after prescribing a set of eight rules for nuns that establish their inferiority to monks. … The account closes with the Buddha predicting, with a certain resentment, that his admission of women to the order will drastically curtail the length of time that his teaching will remain in the world before it disappears completely.”

Donald S. Lopez, Jr., The Story of Buddhism: A Concise Guide to Its History and Teachings

http://smidgensonreligion.blogspot.ca/2012/03/buddhist-order-of-nuns.html

(via precious-female-rebirth)

Rita M. Gross determines that this account is not part of the "usable past" for Buddhist women...

Still strugglin'

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This is kinda cool I guess

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dancing girls

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Often in my lectures when I use the phrase “imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy” to describe our nation’s political system, audiences laugh. No one has ever explained why accurately naming this system is funny. The laughter is itself a weapon of patriarchal terrorism.

bell hooks (via ellielamothe)

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What is it that threatens Western feminist authors when they represent European women as strong and powerful despite the terrible tortures to which they are subjected under patriarchy, but represent the Indian woman, similarly subordinated, as weak and helpless?

FEMINISM, IMPERIALISM AND ORIENTALISM: THE CHALLENGE OF THE ‘INDIAN WOMAN’ BY JOANNA LIDDLE AND SHIRIN RAI

(via sheer-powder)

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Not specific to Buddhism, but nonetheless important... I don't know how many times I've talked to people who tell me they keep Buddha statues around because they "inexplicably" make them feel good or "calm" or whatever. I wish I had a simple and, like, not rude way to tell them that these feelings aren't exactly inexplicable...

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“What is true meditation? It is to make everything: coughing, swallowing, waving the arms, motion, stillness, words, action, the evil and the good, prosperity and shame, gain and loss, right and wrong, into one single koan.”

Hakuin

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“We’ve been ‘cool’ for a very long time, and in that sense our culture has been taken for a very long time. How do we define when we’ve arrived? It’s not when a young, white girl in Berkley is wearing nice garlands or those nice buddhist beads, or wearing bindi. I don’t feel like my life in anyway has been improved because she has the ability to do that and thinks that’s okay. My life hasn’t improved. The life of my mother has not improved. Our voice as a community within this economic system has not improved. 

A good friend of mine, she’s south Indian, and she grew up in Connecticut. Her mom would make her wear her bindi and go to school. She would get harassed by kids… she would be harassed so much that what she would do, is that because she was so ashamed to have that bindi on her head, she would leave her house, wipe it off… and then come home and put it back on.

To the point where a child would have to think about such a deliberate attempt to refute their own culture I think is pretty profound. If there’s a white girl wearing a bindi walking down central avenue in the heights, she’s not considered a dot head, even though she has a dot on her head.

For me, the feeling is disgust and anger. The way I look at it if I see it, I just get so mad because I think, how dare this person be able to wear that, or hold that, or put that statue in her house and not take any of the oppression for that. How dare they. That’s not fair. We have to take so much heat and repression for expressing ourselves.

I’m going to rip that thing off your head, and I’m going to scrub that mehndi off your hands, because you don’t have the right to wear it. Until the day when you walk in our shoes, and you face what we face… the pain, and the shame, and the hurt, and the fear, you don’t have the right to wear that. It is not your right, and you’re not worthy of it. I feel like it’s so superficial and it’s so disrespected. One day, wake up, be me, and then you’ll see how powerful what you’re wearing is. “

—Raahi Reddy, Yellow Apparel: When the Coolie Becomes Cool

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Vajrayogini.

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ha

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THREE ATTITUDES Three attitudes prevent us from receiving a continual flow of blessings. They are compared to three “pots”: a full pot, a pot with poison in it, and a pot with a hole in the bottom. The pot that’s filled to the brim is like a mind full of opinions and preconceptions. We already know it all. We have so many fixed ideas that nothing new can affect us or cause us to question our assumptions. The pot containing poison is like a mind that’s so cynical, critical, and judgmental that everything is poisoned by this harshness. It allows for no openness and no willingness to explore the teachings or anything else that challenges our righteous stance. The pot with a hole is like a distracted mind: our body is present but we’re lost in thought. We’re so busy thinking about our dream vacation or what’s for dinner that we’re completely deaf to what’s being said. Knowing how sad it is to receive blessings and not be able to benefit, Shantideva wants to save himself grief by remaining open and attentive. Nothing will improve, he says, unless we become more intelligent about cause and effect. This is a message worth considering seriously.

No Time to Lose: A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva, by Pema Chödrön

via the Shambhala Publications Dharma Quote of the Week

(via precious-female-rebirth)

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badass buddhist womyn

Happy 60th birthday to bell hooks

Go celebrate the birthday of one of the most amazing author/feminist/social activists by reading her work for free or some of my favorite quotes by her