Sea Changes in the Lives of Japanese Buddhist Women in Hawai‘i

Three cycles of change characterize the evolution of Japanese Buddhist temples in Hawai‘i: the early years, the war years, and the contemporary period. This brief article explores women’s roles and patterns of adaptation to local circumstances over generations during these cycles of change. Special attention is given to the experiences of Japanese immigrant Buddhist women in the Jōdo Shinshū school of Buddhism. The aim is to show how Japanese women who immigrated to Hawai‘i helped shape a uniquely local flavor of Buddhism, made significant contributions to Jōdo Shinshū’s development, and helped ensure the continuity of Buddhist traditions up to the modern period

Death, Identity, and Enlightenment in Tibetan Culture

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Beacons of Dharma: Spiritual Exemplars for the Modern Age. Edited by Christopher Patrick Miller, Michael Reading, and Jeffery D. Long. Landham, MD: Lexington Books, 2020

While the canon is replete with biographies of individual spiritual exemplars—Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi, Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain, and the Dalai Lama’s Freedom in Exile come to mind—few have examined exemplars across faiths. This collection focuses on Hindu masters from many different perspectives and practices, as well as a variety of Buddhist, Jain, and Sikh masters. The editors set their focus on religious leaders and spiritual guides who have served as sources of inspiration and “dispellers of darkness.” Their introduction discusses the defining characteristics of these “beacons of Dharma,” recognizing that the Sanskrit term dharma is “polyvalent and uniquely understood within each traditional context.” (xiii) The editors invite the contributing authors to uncover new scholarship regarding the “distinctive philosophies, ethical commitments, over- all life work, etc.” of their subjects and to offer insightful proposals about “how the remedial and redemptive power embodied by each...can best serve our contemporary world.” (ix) The chapters are woven around these central themes

Wisdom from the Center of the Heart: The Life and Work of Pamela Ayo Yetunde So Far

In recent years, Dr. Pamela Ayo Yetunde has emerged as a prominent figure in the Black, Buddhist, and queer communities. As I caught a glimpse of her amidst the excited crowds at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Toronto in 2018, a gathering of 10,000 delegates from 80 countries and nearly 200 religious, spiritual, and Indigenous traditions, her humble free spirit immediately captured my attention. Unpretentious, unaffected by the grandeur of the immense gathering, and unfazed by the power and prestige of the luminary figures assembled there, she flowed through the hallowed halls with confidence and grace. In an era of shameless self-promotion, to be simple, humble, and authentic is a distinction. In the Buddhist context, self-effacement is construed as a sign of respect for others and dedication to their well-being

Imagining Enlightenment: Icons and Ideology in Vajrayāna Buddhist Practice

Iconography has been used to represent the experience of awakening in the Buddhist traditions for millennia. The Mahāyāna Buddhist traditions are especially renowned for their rich pantheons of buddhas and bodhisattvas who illuminate and inspire practitioners. In addition, the Vajrayāna branch of Mahāyāna Buddhism presents a host of meditational deities (yidam) who serve as catalysts of awakening. These awakened beings are regarded as objects of refuge for practitioners, both female and male, who visualize themselves in detail as embodiments of specific enlightened figures, female or male, with all their enlightened qualities. These meditational deities, which are mentally constructed and insubstantial by nature, are distinguished from worldly deities (deva) who also inhabit the Buddhist pantheon and may be supplicated for attaining worldly boons. This article explores the philosophical foundations of Varjrayāna Buddhist practices, the ontological status of these archetypes of awakening, and the epistemological process of visualizing oneself an enlightened being as a skillful means to achieve awakened realization

Everyday Dharma and Perfect Enlightenment: Contemporary Buddhist Hermeneutics

Professor Karma Lekshe Tsomo examines the contradictions and innovations that characterize the adoption of Buddhism by Americans. Adapting Buddhism to fit Westerners has brought fruitful new directions to Buddhism, she argues, at the same time that it has resulted in some distortion of or discarding of traditional Buddhist practices and goals

Sakyadhita Pilgrimage in Asia: On the Trail of the Buddhist Women\u27s Movement

Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women was established in 1987 to address issues of gender equality in Buddhist societies and Buddhist institutions. Since then, through a series of innovative biannual conferences, Sakyadhita has worked to link women from different Buddhist traditions and cultural backgrounds and provide them with a forum where women’s voices can be heard. These conferences have generated a vibrant international Buddhist women’s movement that works for the welfare of the world’s estimated 300,000 Buddhist women. Because Buddhist institutions in Asian countries typically function independently and there is no central authority to oversee them or create policies, Sakyadhita’s intra-Buddhist communications network for women represents a major breakthrough. To keep their fingers on the pulse of this rapidly expanding movement, Karma Lekshe Tsomo and Christie Yu-ling Chang, Sakyadhita’s current president and vice-president, traveled to Malaysia, Vietnam, and India in 2005-06 for a month to document changes in the making for Buddhist women

Buddhist Ethics in Japan and Tibet: A Comparative Study of the Adoption of Bodhisattva and Pratimoksa Precepts

The religious traditions of Japan and Tibet are complex and unique, yet many interesting parallels may be drawn concerning the introduction of Buddhism and its subsequent development in the two countries. Although two very different cultural environments greeted the arrival of the imported faith, we find striking similarities in their early Buddhist history

Creating Religious Identity

The author, a Buddhist monastic and scholar, explores the varieties of religious identity, their sources, and their effects on society. She discusses the fluidity of religious identities in the modern world and, in particular, the various challenges to women in confronting the stubborn persistence of gender-based exclusionary practices in religious traditions

Socially Engaged Buddhist Nuns: Activism in Taiwan and North America

The last decades of the twentieth century have been a time of new visibility and social activism for Buddhists in Taiwan and around the world. This paper compares the social engagement of nuns in the Chinese Buddhist tradition in Taiwan and North America. I would like to argue that whereas nuns in Taiwan have developed a variety of approaches to social involvement, their counterparts in the Chinese diaspora in North America have had to face a set of challenges specific to overseas Chinese communities in addition to Chinese Buddhist tradition. The article concludes with reflections on the prospects for nuns\u27 social activism in Taiwan and North America in future years