Women Wielding Liberating Power

This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Is this mic in a good place and am I loud enough? We're okay. The furthest in the corner needs to... Okay. I begin with a co-on-esque question. How do we wield liberating power in a context with oppressive institutions, teachings, and practices? This question undergirds of mud and lotuses, dreaming the lives of Buddhist women. And lend me to begin forming principles and approaches for a Buddhist liberation, darmology. I reflect on and theorize applications of teachings, texts, and practices, highlighting those that generate suffering and liberation, especially for women. Advancing a Buddhist liberation, darmology involves acknowledging the ways in which people have been oppressed and suffered from institutions, teachings, and practices that fall under the Buddhist umbrella. And recognizing how wielding liberating power is available to all. So, how do we hear the voices of the oppressed and the liberated, especially those who lived long ago, if records of their lives, emotions, and thoughts are unavailable? That is a big question that deserves sustained attention. I focus on strategies of listening to the voices of Buddhist women, where each voice we hear functions like a distillation of countless voices that we have not heard. The numerous stories of powerful women I have encountered in my historical studies inspired me to elaborate on the available historical examples to provide vividly detailed stories of the many ways Buddhist women of the past have liberated themselves and others. To explore the possibilities of what might have happened, for which we do not have evidence, I envision ways women in various times and places might have navigated misogynist texts, rules, and situations they may have faced. We know that women have been active since the inception of the Buddhist tradition. Moreover, that all people come out of a woman's womb is an under appreciated fact in much of historical analysis and is often treated as if it were just a metaphor. The fact that without a woman, the Buddhist tradition would not have been born is in some ways simplistic and other ways fundamental. Focusing on this fact can help us see how women have been practically, historically, and conceptually vital to the founding and development of this tradition. Women actively nurtured in their bodies and fed from their breasts all those who followed the Buddha. Women were successful in raising a tradition that now spans the world and for over 2500 years offered direction to those aching to stop suffering. Fortified by research and amplified by imagination, I've employed the creative expedient of storytelling to bring to life Buddhist women over the centuries who laughed and cried in many ways that are continuous with our own. I focus my imagination, my imaginative efforts on filling out our view of women's contributions since Buddhist history is commonly presented as if it were mostly a male monastic tradition. This is a stunning insertion of imagination because most history writers saw and likely even relied on women every single day to engage an informed imagination to remove some of the distortions generated by an imagined world with few female actors is what I have come to think of as an act of restorative justice. Illuminating the view of history from the underside of repressive structures, teachings, and practices often yields a fuller view than from above. Moreover, to widen the lens is an act of compassion to not continue further delusions about Buddhist history and the women who helped make the tradition thrive. My stories of creative histories present women liberating Dharma from patriarchal and misogynist views as well as Dharma liberating women from suffering. I was planning on writing a story about a Chinese nun meditating in a cave in the cliffs above Suzhou in the 17th century. I was going to have her demonstrate her wisdom by having her write poetry. Then I realized that it would be a wasted story because Dr. Beatta Grant had already beautifully translated into English a body of Chinese Buddhist nuns exquisite and profound poetry. I shifted gears and gathered my spunk and courage to be a progressive 21st century scholar-storyteller and create a nun who wrote a sutra. When I told Beatta my idea, she graciously informed me. Paula, there were women associated with sutras in China dating back to the fifth century. A fifth century girl known as Nidze or little nun is reported to have received 21 sutras and Prashu, 1361 to 1407, received a sutra in the 14th century. She records in her preface to the sutra that the bodhisattva of compassion, Guan Ying, approached her in a dream and revealed the sutra to her. The title of the sutra is rarest sutra of great merit spoken by the Buddha and received by the Empress Humane and Filial of the Great Ming in a Dream. During the Ming dynasty, Empress Dowager received a sutra in a dream as Empress Dowager lead. These examples illustrate the available evidence of women with deep, strong and visionary wisdom. They also made me wonder how much more women might have accomplished that I never imagined. I hope to stimulate and empower people to reflect on the fact that sutras are historical documents. As such, unfortunately, there are sutras that generate suffering and are not in accord with liberative teachings and practices, including teachings that women's bodies are polluted. Women can't be reborn in the pure land and women can't be chakravartans, wheel-turning leaders. Though historians have gone to great effort to disparage and dismiss Empress Wu, the one who supported the great interpreter of the Avatamsika Sutra, Fatsang, think golden lion metaphor and hall of mirrors, reflecting a single candle all in one, one in all. Empress Wu reigned over the Zhou dynasty from 690 to 715. Yet, every time the dates of the Tang dynasty, one of the major Chinese dynasties, are written as 618 through 907, which is common, including on a didactic I recently saw at the Met for a towering stone carving of Guangying. Such dating deletes a powerful Buddhist woman from history with a simple hyphen. Although my story of a nun receiving a sutra is not revolutionary, because history was more progressive than I had imagined, I decided to continue with my plan to write a story of a nun receiving a sutra. Here is an excerpt of that story. We enter the story with a nun, Mei Hua, having finished a three-year retreat on a mountain above Suzhou in the 17th century. She brushes the sutra she hears emanating from the mountain. Sutra on the liberating senses of the Dharma body. Guangying attunes her senses to the music of liberation and pervades the world. She hears the heartbeat of the world. Birds opening the morning with song, water lapping on the shore. Cicadas swelling with undulating words in the summer heat. Bamboo leaves rustling in the breeze. Snowflakes pattering. She sees the jewels of the world. Ruby sunsets, silver mist dancing among the trees. Amber leaves falling. Amethyst mountain peaks. Golden moon rises. She tastes the healing of the world. Melting ice feeding a mountain spring. Dew drop drops quenching thirsty grass. Mushrooms feasting on decaying leaves. Crickets nibbling thittlehead ferns. Bears munching berries. She smells the beauty of the world. Plum blossoms peaking through falling snow. A cup of jasmine tea. Spring rain. Freshly tilled soil. Pine needles underfoot. She touches the kindness of the world. Bed of moss. Smooth bark. Velvety leaf. Cloud shielding the full force of the summer sun. Warm hand. She contemplates the cries of the world. Orphan fledglings cheeping in their nest. A childless couple setting out food for roaming cats. Drought parched crops. Sighing as they wilt. Bones of a mother fox who did not make it back to the dead. Brush crackling in consuming flames. As Guanyin perceives the suffering of the world, conducting vital energy, her Dharma body responds with cosmic resonance. Harmonizing all phenomena in a symphony of liberation. Mayhua placed her sutra in a cedar box with her other valuables and then went into a deep sleep. Having accomplished her aim, she planned to return to Purple Cloud Temple when dawn broke. However, lightning struck and she awoke to fire. She grabbed the cedar box, placed it in her meditation cave for safe keeping, then raced down the craggy mountain to safety. Mayhua wondered if one day someone would find the sutra treasured away inside the cave. Buddhist women cared for Buddhists starting from inside their homes. We do not have a lot of evidence of their effective action and we do sorry we do have a lot of evidence of their effective action and deep commitments. We all we have to do is look around at the results of their efforts, especially a parent in the home. Domestic Dharma revolves around practices that contribute to caring for a home and its inhabitants. Such practices radiate out from the home as its inhabitants move in the world. The Lakuna in our attention and understanding of domestic life stirred a story in my mind about a lay woman from an earlier period of the Buddhist tradition. As Sujata offered rice quool to Shakyamuni before he attained enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, women have cooked food for monastics every single day since. Shakyamuni began teaching Dharma over 2,500 years. That's a lot of food. Making the paucity of information on their lives untenable. Since the inception of the Buddhist tradition, women have organized their day to prepare the menu, gather the ingredients, cook the food, serve it, and clean up the dishes afterward, often while tending to the wide-ranging needs of children and the infirm. I want these women to be visible and acknowledged for the essential work they do on behalf of Buddhist communities. The continuous flourishing of the Buddhist tradition is proof of their existence and contributions, but we do not have records of their names. So I created a fictive character here, including Mali, her family and a monk gathering alms, and framed them in documented geographical, historical, and culinary details. Mali's story makes palpable the strength it takes to carry water. The organization and planning required to respond to a range of fluctuating needs. The calculations required to be efficient in preparing a sufficient quantity of food without being wasteful. And the management involved in raising children exacerbated by the challenges when people get sick. That so many people survived childhood and that monastics have received food every day for 2,500 years demonstrates that these women cared and that they knew what they were doing. Here's an excerpt from that story. In the pre-dawn air in a fifth century Sri Lankan village outside of Anuradhapura, Mali carries a large clay vessel as she heads out to fetch the first water for the day. Usually her sister-in-law, Dupani, did this, but last night she started feeling feverish. Fever sometimes come and go quickly, and Mali prays that this will be the case for Dupani. At the well, she greets other women from the village and mentions she is there due to her sister-in-law's feeling under the weather. Everyone pauses in silence as if to quickly pray the fever will be quick, for they each know such things can become bad. They also know what it is like when one set of hands is unavailable to help with the prodigious mourning chores. Upon returning home with the water, Mali matter-of-factly cooked the rice. There were 24 mouths to feed this morning, seven children, nine adults, and eight monks. However, the three younger children and her grandparents-in-law typically ate less than the others. To minimize waste, she calculates the volume accordingly. Given that today her sister-in-law is not feeling well, she considers that too. As the children grow, she also observes how much more they are eating so she can adjust the quantity of rice. The length of time and amount of water needed to cook the rice varies by volume, and Mali focuses her awareness to make sure the texture is consistent. Not too hard, not too soft. She cooks rice three times a day. Their family is committed to offering the venerable monks alms as often as they can. They are blessed to live where they can see the majestic 400-foot-tall Jatavana stupa in the distance. Though it was completed nearly 100 years ago, their family still talks about making bricks as their contribution to the massive effort to build it. When the project first began, eager children gathered sand at a handful at a time, and by the completion of this stupa 15 years later, they were able to carry as much as any adult. Such stories never grow old, because each brick made, carried, and placed was baked with the prayers of the villagers. Brick by brick, they helped construct a monumental stupa with their bare hands. Mali was 16 when her mother first took her to join the women to offer food for the venerables. The women gathered in their saris of yellows, greens, and reds reminded her of colorful flowers consecrating an altar for the Buddha. To finally be included in this virtuous ritual that shaped the flow of their lives was an acknowledgement of their faith in her. Although as a child she helped to prepare the food for the venerables, it was a sign that she recognized that she was recognized as a woman to offer the food directly to them. Her immense respect for the venerables' dedication to Dharma made her a little nervous as she used the large serving spoon to put rice into his substantial alms bowl. Being so close to someone who meditated, chanted and poly, and could read the Lord Buddha's words in the sutras was an honor. The venerable who came that morning to gather alms for himself in seven other monks kept eyes downcast as the women put food into the bowl. He looked to be the age of her brother and made her wonder how this venerable was able to know the celibate life of a monk was for him. Just as Mali thought that, he raised his gaze and their eyes met for a flash. It sounded like thunder in her heart. Later she realized it was likely because she was new to the offering line. But she wondered if it was hard for him to receive food from a woman's hand. To this day, each of the 15 years of mourning since that first day, Mali still finds deep satisfaction in putting the rice she just cooked into the spacious alms bowls as the venerable files passed. She wondered if Sujata felt the same contentment, not knowing if the person she was feeding rice porridge to was going to be a Buddha. Supporting such earnest people makes Mali's days more meaningful. It makes her a stronger, more caring and thoughtful person to wake up extra early to cook and offer them rice. Though she does not have interest in meditating, Mali knows in her heart that her rice is an essential contribution to the community of awakening. Characteristic domestic dharma activities also support families through unanticipated, uncontrollable and tragic events that generate deep suffering. To bring this to life, I wrote a story situated in Tokyo spanning the great Kanto earthquake, natural disaster of 1923, and the human made ravages of World War II. Over 1500 years, dharma teachings became woven into the fabric of daily life in Japanese culture. It is easy to miss the power of these teachings, especially when they are seen as ordinary routine and natural. People are often not conscious that they are engaging dharma. For instance, a Japanese mother is often a child's first Buddhist teacher, even if she is not intentionally trying to transmit dharma. Mothers, however, rarely receive acknowledgement for being a person's first Buddhist teacher. Nonetheless, as they respond to familial needs on a daily basis or in a crisis, many women have become adept at wielding the liberating power of dharma. The daily rhythm of life for the Ishikawa family was governed by the needs of running their soba shop, Waraku. Their eldest son, Isamu, lived with them to help run the soba shop, and he married Emiko in 1920. Life was stable and cheerful. One Saturday, Ojichaan went to Asakusa with an old friend who wanted to go to Sensoji, an ancient and powerful temple to pray to Kanno for his aging mother. She had caught a cold that was not only not clearing up, but seemed to be getting worse. After offering incense, they waved the smoke over their bodies, especially over their heads and hearts. They wanted to transport the healing blessings to their families. They went up to the main altar, threw coins in the offering box, and bowed their heads for an extended time. As they left the temple, the earth beneath them, their feet, suddenly began to shake and roar, an earthquake. When it was over, 140,000 people, Ojichaan and his friend among them had perished in what had become known as the Great Kanto Earthquake on September 1, 1923. Obachan was made a widow at 49. Because she was not alone in her tragic loss, Obachan did not succumb to self-pity, though grief flooded her and everyone else in the family with sorrow. They all still interacted with Ojichaan at their home altar. His photo and the mortuary tablet that had his Buddha's name engraved on it were placed inside the altar. Death can dissolve delusions, so upon passing, a loved one is recognized as a personal Buddha. An enlightened being who deeply understands and clearly sees you. Persimmons were one of Ojichaan's favorite fruits, so when they ripened later that fall, they offered him some on the altar and ate them as a family at a low table nearby. It felt like Ojichaan was there. Although Kazuki was only a year old when Ojichaan passed, he grew up having regular conversations with him as part of the family. All important milestones were shared with Ojichaan, such as when Kazuki began to talk, start in school, and learn to ride a bike. Kazuki do Ojichaan's favorite foods and always offered them to him first on the altar. Kazuki felt Ojichaan caring for him. He felt connected and protected. Though no one told him directly, Kazuki learned in his bones that death was not the end of a relationship. Indeed, he never thought otherwise because the continued connection was all he ever knew. The home altar was an anchor for the heart of the family. It helped them to stay moored when life did not go as hoped. The family consulted Ojichaan on matters of importance or those that caused anxiety, for he was the fount of wisdom in the family. When requesting encouragement from Ojichaan, one could practically hear him in tone the motto seven times down, eight times up. It was his favorite mantra and he never tired of using it to encourage people to get up and continue on, even after falling down seven times. He proclaimed, as long as you are alive, you can get up. Even in death, he spurred people to rise and go on. Meals were a time for nourishing both body and heart. Kazuki grew up with the family putting their hands together in prayer, bowing and saying, before eating. Gratitude was a staple and it was always expressed with a bow. Being grateful meant to be consciously aware of all the beings, including the sun, rain and soil that contributed to the food on their table. The care of farmers bending their backs for hours and hours, days upon days, to plant and tend the rice and vegetables were all in a sense at the table. If Kazuki expressed dislike for some food by eating around it and leaving the unfavorable items in his bowl, someone at the table, mostly Obacha would say, Suki kiraiwa dame, which meant it's bad to favor or dislike. This one bit of advice required Kazuki to cultivate patience, to not just think about himself and to respect others who supported him, even those he could not actually see. Growing up repeatedly hearing this, hearing that it was bad to favor or dislike, eventually