Women in American Buddhism: From our History to our Future

Sandy Boucher

This paper explores the need for North American women Buddhists to acknowledge more fully our debt to our Asian sisters throughout the centuries and to make common cause with our contemporary Asian Dharma sisters in the effort to achieve gender equity in Buddhism worldwide. We seek to cross sectarian boundaries to unite as women and begin to broaden our perspective as part of a multi-ethnic global project within Buddhism. Speaking from the point of view of Western-convert Buddhists, the paper first provides an overview of efforts made by women in American Buddhism.

From the early 1980s to the early 1990s, a series of national conferences of Buddhist women were organized in California to address issues of sexism and exclusion, and to build networks of support. At these conferences, many of us challenged traditional hierarchical structures in Buddhist centers and, since then, have been instrumental in creating more horizontal and egalitarian arrangements. Responding to incidents of sexual power abuse by Buddhist teachers, we worked to establish a code of ethics to guide teacher-student relations. In some Zen centers, women have changed the traditional male-only Buddhist language to include our foremothers. Numbers of women have received transmission in their traditions and taken leadership roles or created their own Buddhist centers. Women have assumed leading roles in Engaged Buddhism and are working for social justice. In academia, female Buddhist scholars have critiqued traditional texts and practices. They have written important works examining Buddhist perceptions of women and advocating equality.

The future of American women in Buddhism, however, asks a great deal more of us. There are still many inequities and unfortunate assumptions in Buddhist centers and publications. In an effort to address these, Western women need to listen to our Asian sisters, learn from them, and participate with them in their explorations and struggles, just as we hope they will participate in our explorations and struggles. We must continue to challenge sexist and exclusionary elements in the Buddhist environments we frequent and support women who are challenging these elements – or might do so, if they knew they had support. We can empower Buddhist women teachers by acknowledging their spiritual authority, attending their retreats and lectures, and participating with them in projects for social change. We must listen to the voices of women scholars and spiritual teachers and work with them to create venues like the Sakyadhita conferences where women can share their struggles and insights across national and traditional boundaries.

Women are in a very different position in American Buddhism than we were 25 years ago. We are greater in number and hold more positions of authority than before. We are more sophisticated in our analysis and more diverse in our perspectives. Because of all the work that has been done in the preceding decades, we now have rich resources from which to develop a truly international consciousness and make common cause with Buddhist women all over the world.