From April 7-10, 2005 a conference on Women Practicing Buddhism: American Experiences took place at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, U.S.A. The conference, sponsored by several local colleges and Sakyadhita, brought together nearly 1500 people, including professional academics, public intellectuals, Dharma teachers, monastics, lay practitioners, social activists, alternative healers, and artists. My paper will report on some of the key issues raised at the Smith College conference, focusing especially on the enormously diverse nature of American Buddhist women’s practice. American women define Buddhist practice in many different ways. Some define the core of their practice as meditation, others as bowing down in front of a Buddha image, or as social justice work, or caring for monastics, or the creative act of writing a poem.

One of the reasons why American Buddhist women’s practice is so diverse is because American women themselves are diverse. The conference thus devoted significant attention to issues of race, ethnicity, and class. For example, we discussed the fact that Asian American and non-Asian convert Buddhist communities are sometimes quite ignorant about each other. We also discussed the persistent problem of racism in U.S. Buddhist communities, especially in the non-Asian convert communities, which are dominated by white, middle or upper-middle class women.

The conference participants raised a number of very important issues for Buddhist women’s practice in the U.S. These include teaching Dharma to children, generating better support for nuns, training female Dharma teachers, finding ways to balance dharma practice with busy professional and personal lives, and, finally, taking an honest look at our dharma communities and addressing key problems for women including sexual predation.

Living in a multicultural society such as the U.S. offers challenges as well as opportunities for Buddhist women. The overall mood of the conference was one of confidence that we, as Buddhist women practitioners, can make an enormous difference in the world.