Out of the Shadows: Socially Engaged Buddhist Women

Many of the essays emerged from the 9th Sakyadhita International Conference on Buddhist Women, held in Seoul, Korea, from June 27 to July 4, 2004, under the theme “Buddhist Women in a Global Multicultural Community.” The editor deliberately preserves the diversity of voices in the collection, allowing differences in tone, method, and experience to remain visible. As a result, the book combines historical study, doctrinal reflection, ethnographic observation, social analysis, personal narrative, and practical Buddhist experience. 

The first major section, Buddhist Women and Society, explores women’s roles in Kinnaur, Zangskar, Mongolia, Buryatia, Cambodia, Nepal, and other regions. These essays document how Buddhist women respond to social change, limited access to education, gender discrimination, cultural transformation, and community needs. The chapter on Nepal, for example, analyzes the relationship between gender inequality, violence, literacy, and the changing position of Buddhist nuns, while the Cambodia chapter describes the growing participation of nuns and laywomen in peacebuilding, human rights, education, and social development. 

The section Buddhist Women in World History examines women’s roles across Buddhist history. Topics include Yaśodharā, the restoration of the bhikkhunī order in Sri Lanka, Chinese Buddhist nuns and laywomen, Korean Buddhist nuns and laywomen, and the Tibetan figure Nun Palmo. These essays combine historical reconstruction with reflection on the continuing significance of women’s religious authority and institutional participation. 

Other sections address Buddhist education, everyday practice, meditation, discipline, monastic training, engaged Buddhist practice, ordination, and contemporary Buddhism. The volume therefore moves beyond a narrowly institutional discussion of women in Buddhism and presents Buddhist women as active interpreters and transmitters of the Dharma. Their contributions include teaching children, training nuns, practicing samatha and vipassanā, developing community welfare programs, restoring ordination lineages, using mass media, and engaging with questions of ecology, law, and democratization.