Committee of Women and Buddhism

Chair: Gabriela Frey - gabriela.frey(at)e-b-u.org

Vice Chair: shall be determined at the next AGM

Members: Dr. Carola Roloff, Gabriele Küstermann, Claudine Shinoda, Hans-Erich Frey, Vajramala

Information:
 www.buddhistwomen.eu

Objectives

The committee of Women and Buddhism would like to provide a forum where the works, realizations and experiences of Buddhist women can be collected, preserved and passed on to as many people as possible in order for them to draw inspiration and courage. We believe that the establishment of genuine gender equality to be the best way to achieve peace and harmony in the world.

To achieve this we aim to:

• Establish a multilingual network of women of different Buddhist traditions in Europe 
• Facilitate support for social and educational projects for Buddhist women in Europe.
• Work for gender equality among Buddhists in the field of education, training, institutional structures and ordination.
• Promote dialogue among Buddhist traditions and other religions in the field of gender equality.

Ways and means

• Develop and enrich the webpage www.buddhistwomen.eu
• Establish a reliable multilingual collection of texts, teachings and literature for and from Buddhist women.
• Provide a platform for social projects for Buddhist women on the webpage and facilitating the research for donations.
• Offer reliable information and facilitating support concerning (full) ordination in different Buddhist traditions.
• Publish activities of female Buddhist teachers & events of interest to Buddhist women.
• Encourage research and publications on topics of interest to Buddhist women

Why such a committee?

The committee is composed of members of the EBU that are interested in specific projects concerning women. We have set up the web site www.buddhistwomen.eu, which we propose would become the main working tool of the committee of women and Buddhism. With this trilingual webpage, the committee aims to facilitate networking of women from different Buddhist traditions in Europe. It hopefully will have more European languages with the same information plus additional news on women and Buddhism in the respective countries. It offers an information platform for activities, news and documentation around the topic of Women and Buddhism in Europe. 

There are many texts to be gathered and translated, information to be collected and much social assistance is needed. It is a tremendous task that needs the support of many people. We are looking forward to your contributions.

Statements

Ven. Myongsong Sunim, President of the National Association of Korean Bhikkhunis, from her speech at the Congress on women’s role in the Sangha in Hamburg, 2007:

"Buddhism is special among the world's major religions in that it puts women on a part with men in terms of their spiritual potential. I believe that by establishing the bhikshuni sangha during his lifetime, the Buddha meant to teach us not only the possibility but also the need for realizing gender equality in society. The Buddha's message was aimed at helping female monastic practitioners to be treated with respect as an integral part of the Triple Gem. But since the time of the Buddha, the ideals of the monastic path, which he envisioned for women, have been eclipsed by our own mental and social gender limitations based on long established patterns of inequality and discrimination rather than on equality and respect. Such an unfortunate situation has been with us too long, limiting the possible pursuits of wisdom and works of compassion open to female monastics." 

Paula Green, founder of Karuna Centre of peace building USA, from of "Buddhist Women and Social Justice" ISBN 0-7914-6254-4. Collections from a Congress Sakyadhita International: