ah i just want to express my great appreciation for a
this the speakers who came here and presented all of this material which took a great deal is losing to
uncover
and
i guess i want to say something from the point of view of one who has been in her life of very militant feminist
who had you know you have these moments of clarity in your practice from time to time and i had a moment of clarity that to identify myself as a woman in the way that i was doing you know i am a woman that is not a man that kind of of
dichotomous identity
was limiting myself to less than the whole of whatever this is
to define this
mystery that we are
as anything
including gender
is limiting and makes it less than the totality of what it is
so i've been working with that out of my great habit of for militant feminism i've been working with that and i was struck by palace description of how the women and japan what about
getting the recognition and
authorization to be abbott's emphasis of of monastic training centers for and minute and so forth
and little bit different way than the confronted of way i had gone about
my political action and most of my life
i was really struck by it
and i appreciate that point of view a lot because i would never have come to it on my own
so that was something extremely refreshing for me about her
that is just to look at see what is it i want and actually what i fought for so much was to be you know as much like a man as possible and medicine what i want you know but i went to a therapist rocks and i started out by saying well i've always thought anything a man can do
do i can do better she said
know me very well and she said i'm surprised that's your standard

and so this this approach that the women and panto was quite different than that and i really appreciate it
in any event i i don't know why but the that's what i moved to say as a result of this is what we want is to grow in wisdom and compassion
and that is not really a gender related thing
on we want the opportunity to to practice and study and work with teachers
so that wouldn't can grow in wisdom and compassion
that's the essential point
for me at this point in my life and
anyhow that's
that's my main response to
two yesterday lender is i think we were supposed to work
give a brief response to yesterday's teaching then give it the speakers than average had to give a brief response

huh

good afternoon
i'm slightly under the weather in all senses
i have a little bit of a sore throat and also them the rain it's pretty strong in the ride from marine too much longer than i thought there is a big traffic jam on protein a bridge so please excuse me for being late
ah see
so we were asked to make comics about yesterday's presentation or whatever yeah
yeah me well
i think what i appreciated most about yesterday was
i'm envisioning
knowing about ominous monastic life living in a monastery and the close relationships and intimate and how we get to know each other so
so well and then imagining are hearing about the women who were ordained by our family members that we know so are a lot about and then here are these some
these other sort of new family members and i was just picturing them in the monastery being anja i that's what i figured that one
none who took care of dogan on his sick bed i pictured the hundred coming into the cabin and making the bed and then this is sort of a test of our vision but i just i could imagine it rather than i don't know what image ahead before of ah ag life but somehow including that was just a wider
ah more inclusive application
and i also realized i had some hunger to
you know have dialogues and dharma talks and things from this group of women who practice with these marvelous teachers that we practice with

and i think part of that hunger comes from
ah
realizing
how many flavors there are of teaching and dharma
and
i think have for me personally i had down
believed baby or settled on on a one flavor for a long time and were numb
when it was brought to my attention actually at a women's speeding at at town
in the seventies i think in the seventies at zen center there was a women's meeting which i left early because i didn't know what people were talking about but it had no interest whatsoever for me
i just want to sit zazen
and that was also why are you great being or what you know so it took a long time for me to come full circle to
realize what it was that i was what other flavors i was not looking at not wanting to taste not even knowing they were on the menu
ah
so i think come
the i'm uncovering of the sound and also that miriam's suggestion chanting the full tree in the horizontal tree on
it it was kind of exciting the thought of chandi down and going this way and that and down and old friend
an interesting kind of working at it and seeing it safe it would ryan
how that feels i think the getting the terriers vm terry's the elder women you know whose stories some little stories we've got i know people appreciate it and at the same time ah
ah
it it may not be read on the mark some
it's i have to say this moment
maybe they'll be more things that come up during the open discussion
and kill him
i really don't have a lot to say except for my appreciation for
what paula and joan and everyone has said
i always learned from paula and i i looked to her as one of my teachers in a matter of
seeing that there is an interpretation from the women's point of view
i'm not just a feminist point of view but the actual women that we are
learning to know and and learning from
and
that that is a deep feminist point of view to to listen closely and honor the point of view of the women
and
ah i i look forward to hearing more from john g's that affirmative whetted my appetite for the full you know three week run leaders of the good witch
we can work through these guidelines together
our
be
i learned also from linda ruth yesterday
from her lecture
i found myself from with tears as she talked about
now being being who we are at the moment
is really good enough it's who we are at the moment
ah
i think
that
we're trying to make connections back go decades and centuries and across many thousand miles
and ah
and we're asking of these women
from the past that they give us clues
to help us where their own practice and and help us meet our own needs and our own situation
and it's a it's a delicate balancing act because
ah sometimes
they speak to us very directly and sometimes weeks a want to see things there that perhaps aren't there
and
so it seems to me that the kind of work that that we're all doing together of getting to know and finding our women ancestors is something that we can do best together with
all kinds of voices all kinds of scholars and practitioners and and working women and mothers and housewives and and
and so i really
i applaud your effort to reach across these apparent barriers of time and space to to make a connection with these women
i think at some point in my own
work on this i
i came to see it as a kind of
oh
an offering that i was making to women who lived in the twelfth and thirteenth century
that somehow
i didn't know how translating their words was going to make a difference but i i could offer that
in honor of what they had done and who they are
god good to do that

oh where the opportunity to share some of this information it it doesn't mean anything to me unless they're people who can learn from it and that's always when my prayer that
it since i've been able to study and learn these things and especially being in between both cultures japanese and american that it seemed like that was my calling so to speak to be this bridge and you're helping me realize that page
rare and i'm very grateful
and and seeing from
just how buddhism has transformed as it goes into each culture and over each time period and and i don't know a lot about americans in and seeing
how you all are creating it
is is very exciting and that you are consciously
trying to learn the names of your ancestors is i'm not sure we don't have any record spent people did that before
and that's why you don't have a chart that you can just add onto
and that you're consciously trying to get these names of email ancestors is a wonderful contribution than americans and can make to the buddhist world
and
also looking forward to the
ritual wall
that we're going to try and begin creating this afternoon and i'm sure it'll be a long time in process refining it to just suit what is appropriate for this community at this time
the ritual that i have to present of what the nuns do in in japan today is not
specifically about
recognizing women ancestors per se
but i think you can get some hints in some ideas from it i don't want us that way right into it
i just wanted to put a flag up and say what happened in japan is not what's happening here the needs here a different the goals i think are are different because you have different situation and that you're doing something exciting and
i can be a resource person
when i guess joan has arrived at michigan
so i'll talk more again about the ritual

they've put the microphone on me so i guess i'm expected to speak
i could could i have a context
the comments on yesterday's be free read comments about yesterday

oh good afternoon i'm i'm glad to see so many of you back and i apologize for being rate it's raining elephants and giraffes in the north bay and the traffic was very bad there are a lot of accidents and on the freeway
well i came away from yesterday really happy i think that's the simplest way to say it was such a pleasure for me to hear paula and miriam's work i think it's it's so important and it gives us so much material to work with
and i'm really grateful to them for doing the hard work of knowing the languages and inserting out the texts and and presenting them to us in a way that's tremendously useful so
i know that that from some of the commons yesterday and and in earlier discussions that that zen centres in a kind of ongoing process of thinking about questions of lineage and chanting lineage and all of that
and in my own teaching those same questions of course have arisen and i learned a lot yesterday that was them a helpful to me in my own thinking about these questions on so i'm just delighted to be here and grateful as incentive for for honoring all the mothers this way
this weekend and i wish you all very happy mother's day

i'm out and start first
really with grounds as i told you people here
a woman dressed the surroundings loss of and dissertation on this topic african as a as a student join us spend all your time off
very it's very easy feel like you're judges you doing this for valuables gyrus people selling your real world people having this discussion is really
of bugs me that spare one wonderful
i also really asked him why he has been there happy really mauling alive what about it was the historian eschewed again which is always bad
sort of his name because of is really important to as of what lashes talking about inherent
comments is it is a real dance i find me this work between ah in your something you are at the moment
and really was standing for one believing and and try
make life better or women i think about a lot of gratitude on you i'm in the seventies when rather than having your consciousness whereas concussions and sutherland in out of your license to run around for you know for the bath the suffragettes being pulled screaming out as political meetings where they won't allow in
the fact that i can be writing a dissertation on job when wearing pants were sitting her practice you know a lot of ways the result of his sub project in a screaming in the house
a white on the other hand i mean so i look at story i and i say okay because i think it's great and righteous that i have in his budget and then on the other hand i see the way in which grubs and there and there's a problem right because it's not just that i'm wanting to go out and
do something and i'm also irked
that's and then this is an issue and countertops about as should really know being willing no matter she didn't think willing to do anything to practice being right do anything to get the data and not feel machine used to make him quite a good thing you know or the idea that everything that
there's rely aren't these distinctions of gender and that he urges for really i really see that and it's in my own sense of being irked that that most clearly and so we're sitting here having these conversations catherine ideas and talking about this is the and going on these women to run a self immolating or have to escape off zebra
to be sitting for a couple years to be able to dollars for kg york a number of these kinds of things i really i really find myself on balance i think i see is elsewhere
someone elegance was really in that space of having worked fine
this best one there is someone who isn't really it brings up for me on this questions about why do i do what i do and why are we having these conversations it was cleared of britain
cow
i didn't lose surface i'm million from from savages a potential sub-regional the diminutive
really put is trust
i think it there's a very for me a very important distinction between my ego herself that i create is a woman and feminine principle in the practice and as long as the energy in exploring these women's issue
is not about me and what i can be and how i can have more position or power or complement really about if the feminine side of life has been left out of this picture how is it that we benefit all means by including the feminine principle in our practice
so i think that's really important and like you my exposure as a twenty year old suzanne hundred thirty three years ago when i read that story about the woman who burned your face having been a valley girl paper mla and twenty years old in up and insult and struggled winning for these thirty three years trying to make sensitive
and finally for me i realize that each one of us brings a kind of courage to this practice doing things that we couldn't have imagined letting go of things that we couldn't have imagined each of us has something to face in order to enter the practice something we need to let go and
and so when i when i realized that i realized that i too am home and that i give up for that what i have to give up in order to craft

i appreciate up the words that you've brought enough life stories of the women's that preceded us and it struck me was cleaning the briar data for miriam and call out your southern university
and now we're question that i like to ask is it can also john is what are the conditions that supported the work that you doing as women that has allow you to breathe for

be
my university has allowed me to do this work but they have certainly not regarded as important and
they keep talking about when am i going to write the big book that's about the mail master that i started with
and
ah i received to quite a bit of support at comas allah university the soto as in school university in tokyo where
again there was a
definitely the idea that buddhist studies would have been studying the mail master and studying the women masters was women's studies this was different it was not buddhist studies
on the other hand they
accepted me as a member of their community and helped me
with work through the translations and and think about the meaning of the columns and and
ah that was really wonderful and over the years i've seen the a great scholar they are begin to talk about
the way in which the mail master in fact supported his women disciples or had important women students who went on to be teachers this is a new theme and his writing about this some about this great teacher diane so
i think paula has been a support and other other women scholars and and
the
ah students of course a better credit support because while my colleagues aren't of the generation that has been influenced by the kind of reflections that you bring our our students of course are thinking about gender all the time so
so that has been a a considerable support as well

well actually the person who's and my guide and all this has been marry when i was first choosing my dissertation my are we have the same mentor
he didn't talk before a year
he would look the other way when i walked down the street
but it turned out it was because it was worried i'd never get a job but
but i i knew the cool you know that that the questions that mary was asking and working on wood in inchon and searched just knowing that she was doing that gave me the courage to just persevere and sam going to do this
and so is finally accepted in academy and mary's on my dissertation committee and i'm sure help make sure it went
she gave a lot of feedback that helped
the main people have been supportive and the nuns themselves
if aoyama sensei say the abbess had not supported me i would be nowhere and in my particular university at vanderbilt al
hello i'm the only female in the department and so are all tenured except me they're all men all tenured no one works in asia but see me a one that they have to make sure is happy
i think they're sincere him in they're genuinely genuinely trying to
at the resources they are you through my grant proposals and really 'em up
why does it keep going on and off
it has this can you hear so i've been very very supported at vanderbilt
not that people know the details but they will all the faculty in the department will do anything they can to make sure i get what i need to work
am i think that you know having you know mary's generation you know plowed the way and i get the benefit from it i and that's very true

oh

it's great
so if you're like us there's gonna be some echo because it's not stable
as a
oh it

any asli

yeah

houses can you hear this and can see where i am relative to my mouth
in thing and then it doesn't
out
more really like that like that
okay has passed that pardon me
oh i think to be honest i would have to say that that for maybe a couple of decades at my relationship present felt like a kind of unrequited love
where i'm sure felt passionate about it but i wasn't really sure that i could find a place in it
i i for myself feel tremendously fault for having found the way which does it for me you know it's a it was just an absolutely miraculous revelation to me to begin to begin con study and i had a very good teacher and i had a
teacher who is tremendously support of women and of desiring to empower women's both that was very helpful
i haven't found that kind of support among mike
my my weg by for
so i think that that
remit let me back up and say that another another very important element of support was that when it was first proposed to me that i might teach my reaction that an ego level was not in this life you know i'd i couldn't imagine that that path and
one day when i was sitting with question the ancestors who came into the room you know where this earn and they didn't leave and but the way in which to undress at a decision what it is
that that there was something else that i could accept a with is the offer but if i did it just out of my ego level that that wasn't the deepest red to address the question so i would say that sense of connection with the ancestors are particularly at of off relations
ship with much simpler has been has been written really really important and finally what sustains

a a
browse the web from a vocation is is the people i work with
the sincerity of their practice their hunger for the dharma their hunger for the presence of both the feminine andover
distinction in their in their path
that that keeps me going i
very
and handed this gift for a while to make sure that i pass it on to the next generation and that's because of the the beauty and the power and strength i see if petitioners of the next generation that they ought to hold it you know they'll do a wonderful job

a variety of
it's a contract for just just and com
i almost think i'm here for the for this program
i'm
and that this was better
it was different companies and powerless as well as other scholars and women running for them
for his teachers are just in general
ever get the opportunity for have the money on inspiration
two
probably best ever
i all these women are of from korea
all are wearing different worlds from the controversial says every monday different kind of vegetation and currently he was sitting in a right itself was

time and and actually they didn't really know what to do with me now hour just to such as
hands and it out and we were able to eat hands on
ever again from carpets and hands and a profit system has answered it hurts everybody for that fabulous mr will advertise
are different
the five cannons

can i add a note that
apna data conference has been held every two years for last several years and they always choose a site where the women in the local area can benefit from having this international attention because many women in asia do not get much support for their practice and
and so it going to one of these conferences means you're going to some place like it's been held in cambodia in nepal and sri lanka and the singapore and nuns want to hold it but they don't have any problems they have enough finances and so it's not going to be held in singapore for any foreseeable future
and so since it's just happen in february it'll probably another two years with happened somewhere in asia
okay so coming close with we're going to show the video of here so

a cloud
so you know the magic or how to put a ban
huh
pointing to

this is green the map
ah this truck

okay
the foot

cheers of worse

huh
huh
huh

with mentioning the method
they accomplish their
at eye on
and that a have some

huh
huh
huh
huh
huh
huh
huh
huh

perino to the about see the this is this huge ceremony getting this has been at and the huge ceremony if it were done just said