Women in Buddhism

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the truth
editor's editors

i don't know long
of class the passing of
he called i wanted a better title really in buddhism
and could just one
i'd hoped he didn't prevent the six-year unique six times

there's naturally a vast amount of material and i are
and so i really had to pare it down to six distinct classes and not through
the last person i am drawn to
but this is what it looks like an i actually have an economics is looking to hang up and i wanted to know
how many people in the plastic right address certain things such as only used to get an accurate account
so a priest class today
some words of introduction we are we letting how high on my relationship is to the subject for the material at personally and as a practice
i had some parents are a couple topple with about that
and also to have you participate in some way those of you protect the class before we get a first class me had somehow
i can tell some stories can fly to do and ninety
and then next week i wanted to talk about the goose time and the first our nation and memes and the family of a buddhist or and nice and loud material around that
so what i see
when we get a meeting after that i hope to assign on various subjects for you to report on greek me
there now a list of women airheads that there's more biographies about the net nobody
here is about to rock and not champion games we don't tell their stories so i thought each person could take one of these women and do the research and have a point that as romanian is the sort of attention
am
and then meeting after that i really wanted to focus on
her teachings of buddhism that
ah directly relate to gender issues i guess i a credit
certain teachings of emptiness and good nature
to target and caravan ban certain things that are within the grist teaching a rat out
counteract some ah
rosemary
summit see am
teaches not look like men women are not equal
in terms of their spiritual life
someone to get some of those bring him out
so that's the fresh grass and then for fifth class i hoped to touch touchdown
spirituality and sexuality and green
some issues around that yeah
how we go together a no brainer
let's see how this works and then the last class i hope to talk about
some of the female brutal figures terror and crimean
press the power meter and smart tibetan figures as practice
our energies
so that's now this is not talking about well as things that i will try to get in dogan sphere of women which everyone here's an article that don't we studied the last time we talk crass a cup progress
which is are directly from early and dobbins our where he says about women which is pretty interesting also there's a new broke out about chinese women nose in a fifth and sixth century little guy biography signals
and then there's the whole tibetan a huge amount of material and tibet and practices from using feminine imagery which i'm not particularly familiar with
but there's a lot out there right now about that so is is something that actually not to bring up for we'll see remain reefs and tanzania this is tentative half
how keith
so
let's try and carcasses the crass of all women and as she like is a number of men who chose to take his grass or i feel that the people who were drawn to the class men and women are answer to self selecting group know had to grasp
are interested in the subject
ah perhaps because they don't know so much guide or a want to or for whatever reason and i'm really glad that it's a mixed class i think there is a camden see it was a of see the last time
true one
you know lots of fear and when you look at this material kind of an irksome things and ladder strong feelings came up and of and i feel like to have men and women together will help and of balance and of the thanks
that people say
and i'm also interested in hearing from both men and women option of to
so why is it can't i'm interested in this study
basically what i'm i find this material is very a rich for me personally as a practice issue it's not
i'm an i'm interested historically and
about what happened and now ancient times and and but the reason i'm really drawn to it is because it's a practice issue for me it has to do with steady myself so
ah i just wanted to read this column and i'm sure a number of the lives heard before this is this book called not mixing up buddhism essays on women and buddhist practices this is an old book this is from the eighties
i'll put out by i got it in eighty seven this was put together by a group that worked with akin roshi in hawaii and they call themselves the cao cao y which means a little stream matt
think it means a little stream which and just like a stream that you know goes by rocks and it eventually carves out a rivers and can increase over they watch on gathering for the had on the news later they went out for women embrace man
i asked tom create a canoe she asked how cleary renowned translator to can't find if he had come upon any coins that had women as the me
after
which he did and i have a a hand out of that wish i'll give you have of these coins because often if you know the coins in an eon about coincidence public cases for the most part it's some male lamb monks it's a full-color with
men mostly but there are few with women anyway this is one of these coins and this is from the tang dynasty
and it doesn't say what collection seen and i haven't been able to find it in the movement can be prevented or the epoch serenity so
it's translated by thomas cleary
so the cohen says once a monk way to call on me who i can show you that is it must be a teacher that time
on the way he met a woman living in a hut
the monk asked do you have any disciples
she said yes
the monk asked why are they she said the mountains rivers and earth the plants and trees are all my disciples
the monkeys are you a nun she said what do you see me as
among said a lay person
she said
you can't be a monk monk said you shouldn't mix up buddhism she said i'm not mixing up buddhism he said aren't you mixing a buddhist in this way she said your man i'm a woman whereas there ever been any mixer

this cannot make see a buddhism
so as for whatever reason i found this very inspiring speaker
a so he the the monkeys based agreed wants to kind of place to you know driven is that he comes upon and as that journey disciples you know are you recognize teacher i you you know i used somebody i should kind of pay homage to or who are you know and she says the ashes scattered staples the mountains earth flowers everything or to say
was he asked where they are and then then he wants further you know
ah to kind of pagan further you and none and then she kind of throws a beckham or what do you see me as
and he sees you as a lay person
and then his categorizing her over and over here and nine she says you can't be a monk meaning one who's seeking way
and then he says you shouldn't mix up buddhism which i think is kind of like come in the commentary and like
ah yes little bit off balance you know so he's panel lashes i will you should be mixing up buddhism she says i'm not mixing up buddhism instead actually mixing a buddhists in this way and she says you're a man i'm a woman or has there ever been any mix up so i think that's
why i'm drawn to this material instead of myself there are certain ah
aspects of my particular
psychophysical stream which cannot be denied you know
and
oh that i am a woman that i'm female that this life is in a female body and
to try and disregard that or think are kind of jump to emptiness without thoroughly understanding what that means to me what that means for my practice what that means for my
relationships with that means for my inner ah
image of myself my capacities in how society views been on it without if i skip over there
i think to struggle
so am for each person man or woman there are
to understand this dimension of your ego you know the gender sexual identity is part of our ego
workings so
to have a thorough understanding of that can only help with untangling taino
so
am
in three we live in a culture
that is
for the most part mail
center if you look at
a variety of institutions of business education politics and so forth
there's
there's the kind of male dominance and
for me
growing up and this is what i hope we can talk about little bit tonight i was taught very early
that
women were not capable you know in certain areas i mean for example i i told a stir before but i remember one night at the dinner table my dad saying you know there's not one good woman chef there's not one good woman you know
writer there's not one good woman artist that he just went down the line you know and i remember thinking geez can't be right but i couldn't just name and i wasn't able to just say word about this sort how about emily dickinson the was like i guess he must know he's my dad
so this kind of a culture ration this kind of
teaching that we get
the both male and female received this
as it's takes a toll you know this this begins to work on you very thoroughly you know about your inner how you view view yourself
so
one is put off in a submissive role and to break out of that to go against that is very risky you know if you step out of that for a woman
you
incur a lotta fun
well can be a lot of aggression or
words that are difficult to hear or physical
a things ma'am
can be manifested and violence in
so one learns pay early to kind of stay in your places is very safe and you can lot of approval and things are just hunky dory
now when this is so this is in lots of areas shipping
a dedicated to agreement with eleven
let me just go on a little further with this am
thirty studies that had been made a teenage girls and this has been in the news can recently some of these books
one of the books is called reviving of failure
and it's it's a steady is a therapists christian worse with adolescence and there's also other studies that have been done about
young girls or junior high school girls and the difficulties they have and these are
girls who in grade school were
very active on the teams they were very good school an outspoken ready around happy go lucky play musical instruments did all sorts of stuff this is you know kennedy's case studies and then when they get into junior high school like about seventh grade and sixth seventh eighth grades and as
this enormous change
for example of it in many cases
they become very aware of their parents and that becomes the most important thing
they drop kind of their studies
stop taking risks and class like speaking out raising their hand
the road play there to buy any more on a musical instrument the parishes loving and stop stop doing all these things that they are very involved in for years and also
various eating just to disorders it's epidemic happen in these
years and awesome high school
so
so anyway there's these studies about why is this happening and why what happens to young girls at this time where young men at this time
and also these tests and so forth of self esteem and there is not this mark change where they're going along just fine in the the crash
i think maybe many women in this room hair
experienced that kind of thing and it takes a while to kind of get back to who we were at ten years old when you're out there playing kickball in the street and running biking
what happened near and it's some
it can be a difficult journey to to to find out what it is that one took on in order to be accepted and approved of and fit in a
a certain cultural mode where you need to look a certain way and this is for men and women this happens for for women's very strong
and very detrimental to one's
a psychological and physical health i would see if a lot of stress and involved
so i'm
now
once
also when ones when young people are growing up they often have a very strong spiritual life actually if you are
while just recently talking with a number of people that the sexually they say are a low sunday school me they love their minister and neighbor
i'm very drawn to the rituals and the church and they wanted to be a non and
ah
so in this can be very ingenuous
ah spiritual inclinations that young people have through for young girls
often what happens in their own
condition is that they they are drawn to things that they keep getting a doors slammed with your face and either if if not in the teaching itself often us within the teaching
will say about women's place for women only yet not able to do this women can't do that
are not fit the or not they don't have the capacity and so
one may have a gut feeling just like when my dance that there's no women this distance i had a kind of gut feeling that they couldn't be rate was probably ten rank right before i went intimate decline
some gut feeling that they can possibly be right but not being able to
come up with you know an alternative there's only one thing being put out there
so what were what we feel on a gut level in many ways doesn't mesh with our spiritual tradition has been given to us it's just there's no reflection there and this i think com
it's very painful ashley
to have
to be drawn to a spiritual life and and feel like some outs it's not okay it's not for us for this other group am speaking about women and men
so from an n young people have in a spiritual experiences strong spiritual experiences that may not be acknowledged or
encouraged in any way you so this is very painful
so i'm to come from a judeo christian background let's say and coming to buddhism and feel like a ha i finally found some place that
can meet this spiritual longing that may it can bury deep for years and then if one wants to feel like there is a place you know for everyone and that you will be met that there isn't a m there's engender disk
function
in terms of realizing your buddha nature
and
and then if you look into the dc you might find some things that will be very disappointing
so
as well as things that are not disagree with so i'm trying to free up and book i think there is within buddhism things that you've probably heard about that are that you can find in the buddhist sutras and tax for example you know you have to have a male rebirth in order to be buddha
women are okay in their place you know the nuns if they fall the eight special rules
you know women's bodies are impure and you know you can use this there's a meditation to you know
have better have to fully realize to catch me know he can use of filthiness of a woman's body now you can find these kinds of things in the poorest
writings that they can be difficult you notice especially if you feel like a ha i found it comes from place where this will not be an issue
but a very definition in the there are things that are issues
here and
so this is to study some of these things and also to look at the underlying teachings of buddhism which counter act some of the am
commentary and writings that came along in you know it's two thousand and five hundred years of buddhist teachers in writing sin
tradition
so what i would like to do now is a
it's eight o'clock i think we can do this
is to go around the room and have each person's say something about
ah their experience of what it was what what a woman
see
their experience of being a woman in in a religious practice or for the men how they viewed from there
religion of origin is what i wanted to talk about the religion of origin not necessarily gruesome how they viewed women and what their capacities were were they were taught i church
and
ah we can just of share a little bit if someone wants to pass please feel free to bed
i think it's helpful to kinda bring into your beef how it was that we
weeping formed by these kinds of
beliefs about women and their spiritual capacity so sarah king said salaries and i know somebody who you've done this already and i hope you tell the same stories because they're so great anyway artist and start out
with i came from a jewish background and
i think the feeling was always that the woman's places in the home and that was really
all the rituals around family life or were her domain and the temple life other than the kind of sisterhood of the auxiliary in fundraising those kinds of these was more for the man and i remember this one time there's a ceremony which is a very joyous ceremony where the torah you know the five books of moses
a beautifully decorated with crowds and and it's carried throughout the temple on a particular holiday sort of to show the joy in having this teaching you know and it's carried along of people
touch the torah with their prayer book or their prayer shawl if you have and i didn't know that if you had to use on the also touched it with my handedness
it was like oh a just cause this big flurry and i remember feeling like cheat you know what's the matter is man
the and
so there was one thing and then just another this is just a little story i
i took it as
lighting have a pressure you know
but nobody actually said in that instance you're a woman don't touch it but i felt somehow and it maybe i should probably say that
you probably don't want to touch it because it'll just get dirty you know if the oil on your hand and it's got a beautiful cover is probably advanced level that but i
in the context of the temple where i i felt like i was a little bit
peripheral anyway the atlas something i'm not enough more than noting that it was when i was a woman and touching it seem to be how i felt it
anyway
just this story about my confirmation we were confirmed at fifteen i wasn't plant mitzvot and thirteen years confirmed at fifteen
ceremony with the rabbi and i'd see my sisters because your confirmation it was very special everybody was crying because you get blessed individually by the rabbi in front of the open arc where the torah is there and it's in front of the whole congregation
and it was her like doxa you know i was like this personal interview with the rabbi serve just the two of you were intimate and being blessed in and put your head down i just couldn't wait it was gonna be that you know the spiritual combination of these two years of schooling and ready for the ceremony
so first of all was the baby boomer so there was so many of us we had to go up to by to
there's this person and there's just to here by blessing
anyway we get up there and a rabbi who was a scholar a wonderful scholar but not much of
he can have a lot of report he was more of a scholar excellent scar anyway so it came down from to give any and to do these things like press things ahead
if he did his blessing when he said to me was your real pretty girl
and i think i hope you go a long way
can i
i was there was it i sort of never went back to kaplan participate because if that was kind of the fast people
the pinnacle you know of once ceremonial events well
and if it was very was disturbing and sad and in retrospect i think it had more to do it the fact that this man was a scholar he really didn't have a lot of ease with these adolescence and know there's all sorts of
extenuating circumstances
but the fact that he said you're a real pretty girl you know
my you know spiritual longing and wanting to be close with garden and all this was met was not meant and instead my appearance was the only thing this person could think of saying
at a time like that you know and it really hit being deeply and it hurt he knows
so
ah so that's my story one of my story so it shall we go around
you want to replicate
our best to just take a mirror
a tear drop in new york and of juice to the gosling again
ah as also
very tall can vary call i had a nickname i was a wash or white anglo-saxon hebrew and it look jewish so that was a little bit different difficult for the and in my confirmation classes as to have a picture in other just everybody through dark hair and all that is lenin
tonga legs are no
so i got a lot of them
constantly you're pretty don't have to worry or by hetero with anything else it's kind you're pretty you know
the and my father to notice that the whole that the hope of bringing up in the culture and like data well you can always model can you could been in a star and for that the spiritual and some sort of connection so
maxim that took point of going like extreme i went to a jewish camp and everybody else was like stings remaining i'm i'm like studied your studies and i could hang out with their rabbis and talk and and i'm still always system is an incredible struggle continue and could take taken seriously and somewhere hobby as
oh and and also to to steam a teenager and like side glances the male and male energy of it for me was very difficult because there's always that
looking behind your shoulder their look interesting and young girl in that like not dangerous spectral basically of mine thing
i'm just that a lot of that a lot of

i didn't really have any formal
spiritual ceremonies a
i think that death
half of my family my father shouted his family was jewish and my marriage and family was catholic
and my father and a lot more gregarious take my mom was a lot quieter anyway
and i think what's coming up i nose is ever man i have a brother is tear over and i thought i was only louder and and very charismatic he got a lot of attention and has his mother and father for very much in the picture
and my my mother's parents weren't and serve of course
i'm my father's jewish mother really into her son and into her son said my brother and so
i think
early on there as well as estimates that
what my father that my father was more important than my mother and that you know
his career was was his opinion his career is just his presence was much more in the focal point and and that carried over to my brother's wow
and
so there was extensive of napping over that
when i was a i was ballet dancer and into my brother was a lot more
scholastic and says
okay here's the heck is that because i didn't really have anything in particular stay but i think there's just there's definite than instead that dan
my brother his achievements would be more valid than mine and
and
i might as well go off
you know i didn't really matter although it didn't really matter what i did

he can
that's the negative side of that and here is a lot and mean the things that were verbalize
everybody was released openly supported and encouraged me in all the same way as that they encouraged my brother but it was just
what was said was different than rose acted upon it and i started this
where's the in congress for me so
the
my my early training i don't think i stepped foot into his church toes were seven and that happened because there was no it is papillion priest that rented my brother and he was so shocked that our entire family had no we're now
not baptize didn't go to church that i think he took everybody inside like my my grandmother and my uncles and lives two brothers and my mother and had us all baptized was seven than the his compelling church to me was i mean i didn't have any
feeling toward it was just to dress up and god's name and i basically started his priesthood fool
we were just heathens i mean we were like family him for the very beginning
my grandmother was really wonderful woman and she her background was or her practice was the christian science faith and that was found by a woman called mary baker eddy so my concept of a real religion was
different and she really embodied this practice
spray inspiring me she's the only one in the family that wasn't insane
and
and then growing up as a teenager or young adult i would
find the families who went to church on sunday and go along with them so i got to go to a catholic or temple or baptist church and i loved every single every sport church

i'm actually i think of a specific inside in my life it
the i was very discriminated against as a female the
agra and that that it's christian and to me that it stretches pretty balanced like there is a woman
minister in my other tissues cells
is mostly just assertion haiti
the the
it was important to me mam and never been really little and asking my mom why is got me likewise got a man or an ancestor was he ride and can say that and she said
the elections a row you cast it would nobody really knows if it's male or female other if his of humor and that kind of satisfied me for a while and
that as i got older in christianity was it the thing for me and i immediately got into other spiritual things in a gotten into am
indian religions and that was on male oriented or into
i ain't if and
and then i got into buddhism and is all these different things i was looking out listings their on the male figures that were worshipped him and that was rare qualities that were wrong it it
and i really felt this other a need for something else and i got into things like paganism and my feminine religions and i really found thing thing rank could feel at home there but
at least here in the practices that were going on here there it is kind of cheesy and i'm not really satisfying my different needs and
and i settled on buddhism but i still feel like there isn't
a definite appreciation of for feminine qualities think
the ability to get birth and just really emotional qualities and intuitive
aspects of being feminine it's not just the physical practices allows psychological make up to

i was i was brought up catholic and have the good he belonged our habits and they taught through feeder and memorizing
hiring the sickness their inception
it's an with area
the story i'm i'm and town was kind of how i ended up
seeking
we're finding sin
whereas twenty four i left new york and sailed in the bahamas i worked on a hundred and twenty quid gaff rigged schooner for a year and that year ended really nicely i mean i really loved being at sea for a year and
the year ended with my falling in love with someone in the crew and in time and we went to st thomas and the there and i was very happy and we present very beginning we cared about one another very much and talked about marriage and i have been brought a cat
i can he had been bred a proud of skin and i guess we will if you're married outside the church she excommunicated so as was still enough catholic yeah drum i was concerned about that and one thing thompson was if we got married in the catholic church
it was there a way that he he wouldn't have to promise to bring up children catholic catholic family if we have any children so i went to the priest to talk about this is there any way that we can get married in the catholic church and tom won't have to promise to bring up the chill
catholic and preset well my dear young lady you would first have to stop living with that name
and so i then i don't feel in any dark state of seen it on i feel very beautiful it's that a very happy time of my life i've sailed around bahamas for a year and that was wonderful now living on an island with someone very special i feel very beautiful
and i said on expensive st thomas we're supposed to get to separate living spaces for the purpose of maybe coming before the catholic order to possibly be married as the death is a soft and guest
hello is now a little bit open and adults like the end of the catholic church
says that or are they broke the camel's back
and then on the island i went to the moravian church the methodist church the anglican church just the lutheran church to see what those relax and they were beautiful island churches and had the moravian church there was mostly mostly black people and one came over swiftly to us with
the with hamburg you know this is where we are in the service they knew we were newcomers and then if the end of the service the black minister walk down the aisle to us and said what we like to receive holy communion and i thought quite a bit different than the catholic church with all its rules regulations and rigidity and so
you know my my little search for other ways eventually lead and then
i think i'm going to love hearing stories i'm just a little worried about
a tiny long story well it was a great story and and glad you told them to it will go down about forty minutes and about forty people that i know it lives if we can no offense intended can a distilled or or story
kind of keep it to some encounter with how our religion can of viewed women and how to fix it us or
otherwise we will get on with run it looked here but we can do it makes me to where i think we only have six classes
avishai yeah
while i was raised in the south which was stressing just feel indignant for that finance raised in a methodist fan but i really remember anything from that timperley but i ended up bright and all girls catholic high school and now was my first i felt like fresh
religious experience and
my spiritually than her
and anyway so i went to this other else catholic high school and there
there is the brothers for and right off i noticed that the girls' school work or had less funding i'm on the links or a movie savvier than the voice for a voice for have a lot of press in the area around them to running a me as prior one of the highest from
academically
the waste girls that a no lifeless or whatever that is about that there's even with on garage floor and so we had to take rushing classes every year there was a lot of sexuality or whomever what was a half
castle we have relationships with men
and what they removed myself in sort of clicking on as that anthropological study of catholicism as from an outsider your own making friends with girls wear them and parochial schools throughout and
i found myself a different name
anyway you
i grew up with a religious family my grandma to preserve the opinion that either you or a catholic grade shouldn't be worn at all it's for right
we didn't practice or is promoter we couldn't
so the only thing that really stands out my primaries
remembering year in my mom standing to she regretted having stayed at arm and pattern chains instead of being there for my dad rather than going out and going to school and pursuing careers as she had served fallen into this mode that my grandmother to bed
from
i grew up catholic is almost everybody nostril and it was no breach it is it's someone seems it's not such a defeat to grow up camping and because everybody's and some people go to church some both it's cash
not so under control room
when there was a neck writing writing and sixteen standing there was a in a kind of property young people and be very interested in spirituality and like creating all kinds of own religion in the christian church and like having rest together like this place and it was didn't i didn't feel any kind of the
the conclusion
moving her name was more like we're on as we have the power become a mammography and like there is traveling started later more when it started to tend to other religions that simon like this and right there was this kind of feeling for me like i have to
to kind of commitment to this select practice this way and will never waiver was describing it as something looking for miss warren dysfunction it's not really what i wanna have when i have just this is not enough that sounds them something is missing them it was first remove the
specially when i got your troubles with existent for promise crying like some for like some i lost contact with the earth or like you grounded are actually save and and there was the woman then she was singing with needed it to indian ritual and it tell
in and other than just sandra was this kind of and the woman i came to let i wanted to i'm something was missing and several i get it some rules
really needed to to courage to get at this point because up to the every kind of feeling something something's wrong with neon green with practice in a right lawyer
he
i grew up on
sort of same thing catholic well my dad was catholic mother was superior and of us practice we went to church twice a year christmas and easter and end they sent me to a private catholic girls' school and it was a boarding school so i was really in it while yeah
they wanted a young lady in this to pick up
the with my my neighbors had to go to mass every morning yeah i wanted to be an altar boy i am okay with you as well we've written and it was the same as when i was in a public grammar school where the girls couldn't be cross
birds he had to go into dishes and the teacher's room so it was no different it's just you know religious level and then on was in high school i told my dad that i was going to be a nun and i think i was just thirty first league or not
he his response was if you do that i'll go blow the place up and i told a none that i was going to become a nun and she said i'll leave if you do
so
they didn't like that
has been
i didn't have much contact with the i was in seventh grade i went to a private the task grad school right
and
what you do anything i i mean i didn't have to have that from because the growls at my school graph to do everything i mean to be held tomorrow
how many ounces voice and usually got to like really be
and the the church people all came out to watch sports games and you know we have teams and sports as a big deal surfing right smile that the a job where he did everything
in hurting except ah
i never be arriving ravaged anything we of the he shouldn't have said the constant like
the airy and i didn't really a news channel of religion i didn't understand about how god could be swayed people
i didn't really understand but i like the hands
i didn't hear school
oh and i was out of past family out though my parents quit coming to church when they start going through a divorce and exit that twelve me such as tennis
at church we sit which is known in our nation but it was very fundamentalist and ziploc bag whole thing for my own nineteen years i mean i won't go to dances island
ah communities in a lot of guilt built up from those years but it was funny that should have churches of refuge and i did fairly equal in in that church and i wish i was a sunday school teacher and i so deeply into that
at and i wanted to go on ethical islands chip and transforms a team and my parents were so aghast at that they they tried to bribe me he know often i wanted to be a missionary
as i think countries hygenic as culturally i was more effective by realizing on a nail and verizon i was looking at myself more as an object more in the religious aspect of was more like the cultural so shocking that gender
because eyes out on the look a lot too much well isn't that i was just received a penny undergrad
his class
so it's wider culture thing that sets them
no later on i i see of patriarchy in church
has premature raised hedonist psychic
tell too much closer on that
gender inequity and i've seen from rich bicycle trip to rome
as we're supposed to pay in and i can
so i guess i just see all spectrum but run not as well as came here last summer that first thing i thought it was well when it started losing we have had a lot more color in his temper i don't understand what are you laughing
i think over time then but i as i came out and saying your mind i realize i there's a lot of my own anger that comes up just from being a woman in this culture and that and i lamarck settings and respectful of the traditions that i am here i can hear is but i think hundred lives in his in america
a design theory is to bring together in germany and to marry those ideas into something that works because i think that we to i think that's right here this is my own take on and there was this a teacher and i see it here that's why
running to catholic school for eight years
have you can just go on and off shrooms
the media ltd things that stick in my mind is it just so much guilt that like as the field in fear
yeah know you're not supposed to touch your body and was just terrible because i was too strong sexual feelings from an early age so as always feel not the center british and him
but i never really wanted to be an altered girl they can hear that getting loans much and i really idolize like singing in choir for scooping
oh and i remember my first grade none teacher went to sell my all of the american civil rights march june and people were really disgusted if there is real controversial or det the school everyone out for place to go
what i wondered if they would have felt the same way if she then priest to me
angelo di kind of lost interest i guess who knows about when captures
you bet i'm still forced to go to church until i was done with high school but i just kind of to the parking skin
and then the other thing that really sticks in my mind islam my sister when she is in college and or she went to mexico and my father made her promise never to tell me year my mother but that it happened in in fact i didn't really know i knew there was all this tension or long house but i didn't really know until
about six years later that she had this abortion
so i think said has a lot to do with catholicism you know things just such a terrible thing
asked
i grew up in the bronx in a jewish neighborhood conflict my family wasn't in all religious and yet i think i had two sisters if they've been a boy in our family he probably would have had a bar mitzvah but none of us had any religious education and just briefly recently sincerely to san francisco god bitch
come involved in the synagogue where men and women lead services and the languages egalitarian and i had about miss baker half ago and now i could lead services at my synagogue and is very important prime time but we're reclaiming
the role of women and judaism so that's one reason why practice discussion about living in buddhism so interesting
i was brought up as a catholic to the them i haven't got much memory of it because he was very short period of time i just forgot about it when i was telling because he couldn't deal with it would turn it was scared of the priests and them
so well
the can't remember anything that sam
it would have to tell here but then of course later i yummy
i found my way to then i'm going to wind and this is a experience
as we say you studied herself and we forget the south and i experienced that in some ways
for me was the experience also to forget about the idea what i heard about myself being a man
prospectively allowing
the part of familiarity that i have insight to allow it to to happen and them
in my zen experience in my spirit that experience i experienced this these moments this this deep mom is the sweet moments that you have and moments of meditation to me the to be an experience
own inexperience stream of kindness love compassion
to myself is identified this with to wait for him
with their families this feeling out there
if i for example picture it or if i have like a symbol of something it works far better for me if i imagine
for example the griddle or tara than done buddha exam state and community develops this sweet feeling much easier this is just an experience as for myself or concerning air so i'm much more open actually or cannot muster much easier to this to to speak
our compassion by by going a certain different make my way which isn't the way to manage
hello gonna list of calamities
hmm
exactly what to say i was brought up and an early religious jewish family and
i think that
he overt message was not so much that there is any difference but it was mostly the cultural message that came in at later said and i am it's i never saw i had the same experience of women through was women still name was the home and then the man were
in the world and and i remember
they were never almost never think they can make an exception great as a woman on there
stage recorded the and and help urgently
yeah he was thinking but what is the internet and i remember when i could have sometimes got another synagogue and i would see a woman like a reformed temple i would actually be part five new there's some sense like oh something's out of order here so
so as that in the earth thing that call on i feel for myself down here
and
has there ever any difference i think i spent most of my life making every all the differences go away and try and only bring up the sameness and in the last few years i've seen the problems of an impact
so
so i think that have for me like an economy you read that there was kicks up
claps
still have compensatory thing i don't really
understand it but it's a it's a very interesting to us agency car i think it's going next actual and it cause from feeling sick and class
sunlight

my
my mother was a very
religious and
a safer and i know that she felt discriminated against and she was very active in in
in seeking you know something that would meet her needs so we went to a lot different churches we went to catholic mass and
a doing and self realization temple and lots of different things and i remember her studying a lot in arguing with people lot and often the
it was gender that they were a game up and
i
felt very religious at one point in my life
when i was young and i don't remember so much billion in the churches although i know and when but she also brought like
cape bible
ah tapes and person to and we read the bible and stuff and need she taught me about religion and need have he know the sabbath and
like break bread and stuff and shoes area
can a passionate about that and so i feel like i received privilege from my mother more than any church
and
film
and that's that's very wonderful and i feel very grateful to her
a
hum
from about the age of fourteen and about nineteen i was very involved in the methodist church ah to those years and ohio which has some kind of conservatism and the last three years at a high school germany but he was an american high school and
i'm i worked really hard at both trying to believe in god and the religious and so the year question and i know what crime how are discrimination or was there any discrimination or what did you see or what did i notice as i must say a little bit of powder to say sir i am i
didn't really notice any and i suspect i didn't notice any because i was a male running along the mail track pin the methodist church so of course i would notice because everything had blinders on at night just shot down the track there but occasionally i would wonder why
why and all of it so the church was a little like our structure here in the sense that i could spend a lot of time every day day after day week after weeks actually in the buildings and doing things and i noticed that there didn't appear to really be any women except when we want some kind of food or some
you know it wasn't until many many years later went on com that's really strange and but i didn't think it was strange then and no one leaned over and said excuse me to church to think it's strange that there's no women here and no one ever pointed that out to me and i never thought of it
so so discrimination as ramp and i was so rampant that that's all that's in some sense was all there was and it wasn't even terrible except by those of course one fifty one percent of the population has been discriminated against and we're noticing it every time they did anything
ha ah so i'm sorry i did not notice the discrimination and and i completely failed that funny guy
the
in
hey
my parents were raised baptist presbyterian and i left those churches somewhere in the course of college and medical school and i i don't think they realize the extent to which them their medical training and practice caring
many of the same sorts of
please send to across his
but it worked occurs to me though i i can think up stories to his son said one
one thing a christian i
and ehrlichman is my mother telling me
i think not long after i was the horses saying her expressing some input error some understanding as to why i might not wanna be married but in the questions that she said to neglect power she realized that she had that she
had unintended to believe that
are women are stronger than men and therefore can take a backseat and that
then it has a greater need to be pulling themselves and to coming to have grown up with this and four brothers tim crew at know
a
who's need to be out there and can cause are somehow being struck it on my own
he was interesting to have stated so simply and also some recognition that maybe this was obscure arm
so it seems like a premature it comes to the generosity of you haven't we haven't term
it
and various experiences yourself and you're already have differing two hundred people's sneak for them
i'm
on with me retire with your spinning is so very much like me
my mother was raised presbyterian and my father episcopalian and and when they've got married national issue as it was in the time in a way around with like an episcopal church and so we were both that because she kind of work with my dad and i of course didn't pay too much of that and
and i was it one of the acolytes all metal androids and after acolytes you got a little older and you could be an usher and other remember your phone
i hate to admit it but i can remember standing in the back one time when i was like an usher at least the people that bring up the place you know when they pass through a place in those a girl usher in it just struck me as those strange on own i think own
i on a realize that have a lot of strong conditioning and on
even now in ways i'm not even a warehouse burned on
i'm trying to think if i ever saw or a female acolyte and i vaguely remember something about them but i definitely remember it was mostly mostly women and
well as is the structure of the church who was very much my father like his father was like one of the founding people in the cathedral one on down the line in that way but when i think of the essence of religion has sores on what it's
really a fell behind the religion that was so much more my mother because she was very patient and these type of things that you naturally many seem to be attributed to women but not only that she was
but dynamic kind of dewar aside and of what seemed to meet and connect with wanna say that i realized that a lot of the things she did it were very much of the things that were accepted for women to do like are heading up the program that the church are doing this type of volunteer
your work or that type of volunteer work or vote maybe she would have a yoga class with another woman that would come over to the house yeah but was until she was much older than she actually started up
a job like doing real estate but she like was this girl scout troop leader and and of soak them on hikes and things which was great and ashley she played the male role too because my father had polio when he was nineteen and even though i think she was
warning to be like a conservative mail and take the strong male role there is just thinks he couldn't do and some my mother took us canoeing and my mother know a introduced us to the outdoors and my mother was the patient one of my father had a hot on volcano over and the
it would be gone and but he was on
he he never had much still controlling as the end of good hard basically than a good sense of humor but mary of i think she own
i don't know anyway my mother that the source the real and it's a thing i'm honored to have any essences of spirituality but i really think oh and i feel like my mother is a very exceptionally compassionate typo
person and own
what's your thing to about religious figures like toronto or maybe the virgin mary oh images of women nuts really soon to bring about more of that i feeling and i i don't want to get in touch with her and my slow to and
and i do feel that there's a home to be so many social trappings that were afflicted with and buddhism to i mean when you consider it was five hundred years before it was never actually written down and may be king of showgirl kind of wanted a little influence you know when things got written down or whatever
i don't know that
oh i'm going to plant but anyway
so i'm interested in finding about women in buddhism and getting in touch with
a permanent neck prevent permanent any community and then
after i don't even know how to sail so there's just something the anyway
check and or advertise out gives me credit want to go and they cannot connect with pam where i want say out
just a i get an experience are coming to breweries and after twelve step programs atmosphere
timing of anchorage listen to nine
chance iron islands
fast or have nine lives
just attack out at depression just to take it in the opposite direction physically
anything right now imagine
are interested to hear em
and we're seems to be some correlation between age and experience discrimination complaint
extra minutes
i grew up going to run racist surprise we ended up going berserk
a baptist church and and i was actually i felt that i was very special child and
i can eat driver is head
you know for a long time then i can address as directed
and that kind of
get a little more than travel plans have to get the right things that i can remember the precise instead i decided i just like
i credit
interest checking for and run sunday school course i
and a instead the topic of the day works right when it can be our church and then a messenger or church that is really unaware of it that a and navigate sense a sh a car or something rather that you know they lifted up in a private
a curse
by can be obvious injection of credit if it can be others there's no
and you i'm thinking now
an and a i just said he's really check out our partner
at last faith
april nine institution
as ice cavern
i
and i've found gas and undertaking various garden i had features than the ground and i just left the and i could be wholly chicken named sammy
the game that can come back to the carnage at here
i think i really got it when on not the way will have access to concepts through the priests and and i watched him as as i did all these different things i've got an axis i've tried to be present i the two brothers retract at that church and who
one brother cry and japan like the image vessels effect jan
i get asked and then the getting on and actresses and iraq to have visualized in packed with your camera and x the pasture this is your chance to near him touch him and never walking at least one time just remember fourteen and my foundation behind me thanks slams into the session a dense packing and i thought that he rarely
the the pasture reaches over my shoulder and my brothers and takes their hands and like close them to him like an oasis was priest recreating and seminars access to stuff and then we the guy that
i do not have high-speed this press release them my
detecting that made my news
and what isn't as you said like the strike of just pack up
my whole experience expansive the catholic organisation

shake hands of
happy to sit on the defensive some how many people are left to speak one two three four five six seven eight and i can i wonder if we it's about a minute before nine how do you feel about going to like nine can if each person could maybe take a minute good
the ended nine and will continue next week would you and we'll see i actually it's a little tightening will take to just have a minute
why don't we start the next
we've got one more because it is just a couple will get a couple minutes how about virginia unique know who your next cecile aspect with a couple of different things i teach writing groups and how i have a student who just went back to school at an mfa in writing program mills com
courage recently saw tillie olsen was named for
she said it was so wonderful to see a woman up there rubbish that thirty five year old are you are still she had had that experience but in nineteen ninety five that was still like that kind of modeling hadn't it happened for her and she's the mother of two chill
urine and she's going back to school for second career has she's just getting that experience so struck the of how many layers experience and how subtle hairs you know how deep it is and
i'm also struck with how are most people are jewish or catholic and has a very heavy duty things and if that kind of event it's sort of like a kind of paradoxical thing that and we come to pressure since almost like for media like oil you fall into one of those i haven't you are
i finish i wish my parents were from poland and russia and they were orthodox and the men's that downstairs in the women sat upstairs and we must have seen that the most inner some of the most important things were handled by the women in other words the rituals of food which i value enormously returned by
lilith and a passover seder all that wonderful of ceremony of food channels than by women said it was his kind of next message of that the real things the ground good thing things the things that count and the world written by women still hate yeah the inquest heard that so
since the pissed woman mentioned on this kind of pretense of giving this strange
not power but my power to the man so it's very very complex like that very complex and for my own perspective i don't see that when women go out in the rural and become real estate agents the grass you know what we need to move towards
when asked about his born that even that you were those black robes i feel is strange and i know that and i lived in new mexico for twenty years and i wants to rule of beautiful pale green shawl i think it baker roshan said why don't you try this not for change you know let's try some pale grey
green instead of the black mask in a japanese
let the thank you know some more i you know
my this is it's very complicated and i really did appreciate some of the missing saying that they came for the feminine in the imagery to gruesome and of i think for women to that middle path for me like more chinese
buddhism is very grounding and very little little have and also for me with of buddhism was art aesthetic and the the beauty right paths with the now the whole school
so that's a big aspect that again brands masculine feminine and there's just some comments
who's
if after nine why don't we enter say we didn't get everyone but holder
stories till next week and was that was virginia kicked next week
we always for those of you who are new to sensitive classes we always start with this diverse for opening the sutra and we close with the diverse for
these verses are
to help you just open up to what was happening in focus on the
whatever the teaching is either coming from your fellow classmates from inside or the teacher of prison up in france and then we end with dedicating as
dedicating the marriage of our work here tonight and the bodhisattva vows so if anybody doesn't know what those are
just follow along and we can maybe get some copies of those
me
murphy say