Líderes espirituales budistas femeninas de renombre

El auge del budismo en el mundo ha brindado a las mujeres la oportunidad de asumir nuevos roles dentro de la tradición budista.

Las mujeres se han involucrado más en los movimientos para restaurar las líneas de ordenación de las monjas en las tradiciones Theravada y Vajrayana.

Esto ha sido una parte fundamental de la transformación del budismo a nivel global, ya que ahora se percibe a las mujeres con mayor frecuencia como practicantes y maestras.

Si bien las mujeres budistas asiáticas ya han dejado su huella en la historia del budismo, aún carecen del mismo acceso a las prácticas rituales, al aprendizaje del dharma y a posiciones de liderazgo en la comunidad que tienen los hombres.

Mujeres budistas en América

Para la década de 1970, muchas mujeres estadounidenses se habían convertido en estudiantes de maestros budistas asiáticos, tanto en Asia como en los Estados Unidos.

Estas mujeres recibieron la transmisión del dharma, convirtiéndose en las primeras miembros femeninas de linajes de enseñanza que habían sido exclusivamente masculinos durante siglos.

Esto ha llevado a la aparición de influyentes maestras en las diversas corrientes de la tradición budista en los Estados Unidos, quienes han creado nuevas formas de instituciones budistas, como retiros específicamente para mujeres, conferencias a nivel nacional y revistas. El lenguaje de la enseñanza y la práctica budista ha adquirido una frescura e inmediatez gracias a su estilo.

Libros como «La sabiduría de la no escapatoria» de Pema Chödrön, «Zen cotidiano» de Joko Beck y «Bondad amorosa: El arte revolucionario de la felicidad» de Sharon Salzberg ofrecen enseñanzas budistas prácticas y accesibles, arraigadas en la vida cotidiana.

La «feminización» del budismo probablemente será una de las características definitorias de la nueva forma de la tradición budista que está tomando forma en América.

La ordenación de mujeres en órdenes monásticas

En los últimos 25 años, mujeres budistas de Asia, América del Norte y Europa se han conectado entre sí para discutir la ordenación de mujeres en órdenes monásticas plenas.

Aunque el Buda admitió a las mujeres en la primera sangha, la orden de monjas budistas se extinguió en las tradiciones Theravada y tibetana.

Sin embargo, las líneas monásticas para mujeres aún existen en la mayoría de las tradiciones Mahayana, principalmente en Japón, Corea y Taiwán.

La Asociación Internacional de Mujeres Budistas fue creada en la década de 1980 para reunir a mujeres budistas de Oriente y Occidente.

Además, Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, profesora de religión y filosofía en la Universidad Thammasat en Bangkok, publica el Boletín sobre la Actividad Internacional de Mujeres Budistas (NIBWA) para mantener conectadas a las mujeres budistas de América con aquellas de todo el mundo. En 2003, Kabilsingh fue ordenada como Bhikkhuni Dhammananda en una ceremonia Theravada en Sri Lanka y ahora es Abadesa de un monasterio en Tailandia.

El Primer Congreso Internacional sobre el Papel de las Mujeres Budistas en la Sangha se celebró en Hamburgo en 2007 con el objetivo de reinstaurar la ordenación de monjas en tradiciones budistas que las habían perdido.

Sin embargo, la ordenación de estas monjas sigue siendo vista como controvertida y no es aceptada por todos en la comunidad budista global.

Lista de maestros espirituales budistas

Esta es una recopilación de renombradas líderes espirituales budistas femeninas de diversas partes del mundo:

Machig Labdrön

Machig Labdrön, o Madre Singular Antorcha de Lab, (1055-1149) fue una reconocida practicante, maestra y yoguini budista tántrica tibetana del siglo XI que originó varias líneas tibetanas de la práctica de Chöd en el Vajrayana.

Maylie Scott

Maylie Scott, Buddhist name Kushin Seisho, was a Sōtō roshi who received Dharma transmission from Sojun Mel Weitsman in 1998 at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center. She graduated from Harvard University in 1956 and obtained a master’s degree in social work from the University of California, Berkeley. According to the book The Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America, «Maylie Scott described her primary teaching objective as empowering the sangha by making sure she is the facilitator, not the ‘star.'» In addition to her occupation as a social worker, she was also on the Board of Directors for the Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF). In addition to serving for the BPF, Scott was also involved with the Buddhist Alliance for Social Engagement and frequently protested the import of weapons at the Concord Naval Weapons Station. A socially engaged Buddhist and teacher at the Berkeley Zen Center, Scott was known for her work in prisons and homeless shelters. Also, during the 1980s she studied under Maurine Stuart and, in April 2000, she founded Rin Shin-ji in Arcata, California. Professor Lloyd Fulton, of Humboldt State University, had once said of Scott that she is, «a strong-willed and organized woman.»

Vidyamala Burch

Vidyamala Burch is a mindfulness teacher, writer, and co-founder of Breathworks, an international mindfulness organization known particularly for developing mindfulness-based pain management (MBPM). The British Pain Society has recognized her «outstanding contribution to the alleviation of pain», and in 2019 she was named on the Shaw Trust Power 100 list of the most influential disabled people in the UK. Burch’s book Mindfulness for Health won the British Medical Association’s 2014 Medical Books Award in the Popular Medicine category.

Tare Lhamo

Tāre Lhamo, a.k.a. Tāre Dechen Gyalmo, was a Tibetan Buddhist master, visionary, and treasure revealer who gained renown in eastern Tibet. She was especially praised for her life-saving miracles during the hardships of the Cultural Revolution and for extending the life-span of many masters. It was said that her activities to benefit others swelled like a lake in spring.

Soenghyang

Soeng Hyang Soen Sa Nim is a Zen Master and the Guiding Teacher of the international Kwan Um School of Zen, and successor to the late Seung Sahn Soen Sa Nim.

Kyoki Roberts

Rev. Kyōki Roberts (OPW) is a retired American Sōtō Zen priest. The single Dharma heir of Nonin Chowaney-roshi, Roberts received Dharma transmission in June 2001 and was a founding member of an organization of Sōtō priests known as the Order of the Prairie Wind (OPW), which is now defunct. Having studied Zen in Japan at the Zuiō-ji (瑞応寺) and Shōgo-ji (聖護寺) monasteries and in the United States at Minnesota Zen Center, San Francisco Zen Center, and Green Gulch Farm, Roberts was certified by the Sōtō School of Japan.

Ayu Khandro

Ayu Khandro, also known as Dorje Paldrön, lived from 1839 to 1953. She was a practitioner, yogini, and terton of Tibetan Buddhism in Eastern Tibet. An accomplished Dzogchen meditator, she is renowned for her extensive pilgrimages throughout Tibet, long periods of dark retreat practice, the gongter of the practice of the yidam Senge Dongma, various forms of Chöd, and her lifelong dedication to spiritual practice.

Tara Brach

Tara Brach is an American psychologist, author, and proponent of Buddhist meditation. She is a guiding teacher and founder of the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, D.C. (IMCW). Her colleagues in the Vipassanā, or insight meditation tradition, include Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, and Joseph Goldstein. Brach also teaches about Buddhist meditation at centers for meditation and yoga in the United States and Europe, including Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California; the Kripalu Center; and the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies.

Sharon Salzberg

Sharon Salzberg is a New York Times bestselling author and teacher of Buddhist meditation practices in the West. In 1974, she co-founded the Insight Meditation Society at Barre, Massachusetts, with Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein. Her emphasis is on vipassanā (insight) and mettā (loving-kindness) methods, and has been leading meditation retreats around the world for over three decades. All of these methods have their origins in the Theravada Buddhist tradition. Her books include Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (1995), A Heart as Wide as the World (1999), Real Happiness – The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program (2010), which was on The New York Times Best Seller list in 2011, and the follow-up Real Happiness at Work (2013). She runs a Metta Hour podcast, and contributes monthly to a column On Being.

Ruth Fuller Sasaki

Ruth Fuller Sasaki, born Ruth Fuller, was an American writer and Buddhist teacher. She was important figure in the development of Buddhism in the United States. As Ruth Fuller Everett, she met and studied with Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki in Japan in 1930. In 1938, she became a principal supporter of the Buddhist Society of America, in New York. She married Sokei-an, the Zen priest in residence there, in 1944, but he died within a year. In 1949, she went to Kyoto to find another roshi to live and teach in New York, to complete translations of key Zen texts, and to pursue her own Zen training, receiving sanzen from Gotō Zuigan.

Ruth Denison

Ruth Denison was the first Buddhist teacher in the United States to lead an all-women’s retreat for Buddhist meditation and instruction. Her center, Dhamma Dena Desert Vipassana Center is located in the Mojave Desert, in Joshua Tree, California. She was also a teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts. She sometimes taught at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California.

Anne Hopkins Aitken

Anne Arundel Hopkins Aitken was an American Zen Buddhist, in the Harada-Yasutani lineage. She co-founded the Honolulu Diamond Sangha in 1959 together with her husband, Robert Baker Aitken. She purchased both of its properties: the Koko An Zendo and Maui Zendo. Honolulu Diamond Sangha has been considered «one of several pivotal Buddhist organizations critical to the development of Zen» in western countries. Anne Aitken was also one of the original founders of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship.

Małgorzata Braunek

Małgorzata Braunek was a Polish film and stage actress.

She was also a long-time practitioner and teacher of Zen Buddhism receiving Dharma transmission from Dennis Merzel at Kanzeon Sangha (Warsaw) in 2003.

Gerta Ital

Gerta Maria Luise Karoline Ital was a German-born actress who entered a Japanese Zen Buddhist monastery late in life. She was born in Hanover. She was the first western woman allowed to stay in a zen monastery. She studied with Eugen Herrigel from 1953 to 1955. She was also in contact with Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle. Her master in Japan was Mumon Yamada.

Geri Larkin

P’arang Geri Larkin, born Geraldine Kapp Willis, is founder and former head teacher of Still Point Zen Buddhist Temple, a Korean Chogye center in Detroit, Michigan. The name Geri Larkin is a pen name. She graduated from Barnard College in 1973. Larkin, daughter of a wealthy IBM executive, left her successful business life as a management consultant to enter a Buddhist seminary for three years, where she was ordained. When she left she sold her material possessions and bought a brick duplex in downtown Detroit which, with the help of local residents she cleaned up and turned into Still Point. Larkin’s articulation of the concept of «right livelihood» was highly influential on Ann Perrault and Jackie Victor, two of her students who founded Avalon International Breads in Detroit in 1997. She has been a longtime columnist for Spirituality & Health magazine.

Cheri Huber

Cheri Huber is an American meditation teacher in the Sōtō School of Zen Buddhism tradition.

Caitriona Reed

Caitriona Reed is a trans woman sensei of Thiền Zen Buddhism who also has a background in Vipassanā meditation. She co-founded Ordinary Dharma in Los Angeles, California; the rural Manzanita Village Retreat Center, located in San Diego County; and Five Changes, to mentor aspiring leaders, cultural creatives, and spiritual visionaries. Reed, a member of the American Zen Teachers Association, led retreats and workshops in Vipassana, Deep Ecology, and Buddhism 1981–2008. She received authority to teach Zen from Thich Nhat Hanh in 1992.

Brigitte D’Ortschy

Brigitte D’Ortschy, or Koun-An Doru Chiko, was an architect, journalist, translator, author, and the first Zen master from Germany in the Sanbo Kyodan school of Japan.

Mary Farkas

Mary Farkas was the director of the First Zen Institute of America (FZIA), running the center’s administrative functions for many years following the death of her teacher (Sokei-an) in 1945. Though she was not a teacher of Zen Buddhism in any traditional sense of the word, she did help to carry on the lineage of Sokei-an and also was editor of the FZIA’s journal, Zen Notes, starting with Volume 1 in 1954. Additionally, she also edited books about Sokei-an, i.e. «The Zen Eye» and «Zen Pivots.» Through her transcriptions of his talks, the institute was able to continue on the lineage without having a formal teacher.

Maurine Stuart

Maurine Stuart, a.k.a. Ma Roshi or Mother Roshi, was a Canadian Rinzai Zen rōshi who was one of the first female Zen masters to teach in the United States. She became president and spiritual director of the Cambridge Buddhist Association in 1979.

Lu Sheng-yen

Lu Sheng-Yen, commonly referred to by followers as Grand Master Lu (師尊) is the founder and spiritual leader of the True Buddha School, a new religious movement with teachings from Buddhism & Taoism. Lu is known by the sect as Living Buddha Lian Sheng and is revered by his disciples as a Living Buddha.

Rita Gross

Rita M. Gross was an American Buddhist feminist scholar of religions and author. Before retiring, she was Professor of Comparative Studies in Religion at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire.

Kunzang Dekyong Wangmo

Sera Khandro Kunzang Dekyong Wangmo (1892–1940) or Sera Kandro is considered an emanation of Yeshe Tsogyal, and in her lifetime was a Terton of Tibetan Buddhist Vajrayana, a biographer and autobiographer, and a highly respected teacher. She taught Dudjom Rinpoche, Chatral Rinpoche, and the First Adzom Drukpa, Drodul Pawo Dorje, among other high lamas.

Vicki Mackenzie

Vicki Mackenzie, an author and journalist, was born in England and spent much of her early life in Australia. The daughter of a naval officer, she graduated from Queensland University and became a reporter at the Sun newspaper in Sydney.