How does one wield liberating power in a context with oppressive institutions, teachings, and practices? This question drives Of Mud and Lotuses: Dreaming the Lives of Buddhist Women. Through creative histories and ethnographic portraits, I explore women’s past and present Buddhist lives. Creative histories weave evidence-based historical events and texts with socio-culturally plausible characters and events. The aim of this genre is to envision the people whose voices and actions were not recorded. The numerous stories of powerful women I have encountered in my historical studies inspired me to elaborate on the available historical examples to provide vividly detailed stories of the many ways Buddhist women of the past have liberated themselves and others. Ethnographic material adds raw and nuanced details to the depth and strength of women wield liberating power in their lives today, intimating the ways our historical record is incomplete and suggests how perennial certain kinds of challenges are. To do this work, I developed nine hermeneutical principles that lay the foundation for a Buddhist Liberation Dharmology. It involves acknowledging the ways in which people have been oppressed and suffered from institutions, teachings, and practices that fall under the Buddhist umbrella and recognizing how wielding liberating power is available to all.
Paula Arai (Ph.D., Harvard University), holds the Eshinni & Kakushinni Chair of Women and Buddhist Studies at the Institute of Buddhist Studies. She is author of Women Living Zen (Oxford University Press), Bringing Zen Home (University of Hawai‘i Press), Painting Enlightenment: Healing Visions of the Heart Sutra (Shambhala Publications), The Little Book of Zen Healing: Japanese Rituals for Beauty, Harmony, and Love (Shambhala Publications), and Of Mud and Lotuses: Dreaming the Lives of Buddhist Women (Shambhala Publications). She also co-edited The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Practice (OUP).
LOCATION:Barker Center, Thompson Room STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20261007T213000Z DTEND:20261008T035859Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR