I've been asked to speak this evening about women in Buddhism, specifically the role of women and the experience of women as Buddhist practitioners. So I'd like to say some brief things about that. I hope that what I have to say will be both entertaining and also useful and informative for you. In general, in the teachings that were spoken by Lord Buddha, which we know collectively as the Buddhist tradition, fundamentally, in their essence, there is no specific distinction to be made between men and women, that is to say, in terms of different kinds of teaching. The reason is that I don't know how to explain it to you. I don't know how to explain it to you.

[01:09]

I don't know how to explain it to you. [...] The fact that this has become an issue in this particular culture at this particular time, the role of women in Buddhism and women's issues as they pertain to the spiritual path, is very much a function of the time and place in which we live. Historically, when the Buddha taught 2,500 years ago in India, the cultural situation was quite different. And we can see historically, if we examine the social situation, that perhaps a great number, perhaps a majority of the people who followed the Buddhist teachings and who promulgated them were men.

[02:17]

But that was, again, simply a reflection of the cultural situation at that time, and not something that we need to regard as inherent in the teachings, as having been prejudiced towards one sex or the other. In fact, the Buddha taught for the benefit of sentient beings, for the benefit of all living creatures. And we can see if we examine the historical records of Buddhism in India and other countries that women play a very strong part even in the monastic There were many nunneries filled with nuns who, of course, were all women. That's basically the definition of a nun, is a woman who stayed in ordination. And these populations of nuns in nunneries played a very important role. In Tibet, in Tibetan traditions of Buddhism, the vast majority of lamas, teachers, were men.

[03:45]

But this does not mean that there weren't women teachers. There were, in fact, many. In my own school, which is known as the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism, there was a very strong tradition Particularly within my family clan, which is known as the Kun clan, many of the women who were born into this clan were fine practitioners and teachers in their own right. Certainly in my school, the custom was that if a man or a woman, regardless of their sex, if they wished to undertake practice and develop themselves spiritually, there were no barriers to them doing so. In my family, the blood lineage played a very important part. And so the sons and daughters of the holders of this lineage in the Kung clan were regarded as potential teachers from the very fact that they were born into that family.

[04:55]

And the social and the legal situation in Sakya was such that the women in our family were accorded equal status as the men in terms of their legal powers, in terms of their ability to practice and develop themselves personally, and in terms of their ability to act as teachers. As well, in the Nyingma school, the most ancient school of Tibetan Buddhism, we find that a number of key historical figures were women. One of the most famous that comes to mind was a woman whose name was Jomo Nenmo. She was not only regarded as a fine teacher, but also a person who discovered very many treasure teachings, concealed or hidden teachings, which she revealed for the benefit of her students. So, while the vast majority of teachers were men, it is not the case that there were not women teachers.

[05:59]

One simply doesn't hear as much about them. And the same could be said for the Kargyu and the other schools of Tibetan Buddhism. There are, if you examine the histories of these schools, women who played a very important historical role in the transmission of these lineages. As well, the mere presence of women practitioners in Tibet was a very strong force in the vitality of the religion. Women were noted for the sincerity and intensity of their practice as a rule. Now, it's only natural that people in a culture that is new to Buddhism begin to wonder about different role models and different stereotypes and so forth in accepting a new religion into their culture.

[07:27]

And we must remember that Buddhism is quite new, relatively speaking, to this culture. And people do not have a great deal of previous experience of its teachings. I would suggest to you that if the true spirit of the teachings of Lord Buddha are established in this country, where there is no fundamental distinction made between whether the practitioner is a woman or a man, if we approach it from that point of view, then the forms of Buddhism that will evolve in the West will be ones that afford equal opportunity to men and women. And we will see women taking as important a role as practitioners and lineage holders as men. But we must remember that while there are these social issues to be taken into account, fundamentally it depends upon the individual. It depends on your own practice, whether or not you become a qualified teacher or whether you become an adept practitioner. It really is up to the individual to make that decision. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say.

[08:45]

I don't know what to say. [...] Yes. Yes. For those of you who are seriously pursuing or seriously interested in pursuing the spiritual path,

[09:53]

It's important to remember that it always has to be something you experience directly, personally. There are certain qualities that are absolutely essential, regardless of the particular style or approach or practice that you employ. And in order to really enter into the spiritual path of what we in Buddhism call the bodhisattva, the awakening being, a person must develop qualities that are very fundamental, qualities of love and compassion, and must learn to discipline and calm their minds through the practice of meditation. All of this is something that is not to be learned as theory, but something that is applied directly to your own mind and your own heart and is experienced as something very direct and personal. Because if you don't begin to cultivate these qualities right from the beginning, if you don't spend the time and energy necessary to awaken these qualities in yourself, then without that love, without that compassion, without that calmness and poise of mind, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for a person to truly give rise to the attitude, the frame of mind, which is necessary to attain enlightenment.

[11:12]

One of the values of biographies and historical records that exist in Buddhism are that they provide us with role models. We can see the kind of dedication that was necessary in order for people in the past to attain those qualities of enlightenment. If we examine the biographies of great women teachers of the past, such as Yeshe Tsogyal and Mandarava, we can see the kind of effort they put into purifying themselves, the kind of effort they put into their practice and their meditation.

[12:35]

You can see the kind of obstacles they had to overcome, the kind of challenges that they had to meet. And that provides us with inspiration. We realize the nature of the commitment we're undertaking. And if we in the West have courage to meet those challenges, then if we are women, there will be many great lamas, great jetsunas, we might say, to borrow terms from Tibetan tradition, great teachers. in the West were women. It's a question of whether the individuals can meet that challenge in their own personal frame of reference. The reason why this is not only a distinct possibility, but a certainty in the West, is because of an interesting principle that we can see from the time of the Lord Buddha, that the teachings of Buddhism have tended to

[13:58]

adopt certain cultural forms, which does not mean that the integrity of the teachings need be lost. But nevertheless, as Buddhism moves to a given culture, it begins to express itself and work within the cultural framework. And in the West, because there is a great deal of emphasis in modern times on equality between the sexes, and upon affording each individual their right to progress or advance as much as they are personally capable of doing so, we can not only expect but predict with certainty that there will be great women teachers in the West. But the mere fact that we can make this prediction doesn't mean it will happen without that individual effort. It's up to individual women to become enlightened. Then there will be great women teachers. Certainly there will be great women teachers in the West. But it is, again, a question of the individuals putting the effort into that. That's what I'm trying to say.

[15:02]

I don't know what to say. Instead of continuing at this point, Jetsun Kusho says, I would like to ask you if you have any personal questions or issues that you would like to discuss. I actually find this very rewarding. More than teaching or more than talking at people, I prefer to get some feedback from them and begin to discuss things. I don't claim to be omniscient. If I don't know the answer, don't be surprised to hear me say, I don't know, because I'm very upfront about that. If I don't know, I'm not going to pretend that I do. If I do know, if I can answer from my own experience and training, then I'll be more than happy to entertain any questions at this point.

[16:04]

In fact, I feel that you'll probably get more out of the talk if rather than just listening to me, you actually have a chance to express your own views and get some kind of feedback. It really applies to you more personally. are women to know if they're to teach? Sorry, I'm not sure I got that. How is a woman to know when she has to be a teacher? When she has to be a teacher? Without lineages? Without lineages, I see. Sorry. She says she got it even though I didn't. As I understand it now, the question is, without lineages in the West, established lineages, how is a woman to know when she's qualified to be a teacher? And I guess part of that is, does it have to come from formal structures, or will Western influences mean that occasionally it isn't coming from formal structures? From a traditional lineage and from another culture, I mean.

[17:12]

Do you mean specifically there are no lineages of women or no lineages period in the West? Probably both. [...] Do you mean specifically there are no lineages of women or no lineages period in There was a woman called Nancy Carter. She was a teacher at the University of Maryland. [...] She was a teacher at I don't know if it's true or not, but it's true. I don't know if it's true or not, but it's true.

[18:22]

I don't know if it's true or not, but it's true. I don't know if it's true or not, but it's true. KUNDALINI YOGESWARA RAMANUJAM You can't share them to a group of women. You need to have a mother to take care of us. You know what I'm saying? It's a big mess. You know what I'm saying? It's a big mess. You know what I'm saying?

[19:23]

It's a big mess. You know what I'm saying? [...] It's a big mess. You know what I'm saying As I said previously... I'm just pretty laughing, that I look confused. Just because, as I said previously, Buddhism is very new to this culture. We have to learn a bit of patience. We can't expect things to establish themselves overnight. That's impractical. So on the one hand, we might say, well, it's very difficult for things to get going immediately.

[20:27]

On the other hand, we can't rule out the possibility. In fact, we can't rule out the certainty that there are Western lineages in the process of forming. We may not have the same kind of obvious signs of lineage in this country that are evident in countries that have had a longer historical association with Buddhism. But there are Western lineages forming. There are Western lamas, to use the Tibetan term, from the Tibetan side of Buddhism. There are Western lamas being trained in retreat centers, for example, those which are directed by the Venerable Kala Rinpoche and many teachers, who are from traditional Tibetan settings, but are very active in the role of establishing Western lineages through their students, to whom they can hand over the lineage, once there are people who are qualified, once there are people who have been trained and empowered in the traditional manner. Then we will see, in the not too distant future, that there are tangible lineages in the West, held by Westerners, men and women, of Sakya, Gelu, Kagyu, Nyingma teachings,

[21:39]

and tradition's point of view. But in order for these lineages, for the actual phenomenon of lineage and historical lineage to establish itself, it is necessary for the future lineage holder to go through a fairly rigorous training. It's also a bit impractical to expect that there are just going to be self-arisen lineage holders who will suddenly pop up and establish a brand new lineage, it's far more likely to be a process of the old tradition handing its knowledge over to the new, and making that transition from one culture to another. Which means that the same processes that we observed in Buddhist India, and we observed in Buddhist Tibet, will probably hold true for Buddhism in the West. That a student will go to a teacher, a qualified teacher, and receive empowerment in teaching and direction, and through their own practice, will come to be worthy, at a certain point, of the responsibility of carrying on that lineage.

[22:47]

And that will be a very individual thing, as it always has been, where a teacher will assess her or his students, men or women, and decide who is the most capable person of maintaining and transmitting that lineage for future generations. So we can't rule out the possibility of, for example, the phenomenon of people in the West who might conceivably be the rebirth of someone who was a very high or great teacher in a previous lifetime, a so-called toku, or incarnation. It's conceivable that a woman in this culture could be a toku of someone, a reincarnation of someone who was a very advanced practitioner in a previous lifetime, and that such an individual would need far less training than someone who hadn't had that background in previous existences. I still think it is important that we recognize and respect the authenticity and the validity of a process of a student going to a teacher, receiving guidance, empowerment, teaching in the traditional manner.

[23:55]

I think that that has played a very important role historically in the transmission of lineage from one culture to another, and I think it would in the West as well. Jani, Jani, can we hear you? No, she wasn't a nemesis. Not just. The question then was regarding the ancient lineages for women into that.

[25:12]

Do those lineages still exist? Do lineage holders who are women, abbesses or great women teachers, are they still alive? And would American women have access to those teachings and could they then carry on that role in American culture? Is that the question? Then he came from India. He was in Shashu. In Shashu, he was in the American military. He was in the Turkish, Diwali, Diwali, Juhu Diwali. So we don't see anybody else. He came from Punjab. He came from Punjab. Then he went to Bombay. He went to Bombay. And he went to the MIS in Bombay. You are watching your mother here. You know your mother.

[26:12]

You know your mother. You know your mother. You know your mother. He said, I don't know the name of my mother's grave, but I know the name of my father's grave. He said, I don't know the name of my father's grave, but I know the name of my father's grave. He said, I don't know the name of my father's grave, but I know the name of my father's grave. He said, I don't know the name of my father's grave, but I know the name of my father's grave. This is all this. In the past, when I was young, I used to go to the temple to pray.

[27:32]

I used to go to the temple to pray. [...] I used to You have to look at it and understand it. You have to look at it and understand it. There were a great number of nunneries in Tibet, far more than people might realize.

[29:03]

And the practitioners were very often noted for their level of scholastic achievement and also their depth of meditative experience and the power of their practice. There was not the formal status of abbess as we might think of it in the West, simply because form, a hierarchical form, for investing someone as an abbess, the lineage was never brought from India, for whatever reason. It simply was not transmitted across the Himalayas to Tibet. So there was not the formal investiture ceremony of an abbess the way there was for an abbot of a monastery. This didn't mean that there weren't heads of nunneries. The head of a nunnery was always a woman, and was an extremely fine example of a woman But the formal investiture ceremony was never transmitted to the story. And for that reason and for that reason alone, to speak of an abbess is really, technically speaking, not entirely correct.

[30:07]

She would have been the head of a nunnery or something like that, but not like a mother superior or an abbess, not in that formal sense of having a title. Judson Kuchik says, I myself was a nun in my early life. But I didn't live in a nunnery. I actually chose to live in a monastery, or rather to take my teachings in the monastery. It would have been perfectly OK for me to stay in the monastery. But I chose, again, simply because of my own preferences to practice at home, where I lived with my family. I would go to the monastery with one other nun. The vast majority of people were monks who were taking these teachings. But the two of us would go. And we were freely allowed into the monastery. were not denied or restricted in any way in terms of seeking out teachings and learning how to practice. So in our particular case, we had as free access as did all the monks. And then I would go back to my house, back to my own room in my house and practice there, though it would have been perfectly OK in accordance with both the legal situation in my region and also with the religious situation for me to stay in the monastery.

[31:14]

status of these nunneries and their lineage holders into that, I'm afraid I really don't have a lot of information. Since the military occupation in 59, the situation obviously has deteriorated a great deal from what it was before. And in terms of exactly who is still alive, and which nunneries are still standing, and which lineages still extend, I'm really not sure. I can't give a great deal of advice on that level. I do know that a number of these women teachers did come to India, And as far as the status of being a nun or not, as Bishop said, I might offer my own personal example. I'm no longer a nun. I am a householder with a husband and children. But I'm still permitted to teach. And in fact, I do teach as much as I can. I give empowerments. I'm able to transmit lineage, even though I'm no longer formally invested with the nuns' ordination.

[32:24]

I chose to give that back at a certain point. As far as Western women or American women being able to receive these teachings and establish these lineages in this country, yes, definitely it can be done. But again, it's always a question, the if is always whether there are individual women who are willing to undertake the training. If there are, then there's absolutely no reason why there will not be female lineages, lineages of women practitioners and women lineage holders in this country. It is really a question. It does really boil down to whether the individual women can meet that challenge, take the teachings, practice, and gain the realization necessary. The question concerns children being raised in the Buddhist tradition and beginning young to be exposed to Buddhist teachings.

[33:59]

And the whole question of the Tibetan tradition, which involved largely children going to a monastery or a nunnery at a very early age to begin their training, vis-a-vis a situation in the West where that's probably not going to be the main thrust of things where, you know, is it possible to establish a context for raising children as Buddhists without them being put into a monastery or into a setting like that? I have a question for you. When you were young, what did you do for a living? What did you do for a living? In the beginning, when I was a child, I had a dream that I was going to be a doctor.

[35:20]

I had a dream that I was going to be a doctor. [...] In the past, when I was young, I used to go to the market to buy meat. I used to go [...] to the market to buy meat. In Tibet, there was a very strong participation on the part of the lay communities in practice and study.

[36:23]

the educational institutions were monasteries. If a child was not sent to a monastery, then the child will learn basically at home. That would be the method of education. And if the person's parents, the child's parents, were strong and sincere practitioners, then the child would be automatically exposed to those values from a very early age. In the West, I feel that that's very much the way that things are going to develop, rather than developing something like a monastery where we send kids to be taught they'll learn in the home. And whether we're talking about Buddhism or Judaism or Christianity or Hinduism or whatever, if the parents are sincere practitioners and put a great deal of energy and sincerity into their study and their practice of their chosen religion, then the child stands a very good chance of being exposed in a very healthy way, in a very organic way, to those teachings. The problem that we immediately realize is that there's not all that many people in this culture who are all that spiritual.

[37:45]

A great number of people know nothing whatever about religion and couldn't care less. And that is the kind of value that their children are exposed to, and that's the kind of values that the child learns to espouse. So I really think in the West it's going to be far more a case of parents providing simply the example. And as Jetsun Kushik said, I really feel that the best kind of example for teaching, or the best way of teaching others is to provide examples. without forcing anything upon a child, simply to provide a good example, a good role model that a child can appreciate as they grow up. Whether we're talking about spirituality or just being in the world in a very ordinary way, if a person has a good role model to grow up with and sees that there isn't someone who's hypocritical or someone who's shallow and superficial, but someone who truly is involved in a very, very intelligent way in their religious tradition, then the child has a very good chance of developing those kinds of Similar qualities to the left.

[38:56]

Is it appropriate to ask Geshe-la to say a few words on her being an emanation of the deity Tara? Who told you that I was an emanation of Tara, she says. He was a very good man. He was a very good man. Hm.

[40:06]

Hm. Hm. Well, I hope you don't think that I'm teaching because I think I'm an emanation. Because I think that that gives me some kind of special status that means I should go around teaching and proclaiming myself. I basically teach because I was told I had to, if you want to know the truth.

[41:12]

I don't feel I'm a particularly special person, except that I had a very fortunate opportunity to meet great teachers, receive teachings, and practice them. And at a certain point, my teachers told me that I was ready to teach. And they said, now, if people request teachings, you are qualified to give those teachings. But following my marriage with the responsibilities of being a householder and raising a family, I found I had very little time, and so my teaching activities came to a halt. It's only in recent times that I have received directives from my own gurus that I should teach, and the reason that they have given specifically is because I am a woman. I feel that it's extremely important in the West at this time for women especially, but for everyone in the West, to understand that there are women teachers, that women can practice, do practice, and do become enlightened. that it's perfectly possible for a woman, any woman, as well as any man, to follow the path of Buddhism and attain realization.

[42:15]

So, I don't teach because I think I'm realized. I don't teach because I think I'm Tara. I teach because my guru told me to, and I try to follow what my guru tells me to do. This is considered something rather important, especially in Vajrayana Buddhism, where the relationship between the student and the teacher, or guru, is a very crucial, a very important one. If your guru with whom you have this intimate relationship tells you to do something, you try your best to carry out their instructions, because you realize that they have your best interests and other people's best interests at heart. So, because of my connection, my commitment to samaya with these teachers, I feel obliged to teach as much as I can. Whenever I'm invited to go somewhere, I try to make room in my schedule. But, no, I don't think I'm an inhibition of power. When I was young, I didn't know how to read. [...]

[43:18]

I didn't know how to read. I didn't know how to read. I didn't know how to read. That's a lot. So many of us. One of the interesting things about this whole question of who's an emanation and what or who, is that it seems anyway that it is possible for a person to be what conventionally would be termed an emanation of Tara or an emanation of Sarasvati or any other feminine deity or goddess, and not really realize it themselves.

[44:27]

Certainly not at this point, that it might require a great deal of training and the realization that that awakened for them to really realize it. Because we're all very much in the same boat. Our minds are obscured, our minds are full of afflictive emotions and confusion. And to be actually able to say what someone is, to be able to say what you yourself are in reality, is often very difficult. So she said, I certainly don't discount the strong possibility that there are already emanations of Tara and emanations of Sarasvati and whatever in the West. We don't have social forms for formally recognizing or investing those emanations as such, providing titles and roles and so forth. And of course, if anyone stands up and waves their arms and says, oh, I'm an emanation of this or an emanation of that, it's always a little suspect. To praise yourself to the skies is always a little

[45:31]

Suspicious. But we really must remember that nobody has the final word on who anybody is. So to say there is or there is not an emanation of Tara in this room, or there are or there are not emanations of Tara in America, or so-and-so is or is not something, is very, very difficult. So we have to allow that element of doubt in the situation. Can she tell us something about how to keep the life of a householder and also how to keep your practice going? The question concerns leading the life of a householder but continuing to maintain a practice, a personal practice. Do you have children?

[46:48]

She wondered if you were asking personally or just as a general principle. So you're asking more about the general situation of being a housewife. Would you like her to speak from personal experience? Yes, yes. He said to me one day, I was like, you're looking for someone to listen to. And I asked him to tell me. And I asked him to listen. And he told me instead of him. And I got to the food counter. And I saw this. I was on a sujette. [...]

[47:49]

I was on a sujette. [...] I was on a We are going to the mosque. [...] Oh dear, you caught me a bit off guard here. Jensen Cushman said, My own experience, my own experience is based upon my situation, which is as someone with a full-time job.

[49:05]

So I work 9 to 5, or thereabouts, roughly, and also have maintained a practice over the years. What I have simply found is that it is necessary and possible to make the time for my practice. I get up earlier in the morning than I might normally, and use what time I can for practice in the morning before I go to work. When I come home at night, depending on how tired I am again, I simply make the time. You simply have to develop the intent to make the time necessary for your formal practice. I realize that it's difficult. You men and women who have family responsibilities and jobs and so forth, it is difficult to make the time. It simply has to be made. It can be made, and it simply has to be made. The fact that it's difficult doesn't mean that it's impossible. I understand that there are many demands on your time and energy. There are children, there are jobs. Even when you come home, there's all this talking to be done and all sorts of things to go on in the house before you feel, well, now I have a bit of time to devote to my practice.

[50:10]

But as long as a person is dedicated and sensitive to their own needs so that they don't exhaust themselves, there is always time to be found. And it really boils down to that. My own experience, if you really want to know, is that there's always time to be found if you really care enough to make the time, to find the time. The question is whether most of Je Tsongkhapa's significant teachers have been men, male, and whether she's noticed any difference between women who study with women teachers as opposed to women who study with men teachers. Did I get it? Chimege, [...] Chimege.

[51:23]

We have to continue to do this work. [...] When I was young, I didn't know how to read. I didn't know how to write. [...] I don't know.

[52:59]

I don't know. Jetsun Kosho said, as I said earlier, Buddhism tends to adopt the cultural forms and social forms of countries into which it spreads. What that meant in the Tibetan context was that the vast majority of teachers were male. There were women teachers, but proportionally fewer than the male teachers. In my own particular case, all of my main teachers were men. I did have women teachers, but I did not receive a great deal in the way of empowerments or formal teachings from them.

[54:02]

All of the main teachings that I studied and practiced, I received from men. The one exception was my father's sister, my aunt, who, had she chosen, was perfectly qualified to transmit a lineage to me, to transmit a full cycle of practice and teaching. But she chose not to, not because she didn't want to teach me in particular, but because she really chose not to teach very much at all. So she was the one exception that might have been one of my main teachers had she chosen to be. But she simply, for reasons of her own, chose not to teach. So in my own particular case, my teachers were almost exclusively men, main teachers. As far as whether there's a difference between a woman studying with women and a woman studying with men, I really don't know. She says, that stops me. But when I think of it, I really don't see that essentially there should be that much difference. I don't feel that the teachings of Buddhism as promulgated by a man or as promulgated by a woman would be very different.

[55:10]

And it certainly would not be the case that a guru would make the decision of which teachings to give based upon whether the student is a man or a woman. And so I think that whole issue is one that really needs closer examination, that in terms of whether there is a difference between persons of one sex studying persons of another sex or the persons of the same sex, I think it would be something that ultimately depended far more on the qualities of the individual's concern rather than merely on how much sex they had. It would be a question of the qualities of the teacher or the qualities of the student, far more than whether the student was male or female or whether the teacher was moment, just as we hold the questions, and I think it's a nice feeling that I have. Okay, so in her particular case, in her particular relationship she has with her teacher and following the instructions of that teacher.

[56:34]

Okay, so in her particular case, in her particular relationship she has with her teacher and following the instructions of that teacher. In the world, there is no corner like the world.

[58:01]

There is no corner like the world. [...] There is no corner In the beginning of the year, there is a prayer meeting. In the evening, there is a prayer meeting with the monks. [...] I don't know how to say it.

[59:22]

I don't know how to say it. I don't know how to say it. I don't know how to say it. He said, I don't know. He said, I don't know. Je Tsongkhapa says, in my own personal situation, there are three figures who stand out as really having been my main teachers.

[60:33]

One was a great abbot of Moor Monastery in Tibet, whose name was Shenping Yinpo, who passed away many years ago. Another one is my brother, Solinas Sakyatrisan, the head of the Sakya Order. And I received in their entirety a whole cycle of teachings in Tibetan, which literally means path and fruition. And it is connected with the cycle of the Hevajra Tantra. And I received these, requested and received these teachings from my brother, His Holiness. And in the Sakya tradition, this is considered to be perhaps the most intimate and powerful bond that a student can make with a teacher, to request and receive this cycle of teachings and then put them in practice. This cycle of teachings pertains to what we know as Vajrayana or Tantric Buddhism, in which the relationship with the guru is very important, is crucial to one's attainment.

[61:37]

There has to be the wholehearted commitment on the part of the student to view the teacher purely, to view the teacher as a manifestation of enlightenment. In Tantric terminology or jargon, we would say you view the teacher as Vajradhara, which is a term for the embodiment of the enlightened being. And in your attempt to maintain that relationship with the teacher out of a respect and devotion for what that teacher has given you, and shown you, revealed to you, you attempt to follow the instructions of that teacher. There's a great level of trust there. Now, it might sound a little funny to say that my brother is also one of my gurus. But insofar as he is my guru, I don't think of him as my brother. I think of him as my guru. I have committed myself to that discipline of not viewing him just as, oh, yeah, my brother, so-and-so, but my guru, a person who has contributed to my own practice and realization. Another, the third of my teachers, was the very venerable Desi Rinpoche, who passed away in May of last year.

[62:46]

And again, here there's an interesting situation, because he had lived with my family, with my brother and myself, from when we were very young. And so he was a very familiar figure to us. And there's always the tendency that familiarity will breed contempt. And you'll say, oh, yeah, it's not so. We've known him for a long time, just a nice person. But he, again, was one of my gurus. I went to him and formally requested Padreana teachings, received them from him. And out of a recognition of the enormous kindness and grace that he showed me in teaching me what he did, I think of him only as enlightened. I think of him only as a teacher. guru, not as old so-and-so who's been around the house for so long, who's part of our family for such a long time. So it's an important distinction to make that when you commit yourself personally to Vajrayana teachings, it's not something someone else tells you to do. It's not that someone says, now you have to think of me as enlightened. You undertake the discipline voluntarily.

[63:47]

And when you commit yourself to an authentic teacher in Vajrayana, you commit yourself to viewing, to purifying your view of that individual. ceasing to regard them as an ordinary person, and instead always maintaining an attitude of devotion and respect to them as an individual who is demonstrating the path of enlightenment to you. And so, whether your guru is your brother, or whether your guru is your sister, or whether your guru is your husband, or whether your guru is your wife, from the Vajrayana point of view, you commit yourself to a discipline where the role as guru transcends the role as husband, wife, brother, sister, old friend, whatever. And this is, I think, something that's important to realize, is that you don't have an ordinary attitude towards your guru, regardless of the social role that that guru might nominally fulfill in your life. It's an important point, I think, because there's a great deal of confusion as to what constitutes a relationship with a guru.

[64:56]

For example, we often hear about the love between a guru and a student. But that's not ordinary passion or ordinary liking each other as friends or buddies or pals. That has nothing to do with the context of guru and student. The love is far more profound and transpersonal than just two people liking each other or really enjoying each other's company. are really having a lot of fun together. That really has nothing to do with it. So she said, I think this is a really important point to make. When you commit yourself to that specific tantric discipline, for example, if you're visualizing yourself as a deity, such as the Bodhisattva of Compassion in tantric meditation, you visualize your guru as the Buddha Amitabha, as the lord of that family above the crown of your head. Whether the guru is a man or a woman or whatever, whatever social role that guru has in your life, the guru is meditated in a pure form. So there always is this transpersonal or transcendent emphasis in Vajrayana where the guru is to be regarded in a pure way.

[66:02]

And you guard against the tendency to treat them in your own mind as an ordinary person who's just your brother or just your sister or your husband. It's less important whether it be a man or a woman. What are the pieces that take that? It's less a man or a woman. So the question is, is not the issue of whether the teacher is not only a man or a woman, but whether there are masculine and feminine principles embodied in the teachings of Buddhism, as there are in other traditions.

[67:19]

Did I get the gist of it? In the Kogi Shogunate, there is a Rinpoche. In the Mongolian Shogunate, there is a Guiyang Shogunate. There are so many of them. I don't know how many of them there are, but there are so many. [...] I don't know how many of them I don't know if you know this, but there is a saying that if you want to be a good person, you have to be a good person. I don't know if you know this, but there is a saying that if you want to be a good person, you have to be a good person.

[68:28]

I don't know if you know this, but there is a saying that if you want to be a good person, you have to be a good person. You don't have to. You don't need to show them. You don't have to. You don't need to show them. In the general tradition of Buddhism, there is no overt distinction between masculine and feminine principles or

[70:03]

masculine side, feminine side, that kind of thing. When we begin to encounter the Mahayana teachings on emptiness, which is a fairly advanced level and rather complex and difficult to put in a nutshell, but when we get to that level of teachings, then we hear of the masculine principle of skillful method and the feminine principle of wisdom and emptiness. So there is a distinction, not in terms of separate teachings, but two aspects. to the whole of the teachings, the two together constituting the whole of the teachings. On the level of deity yoga in tantra, where there are many so-called yidam, or chosen deities that the person may receive empowerment for and meditate upon in order to cultivate certain qualities and states of realization in themselves, there are, iconographically, there are distinctions between masculine deities and feminine deities, gods and goddesses, so to speak. But these are not considered to be in a concretist way.

[71:10]

It's not as though women would focus upon a feminine deity exclusively and men upon a masculine deity. There are many, many cases of male practitioners who identify with Tara, a feminine deity, or women who identify with Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, a nominally masculine deity. On the level of the deities, masculine and feminine is purely nominal. It has no relationship to the sex of the practitioner or to the particular state of realization that can be cultivated through that practice. In fact, when one practices the formal meditations, invariably they begin with a phrase or a formula that goes something like, all phenomena become emptiness. From this state of emptiness, there emerges the form of the deity, or you emerge as a form of the deity, something like that. What that implies is that in beginning the sadhana, you touch upon a level of being which has nothing to do with male or female. The emptiness of all phenomena is neither masculine nor feminine, really.

[72:12]

It can be nominally designated the feminine principle of wisdom, but that's not an ultimate statement. And neither is our masculinity or our femininity. In the proper practice of Adriana, we begin by touching upon the nature of being which is beyond male and female, which then expresses itself in a nominal way as a masculine or feminine principle embodied in the form of a deity. But while there is a nominal distinction on the level of these archetypes which are used, masculine and feminine, this in no way implies an ultimate distinction between masculine and feminine teachings or masculine and feminine practitioners, male and female practitioners. Can you talk about oppression and how your family, when you were coming out of this country, how your family dealt with the fact that you were forced to leave because of the experience of being oppressed?

[73:14]

The question is, could Jetsun not speak about oppression, particularly in her personal experience of having been forced to, with her family, flee her country and to experience that oppression as so many people do in the world. In the past, when I was young, I had a lot of problems. I had a lot of problems. I had a lot of problems. I don't know.

[74:27]

I don't know. [...] My buddhist training and my buddhist experience

[75:29]

leads me to believe that oppression is a two-edged sword. There are people who are oppressed and there are people who are oppressed. And this is a manifestation of the karma of both individuals or both parties or both forces. I feel that, in large part, the reason we lost Tibet was because we didn't deserve it. We didn't deserve to hold Tibet, in some sense. had a previous history of people who were far more dedicated to the cultivation of merits and virtue than perhaps was the case in recent times. And I feel that at least one element in the loss of Tibet was that we were at fault. There was some fault on the part of the Tibetan people. So I don't, in my own mind, place all the blame in the camp of the Chinese communists. But I feel that while they were the oppressors in the situation, We were the ones who created circumstances where we were oppressed.

[76:58]

So I feel that there's no blame to be laid in any one direction, ultimately. Losing my country, when I think about it, losing all that I knew that was familiar to me, my own attitude has not been one of sadness, really. I didn't find very much value in sitting around just being depressed and bemoaning my fate. but rather regarding it as an expression of my own karma and working with it from there. Because there are simply situations where, no matter how much we might rail against the situation, it's not going to change. There are many situations where even a country like America, which considers itself extremely powerful, omnipotent, is helpless. In the face of certain problems, even a very powerful force is impotent and cannot change things. My own feeling about our losing Tibet and how we should proceed from here is very much inspired by the words of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who said that Tibetans will not really win back Tibet in the true sense by just going and fighting the Chinese and using the same kind of tactics that were used against them, but by becoming a strong, honest, virtuous people.

[78:16]

That is the way Tibetans will really get back Tibet. So I really feel that it's on that level of individual integrity that a person copes with oppression. That has been my personal experience. make institutions for men and women, and play their different roles, have their different physical features, and why don't we have this primordial movement? I feel like you just handed me a straight line.

[79:19]

You mean, you mean Are you meaning it as basic, or why is there sexual polarity at all? Why is the state of being that we experience one of sexual polarity, or part of it? That was the part I was wondering about. So you're not speaking just in the case of people making distinctions in their minds, but the fact that bodies are shaped differently, function differently. So the question hinges on this idea of dualism or bipolarity and given the illusory nature of samsara and the dharma and the deities and all of it, ultimately speaking, why is it necessary for or why have we come to the point or why do we find ourselves in the situation where this bipolarity seems to be an integral part of our experience even

[80:23]

to the high levels of the teachings. According to the Greeks anyway. So you're just looking for something from a Buddhist perspective as to why? He said, yes, I will do it. I said, yes, I will do it. [...] I said, yes, I will do it. I said, yes, I will do it. I said, yes, I will do [...] it. I said, yes I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say.

[81:24]

I don't know what to say. [...] How about some of the other things that are going on in society? I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say.

[82:24]

I don't know what to say. [...] I don't know how to say it in Japanese. When I was young, I didn't want to go to school.

[83:26]

I didn't want to go to school. I didn't want to go to school. I didn't want to go to school. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. What you say in terms of the ultimate level of truth is quite true.

[84:42]

You understand that very well. Congratulations. But on the ultimate level, there's no distinction between male and female. None of that applies on the ultimate level of truth, the ultimate nature of being. However, on a practical level, we find ourselves as unenlightened beings involved in a world of dualism, this and that. And one expression of that is sexual bipolarity. There are men and women. There are two sexes. There is a tension or energy between those sexes. In terms of personal practice in Vajrayana, since you mentioned that as one of the contexts where this polarity seems to apply, the personal choice of a deity, for example, a yidam, or chosen deity, upon which the person meditates, with which the person identifies, is an entirely personal and individual thing. Again, as I said before, it has nothing to do with whether you're a man or a woman, and the deity is masculine or feminine.

[85:47]

Je Tsongkhapa said, my own personal practice is Vajrayogini, a feminine deity. That is my own personal chosen practice. But it would be equally possible that it could be Vajrabharata, which is a very radical male or masculine figure. For another person, it might be Tara, a very peaceful feminine figure. Or it might be Hevajra, being a nominally masculine figure. It really has very little to do with anything other than the individual person's karmic makeup and what they're drawn to personally, what they feel most attuned to personally. And that's really the only basis on which a person can make a constructive choice in Vajrayana practice. Now, in terms of sexual bipolarity and where it all came from in the first place, you said, I don't even want to speculate on that. where why we ended up with two sexes and why the situation is the way it is now. All that we can identify in the present situation is that a great deal of the problems between the sexes that you again referred to, like so many of the problems in our lives, are due to the individual's concern having minds which are clouded by afflictive emotions, by ignorance, by confusion, and therefore merely compounding each other's afflictive emotions and ignorance and confusion.

[87:08]

And until such time as those individuals have realized the basic egolessness of their individual selfhood, there will continue to be afflictive emotions, ignorance, and confusion. And there will continue to be problems. We're extremely fortunate people. She said, I don't know if we realize how fortunate we are to have access to authentic teachers and authentic teachings and to have the leisure to practice and develop our spiritual potential. But again, the context has to be understood as one of the interrelationship between or the interdependence of ultimate and relative truth. We find ourselves in a bipolar situation, a dualistic situation. But we must understand that that's not the ultimate statement that can be made about who we are or the nature of being. The nature, the true nature, the ultimate nature

[88:09]

of being transcends masculine and feminine, transcends male and female. The question is, is it true that prior to the military occupations, that... Yeah, this will be the last question. Is it true that prior to the military occupation of Tibet, that in traditional Tibetan culture, women had equal status with men and were highly regarded? I don't know.

[89:11]

I don't know. Hmm. Yeah, yeah. I'm not going to sit there for a long time. [...] I'm Prior to the military occupation in Tibet, politically speaking, in terms of their political power in the country, women were in an inferior position to men on a level of legal and political power.

[91:02]

More generally or culturally, in terms of individual family groups, there was far more equality. It is true that women did not hold public office or were not appointed to high government posts. So on that level, there was definitely disparity. There was definitely male dominance. But on a level of individual families, there was probably as much range as there is in many other cultures. I actually hesitate to make sweeping statements that all Tibetan families were male dominant female dominant or equal or whatever. Undoubtedly there were many individual situations. On the level of the teachings, my own experience in my own region was that there was total equality and in fact on the political level in my region there was total equality. But I realized that that may have been somewhat unique. I don't have a great deal of experience

[91:59]

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