By Rita M. Gross
Shambhala Sun, July 2005.
American women are taking Buddhism away from its patriarchal past, participating confidently as practitioners, teachers, and leaders. The job is not finished, says Rita M. Gross, one of Buddhism's leading feminist thinkers, but the role of American Buddhist women is unprecedented and may change Buddhism forever.

The sheer diversity of forms of Buddhism practiced in North America makes it difficult to generalize about women’s issues in Buddhism. Every denomination of Buddhism is represented in North America; Southeast Asian, Vietnamese, Tibetan, Korean, Chinese, and Japanese varieties of Buddhism are all practiced here. Some Asian forms of Buddhism, especially Japanese and Chinese, have been practiced in North America for four or five generations. Many Buddhists of other nationalities arrived only recently, after changes in immigration policy in the 1960’s facilitated immigration from Asia.

In addition, a significant number of North Americans with no Buddhist antecedents have converted to Buddhism since the late 1960’s. Initially, these converts expressed countercultural dissatisfaction with Euro-American religion and culture, and responded to the many Asian teachers who began to reach out to non-Asian audiences. Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, convert Buddhists from ethnic groups not traditionally associated with Buddhism have become part of the American religious landscape. This development adds even more complexity to North American Buddhism, for their concerns as Buddhists are often quite different from those of traditionally Buddhist populations.

Many observe that for immigrant Buddhists, no matter how many generations they have lived in North America, Buddhism is a conservative force, promoting links to and memories of their Asian cultures and ancestors. Usually, they express little dissatisfaction with Buddhism as they have received it and have little interest in “Americanizing” Buddhism.

For converts, becoming Buddhist was part of their protest against conventional American values. But converts have no loyalty to Asian cultural forms either, and often find the traditional forms that encase Buddhism awkward at best. Those curious and radical enough to leave behind an inherited religion often will not hesitate to bring a similar spirit of exploration to their new religious identity. Convert Buddhists have done just that, developing approaches to Buddhist thought and practice that are distinctive to the West. For this reason, rather than because of the ethnicity of its practitioners, the term “American Buddhism” is used to describe convert Buddhism.

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