Bhiksuni Karma Lekshe Tsomo: "Buddhist Nuns Living by the Rule: Ancient Codes and Contemporary Life"
building, Third Floor
Abstract:
The 21st century brings daily challenges for monastic Buddhist women. Dedicated to a renunciant lifestyle, they are confronted daily by materialism, individualism, and sensuality. On the path to spiritual transformation, they also confront traditional assumptions about women's inferiority, male dominance, dependency, and carefully defined social roles. In this talk, Karma Lekshe Tsomo, an educator and ordained Buddhist nun for over 30 years, explores the values and monastic precepts that Buddhist renunciant women live by and how they are adapting and integrating them in today's very different world.
Speaker's Bio:
Guest speaker, Venerable Bhiksuni Karma Lekshe Tsomo (University of San Diego)
Professor Karma Lekshe Tsomo received her Ph.D. from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. Her doctoral research focused on death and identity in China and Tibet. Her academic interests include women in Buddhism, Buddhism and bioethics, religion and cultural change, and Buddhism in the United States. In addition to her academic work, she is actively involved in interfaith dialogue and in grassroots initiatives for the empowerment of women. She is president of Sakyadhita: International Association of Buddhist Women, and director of Jamyang Foundation, an initiative to provide educational opportunities for women in the Indian Himalayas and Bangladesh.