How Tibetan Nuns Become Khenmos: The History and Evolution of the Khenmo Degree for Tibetan Nuns

Tibetan Buddhist nuns are making history in numerous ways. They now meet in classrooms instead of tents, earn the title “Khenmo” after many years of dedicated study, and take exams that are standardized, frequent, and both written and oral. Additionally, the new educational system encourages Tibetan Jomos to take on more responsibility, increase their scholarship and practice, and obtain superior monastery/nunnery status. This article chronicles over two and a half decades of extensive fieldwork, covering the advances in monastic education and the rising standing of women in Larung Gar and contemporary China. These advances are in stark contrast to the limited opportunities for women in the past.

Buddhist Nuns with Social Security Work In Vietnam Today And Some Issues Posed

Social security is an indispensable condition for any country to be able to maintain economic, social, political stability, etc. for its own country, and Vietnam is no exception. Over the years, together with the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha, Buddhist nuns have made many important contributions to social welfare activities for people from different angles, such as taking care of orphans and children. orphaned without support; participate in relief and social assistance activities for people in ethnic minority areas, areas with special difficulties, activities to prevent and combat social evils,… On the basis of evaluating the achievements, the author clarifies some limitations and difficulties in the process of this Buddhist work, thereby offering some solutions and recommendations to promote social welfare activities. An association for the people of the Nuns to contribute to the successful implementation of the country's sustainable development goals in the process of international development and integration.

Baoshan

Baoshan 寶山 (Treasure Mountain) is a Buddhist site in the Taihang 太行 mountain range in Henan 河南 Province; it includes neighboring Lanfengshan 嵐峰山 (Misty Peak Mountain). It is a network of cave-shrines, devotional and memorial inscriptions, reliquary niches with portrait-statues, and references to buildings and restorations. Most notably, the memorial inscriptions on Lanfengshan are the single largest extant in situ collection of records of medieval Chinese Buddhist nuns. It is claimed that Baoshan was first marked as a Buddhist place by the monk Daoping 道憑 (b. 488–d. 559). Daoping’s disciple Lingyu 靈裕 (b. 518–d. 605) won imperial recognition for the site and probably led the design and construction of the main cave-shrine. Both monks belonged to the southern branch of the Dilun 地論 (Stages treatise) lineage that began in the Northern Qi 北齊 (550–577) capital of Ye 鄴. Two rock-cut cave shrines on Baoshan and Lanfengshan constitute the devotional foci of the site, and a restored temple stands in the valley between them, in what is believed to be its original location. The site’s main cave-shrine Dazhusheng 大住聖 (Great Abiding Holy Ones) is located midway up Baoshan and about five hundred meters west and further up the valley from the restored temple. Mortuary niches for monks and laymen fan out on several levels above the cave to the east and west. An earlier, smaller cave attributed to Daoping was renamed Daliusheng 大留聖 (Great Remaining Holy Ones), establishing correspondence with Dazhusheng. It is situated partway up Langfengshan, overlooking the lower part of the valley. Mortuary niches for nuns and laywomen are carved into cliff-faces above, below, and to the east of the cave. In Lingyu’s Xu gaoseng zhuan續高僧傳 (Continued biographies of eminent monks) biography, it is said that the temple in the valley between the peaks was designated Lingquansi 靈泉寺 (Ling’s Spring/Numinous Spring Temple) in 591 by Emperor Wen of the Sui. This was meant to honor Lingyu, who that year conferred precepts on the imperial household. One of Lingyu’s disciples, the eminent monk Huixiu 慧休 (b. 547–d. 646), also had a formative influence at the site.

Gender Equality in and on Tibetan Buddhist Nuns’ Terms

Gender equality and feminism are often cast as concepts foreign to the Tibetan cultural region, even as scholarship exploring alliances between Buddhism and feminism has grown. Critics of this scholarship contend that it superimposes liberal discourses of freedom, egalitarianism, and human rights onto Asian Buddhist women’s lives, without regard for whether/how these accord with women’s self-understandings. This article aims to serve as a corrective to this omission by engaging transnational feminist approaches to listen carefully to the rhetoric, aims, and interpretations of a group of Tibetan nuns who are redefining women’s activism in and on their own terms. We conclude that their terms are not derivative of foreign or secular liberal rights-based theories, but rather outgrowths of Buddhist principles taking on a new shape in modern Tibet.