Reflections on Buddhist-Christian Dialogue and the Liberation of Women

Abstract

The liberation of women engenders other forms of liberation-for both women and men. At their core neither Buddhist nor Christian teachings are patriarchal, but both have been shaped by institutions that are patriarchal. These traditions must be reshaped to more faithfully reflect their egalitarian core teachings. Interreligious dialogue is an effective way to aid this reshaping. The seventh of the Ten Ox Herding Pictures is entitled "The Ox Forgotten, Leaving the Man Alone" and it portrays a transitional state on the Bodhisattva's path to enlightenment. The man sits alone in solitude, quietly and at leisure, reflecting on what has happened in his struggle with the Ox, yet unsure of what is later in store for him. Still, he has achieved something in his progress toward enlightenment. The accompanying poem reads: Riding on the Ox, he is at last back in his home, When lo! The Ox is no more; the man alone sits serenely. Though the red sun is high up in the sky, he is still quietly dreaming; Under the straw-thatched roof his whip and rope are idly lying.1 In their proper Buddhist context, the first seven Ox herding pictures portray in step-by-step progression the successive phases of Zen practice: training in meditation, ethical self-discipline, study of texts, and, in picture seven, the blissful experience of the unity underlying the diversity of all things and events at every moment of space-time. But the attainment the man realizes at this stage is not the "true self that is no-self' because the man is still in transit and must not remain at home. He needs to understand that self-liberation is not attained apart from the liberation of other selves. Accordingly, I want to reflect on the meaning of liberation for other selves that is simultaneously bound up with one's own self-liberation by concentrating on the liberation of women. My thesis is that the liberation of women engenders other forms of liberation-for both women and men: liberation from political, social, and economic oppression. Buddhist-Christian Studies 17 (1997). ? by University of Hawai'i Press. All rights reserved. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.46 on Sat, 11 Jun 2016 05:04:39 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms