Tenzin Chodron: a scholar nun of post-Soviet Buryatia

Abstract

Tenzin Chodron (b. 1951) is a scholar nun who has opened up new pathways for Buddhist women in the Republic of Buryatia. The paper describes how, at a critical juncture in the political and religious transition from Soviet rule to greater openness as a member state of the Russian Federation, she has endeavored to bring together scholarship, social activism, and religious life. An introduction to the Buddhist history of Buryatia serves as the backdrop for Tenzin Chodron’s autobiographical materials, which discuss her early life, education, professional work, and social engagement, with the aim of bringing to light the ways that women can realize their potential and play important roles in post-Soviet Buryat society. The example of Tenzin Chodron illustrates that, like men, women have the right to be ordained, at least as novices, and to be educated in the rigorous Buddhist philosophical tradition that has been carefully preserved through the cold winter of religious persecutions in this region of Siberia. Like many other nuns in the contemporary world, her active engagement in society is helping to shape a new international Buddhist conversation that gives women a greater voice and signals to Buddhist institutional authorities that women can indeed become Buddhist masters.