Women and Buddhist Philosophy

Abstract

How and why do women engage with Buddhist philosophy? This is the fundamental question that Women and Buddhist Philosophy: Engaging Zen Master Kim Iryŏp proposes to answer through discussions of Kim Iryŏp’s (1896–1971) life and philosophy. With her Christian background and feminist activist perspective, Kim Iryŏp offers a creative interpretation of Buddhist philosophy as a system of thought that engages with lived experience. Continuing to focus on gender discrimination, suffering, and discontent in the secular world, Iryŏp explores the Buddhist teaching of absolute equality, in which individuals are conceived as free beings with infinite capability. She employs Buddhism to answer her existential questions, including the scope of identity, the meaning of being human, and the ultimate value of existence. Moving beyond current Buddhist scholarship on gender, Women and Buddhist Philosophy asks whether women’s way of engaging with Buddhist philosophy, in particular, and philosophy, in general, differs essentially from the familiar patriarchal mode of philosophizing. The author claims that in Iryŏp’s engagement with Buddhist philosophy, the difference is visible and can be identified with narrative philosophy and lived experience, as opposed to abstraction and theorization. This distinction, the author suggests, is also applicable to the difference between Asian and Western philosophies.