AAR 1999 Panel Report

By Jennifer Dumpert, Graduate Theological Union

Collett Cox (University of Washington), Presiding

Panelists: Maria Hibbets (Harvard University); Jennifer Dumpert (Graduate Theological Union); Douglas Padget (Indiana University at Bloomington); Paul Donnelly (Northern Arizonza University)

        Maria Hibbets began the session with her paper, "Can the Sangha Be Immoral?" Focusing on references to gift-giving in Pali commentaries and the medieval anthology literature, this paper explored the nature of the monastic sangha as a moral community. Hibbets' argument centered on the doctrine of the worthy recipient--the idea that that the merit one earns from giving is proportionate to the worthiness of the gift's recipient. Even if the specific monk to whom alms or gifts are given is not himself moral, Hibbets asserts that the giver still gains merit because the gift is being given to the sangha, which is infallible, and not to a specific individual. In other words, the sangha as a community and institution should be differentiated from individual members in the question of morality. Furthermore, as the doctrine of the worthy recipient would indicate, if the giver receives merit, the recipient must be worthy. In this sense, the sangha as a moral community is itself constituted by gift-giving; the act of giving affects not only the donor but also the receiver. The act of giving alms can be seen as a cleansing ritual--an act of ritual etiquette that affects inner life through outer activity. Hibbets concluded her presentation by pointing out the parallel of her conclusions in our own culture, in which courtesy--concerned with outer form and appearance but also with how that form and appearance affect inner life--also marks to some degree the moral life.

        Jennifer Dumpert presented the next paper in the session, "History from Here: Suggestions for the Creation of a Zen Buddhist History for Women." Dumpert claimed the large body of literature on women and Buddhism produced in the US exemplifies attempts to reconstruct Buddhist history to make it accord with the feminist-friendly religion Buddhism has become in the West. Several elements of history were identified as central to this historical revision: myth-making; reinterpretation; and emplotment (the use of a recognizable narrative structure, such as the story of the hero). Dumpert continued by critiquing ways in which these elements are frequently manipulated. Myth-making often takes the form of the invention of "new" traditions (such as female "lineages"), which American practitioners sometimes assume to be central to Buddhist history, bringing forth questions about changing a tradition in which one strives to change oneself. Reinterpretation frequently explains away difficult political realities (such as the imposition of greater numbers of vows onto nuns) which could in turn lead to lack of understanding of and defense against such realities. Use of emplotment, such as the hero story, creates a compensatory history in which token women flourish in the roles valued by the current patriarchal historical model.

        Calling for a self-conscious, critical approach to the effort to place women within Buddhist history, Dumpert concluded by suggesting that American sanghas should: educate members about any "new" traditions in use and carefully, choosing which old traditions to replace; acknowledge and discuss distasteful elements of Buddhist history to learn useful lessons and gain more informed insight; reframe the very values and emplotments of history, re-examining, complexifying and valorizing the roles women have played in Buddhist history.

        Douglas Padgett presented the very entertaining and interesting penultimate paper, "Americans Need Something to Sit On: Zen Meditation Materials and Buddhist Diversity in America." As a means of exploring the "elite Buddhism" of American meditators, Padgett applied ethnographic research and anthropological assessment of commodification to the market in meditation cushions. A discussion (accompanied by slides) of the prices of various benches, zafus, and meditation mats as well as of the variety of colors and styles in which they come supported the conclusion that Americans buy cushions not just to sit on, but also to go with decor, to make a statement about taste, or to participate in Buddhism by surrounding themselves with Buddhist goods. Padgett compared this to the "nightstand Buddhist", whose practice generally consists of buying and reading Buddhist books To track how material is enlisted in the service of spirituality, Padgett tracked eight commercial makers of meditation cushions in the US. In phone interviews, people from these companies expressed belief that their work constituted right livelihood, that they were helping to propogate the dharma, and that many were attempting to participate in making meditation mainstream. Padgett also noted that most of the cushions produced by these companies and sold on the web or in magazines such as the glossy monthly Tricycle were modeled after the zafus and zabutons used by Japanese Zen Buddhists, even within forms of Buddhism in which such cushions were not traditionally used for meditation.

        The presentation's most obvious conclusion involved the importance of commercialism and consumption within American Buddhism. Padgett also, however, discussed ways in which the marketing and use of Zen-style meditation materials reflected notions of authenticity which are really issues about authority and who gets to decide what is authentic. Finally, he identified the elimination of the variety of meditation seats from different traditions as metaphoric for the creation of an American "Buddhist monoculture" that results from picking and choosing elements of different Buddhist traditions to create a single American version of Buddhism.

        Paul Donnelly presented the session's final paper, "The Paradox of Monastic Tantrism in Late Indian and Tibetan Buddhism." Donnelly's paper explored the inclusion of tantric practices and ideologies in late Indian and Tibetan monastic Buddhism. These specific tantric practices, originating with earlier lay yogins known as siddhas, involved the channeling of sexual energies and therefore presented an obvious paradox to Late Indian and Tibetan Buddhist monastics. Nonetheless, in the last days of Indian Buddhism, the monks of the great scholastic colleges of Northern India synthesized and integrated into their monastic framework practices of early lay tantric figures such as Naropa. Tibetan Buddhists, looking to the tantric tradition established by Tsongkapa, also balanced tantric teachings with traditional celibacy vows.

        Donnelly laid out strategies employed by Indian and Tibetan monastic Buddhists for bringing transgressive, antinomian ideas and practices into line with traditional views of monasticism. A common but differing element of these strategies involved the level of adeptness at which monks engaged in actual intercourse with a woman (as opposed to visualization). One stance held that only novices practiced with an actual human consort, eventually passing beyond that stage into the higher realm of the visualized or imagined woman. Another view held that only the most advanced tantric practitioners should couple with a flesh and blood consort. Either way, by enacting in sexual activities, sometimes accompanied by other ritual transgressive acts such as drinking alcohol or gathering in taboo places, monks enacted reversals which transmuted the prohibited into the sacred. Within this discussion, Donnelly invoked the Mahayanic assumption that ultimate truth is a great leveler that establishes higher perspective over relative norms. Finally, he concluded that whatever the strategy, the end point was the difficulty, within monastic tradition, of how to effectively remove the woman and maintain the practices.