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652 l ASIAN RELIGIONS—BUDDHISM women Buddhist teachers and women-led centers. Sharon Salzberg includes numerous articles by contemporary Theravada women teachers in her Voices of Insight (1999). The Therigatha verses by enlightened women elders can be found in Psalms of the Early Buddhists. I. Psalms of the Sisters (1909) by Mrs. Rhys Davids, M.A., and in the more recent The First Buddhist Women (1991) by Susan Murcott. Books by Ayya Khema (Be an Island Unto Yourself, 1986; All of Us: Beset by Birth, Decay and Death, 1987; Being Nobody, Going Nowhere, 1987; When the Iron Eagle Flies, 1991; and Who Is My Self? 1997), Sharon Salzberg (A Heart as Wide as the World, 1997, and Lovingkindness, 1995), Dr. Thynn Thynn (Living Meditation : Living Insight, 1998), Sylvia Boorstein (It’s Easier Than You Think, 1995, and Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There, 1996), and Arinna Weisman (The Beginner’s Guide to Insight Meditation, 2001) offer the Theravada teachings from a woman’s perspective. Joanna Macy expresses an “engaged Buddhist ” sensibility in her Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age (1983), World as Lover, World as Self (1991), and “The Balancing of American Buddhism,” Primary Point 3.1 (February 1986). The history, nature, and scope of Theravada Buddhism in the United States are explored in Charles Prebish’s Luminous Passage (1999), and Prebish’s and Kenneth Tanaka’s The Faces of Buddhism (1998), as well as in Don Morreale, ed., The Complete Guide to Buddhist America (1998). TIBETAN BUDDHISM Amy Lavine THE ADVENT OF Tibetan Buddhism in North America started in the 1960s with the arrival of several important Tibetan meditation teachers representing the largest schools of Tibetan Buddhism. These schools are the Nyingma, the oldest school of Tibetan Buddhism dating back to the first entry of Buddhism in Tibet, circa the ninth century c.e.; the Sakya tradition, dating from the eleventh century c.e.; the Kagyu school, which traces its lineage to the adept Tilopa in the tenth century c.e.; and the Gelug school, which is the school of the Dalai Lamas and traces its heritage to Tsongkhapa in the fifteenth century c.e. The primary differences emerged among these schools in the emphasis each placed on scholastic learning and meditation practice as well as political power and influence. For example, the Kagyu school is known as the tradition most concerned with meditation practice, particularly sitting practice, and the Gelug school secured the longest-lasting political influence over the whole of Tibet, beginning in the fifteenth century. Today, the Gelug school may be considered to be the best known of the four schools because of the prominence of the Dalai Lama around the world. The Chinese communist invasion and subsequent occupation of Tibet starting in the 1950s compelled hundreds of thousands of Tibetans, including a large number of religious specialists such as monks, nuns, and lamas (religious authority figures senior to monks or nuns), to flee their homeland in search of refuge in more welcoming countries. The majority of Tibetans settled in India and Nepal, recreating many of the Buddhist institutions that had been decimated by the Chinese. A smaller but influential segment of the Tibetan population eventually moved to North America where they have established exile communities in several large cities as well as enclaves in rural and suburban areas. Tibetan lamas traditionally as well as in contemporary times have a multitude of roles: They may be monks or nuns (although the majority are men), unmarried lay adepts, or married householders; they may be the head of monasteries or solitary hermits; they may be scholars or unlettered practitioners. In time, the Tibetan lamas attracted significant numbers of Western practitioners, many of whom converted, through a Tibetan Buddhist refuge ceremony, to the religion. This group of new Buddhists plays a critical role in the cultivation of Tibetan Buddhism in North America, and women are emerging as a particularly powerful and authoritative voice within this community as lay believers and ordained nuns. This essay explores the role women have played in the cultivation of Tibetan Buddhism in North America, both by Tibetan believers and non-Tibetan (predominantly Western-born) practitioners. Although Western converts make up the largest number of practicing Tibetan Buddhists in North America, it is important to consider the ways in which lay Tibetans are contributing to the development of their native religious and cultural traditions in diaspora. The differences represented by these two groups are briefly assessed below...

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