“Well-behaved women seldom make history.”
“At first, a smiling, divine man,
In the middle, a black-faced demon,
At the end, a bull ready to beat you.
Thinking thus, melancholy arises.
So, this girl shall practice divine Dharma, and
Be a companion of vajra-sibling friends!”
–excerpt from Saley O’s song to Milarepa
“..not only are the Buddhist past and Western scholarship on Buddhism thoroughly androcentric; contemporary Buddhism itself, both Asian and Western, is unrelenting in its ongoing androcentrism.”
–Rita M. Gross in Buddhism After Patriarchy (1995)
“It is time we truly recognize that the era of the hunter is past. This should be a more “feminine” era – an era when women make greater contributions to society. If we continue to devalue what women have to offer, we will continue harming women and continue overlooking and devaluing these virtues that are considered “feminine.” And these are precisely the virtues that the world needs more now.”—17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje
For International Women’s Day (March 8th) today am re-posting a translation and article I wrote about Saley O (March 2023), one of Milarepa’s remarkable female students. The article gives an overview of the main female disciples of Milarepa, and life and songs of one of these women, Saley O (Sa-le-‘od, which literally means ‘Brilliant Light’). who from the age of sixteen years old told Milarepa she wanted to abandon household life, and then spent the rest of her life in solitary mountain retreats.
Another story and song, Fifteen Realisations by another female disciple, Rechungma, I translated and published before here. Considering the times in which these women lived, the songs reveal how Milarepa actively welcomed and guided female students, with the requisite dedication and faith, in the same way as his male students. He was a feminist and a vegetarian well before his time! In 2023, I commissioned a new Tibetan Buddhist thangka to make visible women such as Saley-O with the main Kagyu forefather teachers. For more on that thangka, and images of it, see the articles Hearing ‘Her-story’ (I) and (II) here.
In 2023, I interviewed three women for the Dakini Conversations podcast: Prof Janet Gyatso, Dr. Jue Liang and Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo. I also discussed women, celibacy, sexuality, bliss and tantra in an interview I gave to Olivia Clementine (2023), see here.
There are two pages on the Dakini Translations website which list all the links to research and translations on women:
Articles about women and female deities/masters continue to be the most read articles on the website, below is a Top Ten list of the most-read articles on those topics in 2023.
The image I designed for International Women’s Day uses the classic symbol for women (and their private part) the lotus. The colour purple is one of the colours used for the internationally recognised day and the Venus symbol with a cross has also been incorporated in the number 8.
Music? Boys Wanna Be Her by Peaches, A Woman’s Worth by Alicia Keys, I’m A Lady by Santigold, Survivor by Destiny’s Child, Rebel Girl by Bikini Kill, 50 ft Queenie by PJ Harvey, I’m Every Woman by Chaka Khan and Woman by John Lennon. So many to choose!
Adele Tomlin, 8th March 2024.
The Top 10/ most read articles on Dakini Translations website about females in 2023-4
TANTRIC BUDDHISM, VOWS, SEX AND WOMEN – the importance of love, respect and consent
DAKINI SCRIPT (Khandro Da-yig): Mysterious Symbolic Key to Hidden Treasures
THE MALE-FEMALE TANTRIC UNION: Homophobic heteronormativity or basic biological and inner essences?
Dakini Translations and Publications མཁའ་འགྲོ་མའི་ལོ་ཙཱ་བའི་འགྱུར་དང་འགྲེམས་སྤེལ། 