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Traveller in Space: In Search of Female Identity in Tibetan Buddhism

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I have been aware for some time that Buddhism has not been completely egalitarian about it approaches males and females on the path. In some Buddhist countries, laywomen are not allowed the same initiations as their male counterparts and nuns who are senior to new male monks must still defer to them as authorities over their lives. I do not think this was the original inspiration of the Buddha, but when Buddhism spread and got integrated with other religions, like the indigenous Shamanism of Tibet (Bonn), it sometimes inherited the anti-female attitudes of the culture. There is a passage in the Theravadin canon where the Buddha declares that if men and women (who are stated as being equal in number in every class of Buddhist seeker) were not both part of his religion that it was be deficient. This is different than a passage I found in one Tibetan Buddhist book by a Lama that said that women could not become Pretyakabuddhists (solitary liberators) inspite of the fact that Tara appears to have done this just to prove this idea wrong as well as her emanation/incarnation Machig Labron. The book by June Campbell comes from an awareness of some of these imbalances and goes into the Lama system which takes tulkus away from their mothers to be raised in an all male celibate society and what impact this could have on how women are seen and treated. She goes into the idea that many lamas have secret consorts while being outwardly and socially "celibate", something that she testifies to having had personal experience with. A friend of mine had witnessed her being disturbed during the time in question and was keeping this to herself. She is discrete and does not name names in her book. I will honor her silence and not name his name either in this review. What I find interesting is that she proposes that the original gender of Avalochiteshvara was female and was actually called the Lotus Goddess. This makes sense in terms of the construct of the mantra "Om Mani Padme Hum", since Usually the name of diety is framed by "om" on one side and the Tantric energy family on the other side ("hum" for the Amogasiddhi family and the element of air) as in "Om Vajrasattva Om" or "Om Amitabah Hreeh". Since Padme means "lotus" this may have been the original form. Regards of whether or not it is correct, it is an interesting proposal and may deserve some further investigation. Ultimately, I feel the gender of the diety is not crucial to the call for help via the mantra, but one may wonder if and why the gender changed. I like the passages that indicate a kind of "feminist psychoanalysis" which I feel is part of a larger movement of attempting to synthesize Buddhist meditation with Western psychotherapy. I find this direction interesting and worthwhile, it seems to have personally helped the author to get clear on her experience and to share what she learned with us. I love Tibetan Buddhism as a path of practice and am devoted to the kind of meditation it encourages, yet I have gone beyond needing my religion to be perfect and feel that it is healthy that a religion critique itself.

This is one of the best books I've ever read! It's a historyof the evolution of thinking. It focuses on the ways thinking has beenmanipulated, for example, by Tibetan Buddhists to be anti female, to be rigid, limited and fearful.It covers a wide range of time, thousands of years before Buddhism arose as a thinking style as well as the Tibetan version of Buddhism...June Campbell is not only scholar whose meticulous research shines through each sentance of the book but her real life experience studying with Tibetan lamas for 20 years gives deep insight into the reality of Tibetan Buddhism. Having been Tibetan Buddhist myself for 25 years, I can honestly say that Traveller In Space is an exceptionally clear book about how Tibetan Buddhism is actually taught,the core attitudes of Tibetan lamas, as well as serious misunderstandings Tibetan lamas have about human relationships and why. Many of the Tibetan teachers have become unethical and the author has the courage to gently reveal the truth. In the end Traveller In Space left me feeling more in touch with the truth that authentic spiritual awakening cannot be conveyed in the traditional Tibetan atmosphere...I believe the point Ms. Campbell is making is that being truly fulfilled as a human means becoming more at one with the "spacious",unconstucted aspects of one's being.