An Ongoing Womanist Buddhist Project: Reading between the Times

Abstract

This article challenges the dominant Christian-centered approach to Black religious life by exploring contemporary Womanist Buddhist and Black Buddhist practice, writing, and thought alongside writings of early East Asian Buddhist nuns, noting similarities, differences, and the intersections among and between these written accounts. “Reading Between the Times” signals the ongoing nature of this project, and this particular paper draws heavily upon Kathryn Ann Tsai’s 1994 translation Lives of the Nuns: Biographies of Chinese Buddhist Nuns from the Fourth to Sixth Centuries along with several Womanist and/or Black Buddhist voices, such as Faith Adiele, Melanie Harris, bell hooks, Layli Maparyan, Carolyn Jones Medine, Alice Walker, reverend angel Kyodo williams, Jan Willis, and Pamela Ayo Yetunde. Rather than make definitive claims, this paper becomes curious with initial observations surrounding authorial voice, intersections of race/gender/class within a particular temporal space, “legitimacy” questions, and others—and, of course, invites more work in the future. Deploying an engaged Buddhist pedagogy to inform mindful scholarship, this paper reminds us that we have more commonalities than oppressive systems often admit or acknowledge, and it concludes with a call to action.