Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender

Front Cover
Jos? Ignacio Cabez?n
SUNY Press, Jan 1, 1992 - Religion - 241 pages
This book explores historical, textual, and social questions relating to the position and experience of women and gay people in the Buddhist world from India and Tibet to Sri Lanka, China, and Japan. It focuses on four key areas: Buddhist history, contemporary culture, Buddhist symbols, and homosexuality, and it covers Buddhism's entire history, from its origins to the present day. The result of original and innovative research, the author offers new perspectives on the history of the attitudes toward, and of the self-perception of, women in both ancient and modern Buddhist societies. He explores key social issues such as abortion, he examines the use of rhetoric and symbols in Buddhist texts and cultures, and he discusses the neglected subject of Buddhism and homosexuality.
 

Selected pages

Contents

Attitudes toward Women and the Feminine in Early Buddhism
3
The Female Mendicant in Buddhist Sri Lanka
37
Buddhism and Abortion in Contemporary Japan Mizuko Kuyo and the Confrontation with Death
65
Buddhist Women of the Contemporary Maharashtrian Conversion Movement
91
Gender and Persuasion The Portrayal of Beauty Anguish and Nurturance in an Account of a Tamil Nun
111
Linchi Rinzai Chan and Gender The Rhetoric of Equality and the Rhetoric of Heroism
137
The Gender Symbolism of Kuanyin Bodhisattva
159
Mother Wisdom Father Love Genderbased Imagery in Mahayana Buddhist Thought
181
Homosexuality As Seen in Indian Buddhist Texts
203
Kukai and the Tradition of Male Love in Japanese Buddhism
215
Contributors
231
Index
233
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About the author (1992)

José Ignacio Cabezón is Assistant Professor of Philosophy of Religion at Iliff School of Theology in Denver. He is the author of A Dose of Emptiness: An Annotated Translation of the sTong thun chen mo of mKhas grub dGe legs dpal bzang, also published by SUNY Press.

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