Dharma Wheel

Some Untxi stories... Once upon a time a gay man in a sangha I was involved with was ordained by a very well known and respected Tibetan Buddhist teacher. The problem was that he was a gay monk . A monk that was gay -- a celibate , renunciate , gay man. Since he had identified as being gay very earl...

Zhen Li... Female friends have reported traditionally trained Buddhist teachers stating that women are inferior vessels for dharma practice. Not too long ago, there was a thread on this forum that referenced the inherent negative qualities of women. Not something I've made up. I'm a big fat white gu...

Zsc... Thanks for bringing up the anti-razors. Speaking as someone scientifically trained, Occam's razor is significantly misunderstood and misapplied. It's intention is to triage theories that have already been validated, not to eliminate the existence of entities : the experimental verification of...

Breaking my fast on this topic. Something I'll probably regret. There are a variety of reasons to examine sex/gender. All of them are probably legitimate in some way, and range from academic and even scientific studies of the subject to generating political ideologies for social change. In the curre...

There are two sides to every dependent origination-- the cause side , and the effect side . For some inexplicable reason, all of my contributions to this thread were redirected to the effect side of the subject of gender violence in our sanghas. This is the side of dependent origination where abuse ...

Ven. J Khedrup... (I thought) I thanked you for your suggestions in an earlier post. Your contributions were constructive, and if I have not acknowledged that sufficiently, I apologize. I am looking into some of the resources that I was not familiar with. There are several challenges to this thread,...

Thesis : People are being marginalized and abused in our sanghas because of their race, sex, and gender. That's another way to say that people are being harmed on our watch. Proposal : To start a dialog about remedying that. It has to start with a larger collective dialog as it's about a whole comm...

Adi... I'm not trying to win anything. I took my personal politics off the table and presented concrete situations of concern: people X suffering Y in the Buddhist community. I'm all ears for solutions. The message I've received isn't a solution to protect those people but a defense of the status qu...

Garudha... As I've said in other posts, it's not the victims of gender violence who make this about gender. The queer being called "faggot" in his sangha just wants to receive teachings and practice. The person saying that.made it about gender. The woman with her lama's hand up her skirt j...

Adi... You're right. I'll cut and paste and send this to a dharma friend of mine in Europe who was sexually abused by a dharma teacher. She'll find it comforting I'm sure, especially when her biggest concern is it happening to others. -U ... But the sangha is a collective entity. The sangha can't ch...

I never, once, ever, suggested that samsara would end because of political and social action. What I did suggest is that it might spare somebody some suffering. -U I simply don't know where to start in addressing this response with its implication that Samsara will somehow cease to exist..as a resul...

Johnny... I have no gripe with anyone. Just the inability to discuss this problem and get real solutions. Like I said. I'm not bound to any political rhetoric. I've shared my own tragedies and examples of real problems Ive seen. Good starting point there. I'm good with starting with the fundamental ...

Simon... Working to end samsara helps everyone except the person right now, in this moment, being harmed, before we manage to end samsara for all. Venturing bodhicitta requires they be cared for. And their sufferings be elevated to the best of our ability. One of the generosities is to give freedom ...

In one's personal life, one can really attempt to affect any change that one wishes. In my life any good I've done has been from just doing it, or from being able to work with a group of people who felt similarly. Just get the work done. The internet is awesome for that. In that spirit, I appreciate...

Ven. J Khedrup... I actually agree with much of the analysis against identity politics. In the feminist community there is a very clear rhetoric that much of feminist theory is, itself, a product of privilege: the nuances of white academics of privilege. Feminism on the continents of Africa and amon...

I agree. Very good.

It doesn't help me with the problems my dharma friends face in their spiritual communities, and the problems people in my life face.

Like I've said in other posts-- I'm not committed to identity politics, but rather results.

-U

Johnny Dangerous wrote:Extremely Ven. Khedrup!

As an example of details versus generalities, saying "some people are posting some things that seem hurtful" easily turns into a discussion of free speech and overly sensitive readers. Saying "this particular post is wrong for these particular reasons and these particular things shou...

Johnny Dangerous... I work with a large number of people from different cultures. Once there was an anonymous complaint that my unit was "racist" for reasons X, Y, and Z. I took the complaint to my supervisor, he read it, his response: "Nah. That's BS. You're fine." I came back l...

Rory... Yes. Racial conversations are derailed as well-- not to mention conversations about more subtle nuances, like you say, lesbian subculture versus other aspects of LBGTQIA experience. I'm talking about this basically because I can as a white cis-hetero-male. My voice is long heard. It's got no...

I'll be honest. Johnny Dangerous has a good point. Maybe some people, perhaps most people, can't stand to, are unable to, or unwilling to be engaged in a discussion that has theoretical nuances about sex/gender. And quite honestly, at a certain level, that whole discussion, as I've presented it can ...