Tuesday Dharma Tea at Two pm for March 22, 2022. Use this link to join. 2-2:45 pm Eastern.
Dharma Tea at 2pm with Kōryū Naomi Knoble on March 29, 2022 – focusing on the Women Zen Ancestors.
In today’s tea Koryū will discuss women ancestors and the role of lineage in Soto Zen. We’ll discuss lineage as a statement of Zen’s identity (relative to other forms of Buddhism), emphasis on the value of spiritual relationships between teachers and students, and also a declaration of power and authority, which in Zen’s history has indicated political authority as well as authority to teach. Who gets to be included in the patriarchal lineage chart, which originated with early Zen (Chan) practitioners in China, has changed over time as Zen has evolved and moved into different countries/cultures. In Japan, although women were the first to ordain as Buddhist monastics, cultural perceptions of women eventually shifted to overtly exclude women practitioners. There were many important women ancestors in India, China, and Japan, and we’ll briefly get acquainted with the legacy of three of them. Our tea discussion will explore how the history of lineage charts and misogyny impacts our present-day experience of Soto Zen and our relationship to women ancestors.
First 5 minutes are spent in silent tea drinking.