Menstruation, Gender Segregation, and a Kōan Concerning Miscarriage

The goal of this chapter is to relate some examples of how a few contemporary Buddhist women think about their gender and their bodies in connection with their Buddhist practice, in their own words as much as possible. This work comes from in part from research for my 2021 book,  Exploring the  Heart Sutra, 2  which involved a series of ethnographic interviews 3  conducted in 2018–2019. 4 The larger project involved seventeen women, ranging in age from late twenties to late seventies. Participants were American (white, Asian-American), Taiwanese, and Chinese, and practiced in Chan, Zen, (Taiwanese) Pure Land, Shin, Huayan, and Tibetan traditions. This essay begins with a discussion of the theoretical framing of the project in terms of feminist reclamation, and then organizes some of the participants’ comments into three broad sections: responses to the importance of their gender/body to practice; gender segregation and discrimination; and woes and/or wonders of a woman’s body. The essay then concludes with a final story and some thoughts for what this sort of ethnographic work might imply in terms of future philosophical research.