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Tibetan Buddhism and Feminism in an In-Between Space

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Tibetan Buddhism and Feminism in an In-between Space: A Creative-Critical Autoethnography in a Non-Western Woman’s Voice Sharin Shajahan Naomi Student ID: 32114843 This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of Murdoch University 30th June, 2017 This page intentionally left blank 2 I declare that this thesis is my own account of my research and contains as its main content work, which has not previously been submitted for a degree at any tertiary education institution. ………… Sharin Shajahan Naomi 3 This page intentionally left blank 4 This page intentionally left blank 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I always wanted to do PhD. on a subject with which I would find a spontaneous connection. I believe in the power of prayer. It is through the earnest prayer I am able to create intimate bonding with the divine, which is unseen and incomprehensible, yet the most intimate, the most understanding, and the kindest friend. God’s guidance and help come in simple ways; through friends, mentors and unknown strangers from whom I never expect help. That is the grace and beauty of trusting God and asking for his/her help. When I finally decided to do a PhD on Tibetan Buddhism and feminism, the help and guidance I received were incredible and beyond expectations. I am confused about where to start and whose name should appear first in my acknowledgment. Let’s go back to 2010 when I received an Australian Leadership Award and began a new life in Western Australia. I was studying for a Masters of Arts in Human Rights and it was at that time I began to dream of doing a PhD. My lecturers, Dr Caroline Fleay, Dr Karen Soldatic, Dr Kathryn Choules (Kathryn was working at the centre at that time) from the Centre for Human Rights Education at Curtin University and my Master’s supervisor, Dr Ann Schilo from the School of Design and Arts at Curtin University filled me with courage, inspiration and gave their help in applying for a PhD. I would also like to mention the staff of the international office at Curtin University who assisted me to apply for PhD at Murdoch University. I was impressed by the staff in the international office at Murdoch University who sent the research proposal to the Dean of School of Social Sciences and put me in contact with my second supervisor Dr Mark Jennings. Thanks Mark for all your support for this thesis. I cannot express how grateful I am to Dr Kathryn Choules who was the greatest helpmate in finding my principal supervisor Dr Nado Aveling from the School of Education at Murdoch University. I have thanked Kathryn many times, 6 and will thank her again for introducing me to Dr Nado. I was very fortunate to have a supervisor like Nado who helped me to learn and grow in my own way with full respect to my independence and individual creativity, while at the same time guiding me in this challenging path. It was my pleasure to have guidance from such a wise woman. The most risky part of this thesis is an alternative way of producing knowledge and creating a different narrative as resistance against Western hegemonic knowledge. I acknowledge and remember all the academic scholars and friends who have worked in this area, given courage and paved the way to write in an unorthodox way. I was lucky to have a wonderful community in the School of Education at Murdoch University comprising of PhD students and the staff. I am very thankful to this community for their help and bonding in this long journey. I love you all and you are in my heart. On this occasion, I would also like to give thanks to Kayo Miyamoto, Dale Banks and other staff of Murdoch University who have helped me in many ways. I am also thankful to Dr Caroline, Dr Baden Offord, and Dr Yirga from Curtin University for their help. Thanks to my other friends in Australia: from temples, Satsang, other spiritual communities, Curtin University, Murdoch university, and the Murdoch university dormitory where I stayed for more than three years. You all have been so kind and good to me. I would like to thank Dr Chris Hougans, Dean Laslett and Rizwana for the help and support they have given. I would like to give special thanks to Yan Zhang and Minnerva. Yan offered her home when I arrived in Australia for a PhD and Minnerva offered her lovely flat when I was about to leave Australia. These times were very critical and the help was generous. I am grateful to my parents, brother and other family members, friends, and colleagues of BRAC who have inspired me to take this long journey and did their best to help me. I can never forget the help I received from my friends in Bangladesh and outside Bangladesh in securing the “Australian Leadership Award 2010” for the Master’s degree which paved the way for the PhD. Thanks to 7 AusAid for giving me such a wonderful scope. My gratitude always goes for the scholarship that I received from Murdoch University to pursue this PhD. Lastly, my heartfelt gratitude goes to my Gurus and teachers, and spiritual friends who have been my inspiration and strength. Without their blessings and prayer, I would not have come this far. The special person who does not know how much strength he gives me in my daily life is H.H the Dalai Lama. My little work is dedicated to his values and struggles to bring peace and harmony in this world. May whoever read my work think of a non-sectarian world where religion will become a source of love and unity, not an instrument to divide humanity. 8 This page intentionally left blank 9 ABSTRACT As a religion and spiritual practice, Tibetan Buddhism is focused on training the mind to achieve inner tranquility, peace, and compassion. On the other hand, the feminist goal is to liberate women from patriarchal oppression. The possibility for exploring new feminist experiences through Tibetan Buddhist practice calls for a deeper conversation between feminism and Tibetan Buddhism on the basis of real life experiences, heterogeneity, particularity, differences and human conditions. The existing scholarly conversation between feminism and Tibetan Buddhism tends to be grounded in the perspective of Western women. Non-Western women like me have remained almost silent in expressing their reality through feminist-Buddhist lenses. My thesis presents the voice, representations, and experience of a non-Western woman through a creative-critical autoethnography. As a non-Western woman I found that without an epistemic disobedience to colonial aspects of knowledge I cannot speak in the academic area where Eurocentric and masculine approaches dominate in producing knowledge. Taking an arts-based and bricolage approach, I have expressed an epistemic disobedience to this hegemony through performative uses of images, story telling, archetypes, “fictocriticism”, and performative writing. Through this alternative paths, I explored how Tibetan Buddhism and feminism interact in an in-between space where the categories, binaries, cultural dichotomy and identities become fluid and non-dual. This is a space of multiplicity and ambivalence, a space that cannot be completely captured or defined; but can be demonstrated, articulated and interpreted. This in-between space gives birth to more open-ended questions, thoughts and possibilities for an enriched ongoing conversation between feminism and Tibetan Buddhism. 10 This page intentionally left blank 11 TABLE OF CONTENTS TOWARDS A CONVERSATION .............................................................................................................................. 14 “TIBETAN BUDDHISM”: THE NON- HEGEMONIC GAZE ................................................................................ 43 IN SEARCH OF DEEPER CONVERSATION BETWEEN TIBETAN BUDDHISM AND FEMINISM ................ 77 THE ART OF SEEING ............................................................................................................................................. 106 4.1. Multivocality and the Dialogic Space ............................................................................................................ 112 4:2. “Method of Madness” .................................................................................................................................... 129 4:3. Quest for the Alternative Pathways ................................................................................................................ 137 FEMINISM AND TIBETAN BUDDHISM IN AN IN-BETWEEN SPACE ........................................................... 173 STORIES WITHIN THE STORY ............................................................................................................................. 228 6:1. Myths, Archetypes, Metaphors and Our Story ............................................................................................... 231 6:2. The Story of an Ordinary Woman .................................................................................................................. 253 CALLIGRAPHY IN ONE STROKE ........................................................................................................................ 307 References ................................................................................................................................................................. 340 12 This page intentionally left blank 13 CHAPTER 1 TOWARDS A CONVERSATION Prologue Laurel Richardson argues, ‘no matter how we stage the text, we – the authors – are doing the staging’ (1992, p. 131). The postmodern, poststructural and postcolonial schools of thoughts always investigate this backstage
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