USD Scholar Karma Lekshe Tsomo on the BWA in Hawaii

Temple friend Dr. Karma Lekshe Tsomo has spoken at the Temple and attended our events. She has just published a major article in Pacific World titled “Japanese Buddhist Women in Hawai‘i: Waves of Change.“

You can read the article here.

In the article Dr. Tsomo recounts and celebrates the contributions of the Fujinkai, now renamed .the Buddhist Women’s Association (BWA), to the creation and support of Buddhist temples throughout Hawaii. Many of her points apply to the experience of Buddhist women on the mainland and here in San Diego.

About Dr. Tsomo

Karma Lekshe Tsomo is a Buddhist nun, scholar, and activist. She has been a professor at the University of San Diego (USD) since 2000, teaching topics like Buddhism, World Religions, and Dying, Death, and Social Justice.

She co-founded the Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women (Sakyadhiata means daughters of Buddha) and is the founding director of the Jamyang Foundation, which supports the education of women and girls in areas of the Himalayas, Bangladesh, and elsewhere.

After studying at Dharamasala for 15 years, Dr. Tsomo completed her postgraduate work at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, obtaining a PhD in Comparative Philosophy in 2000. She has published in topics including women in Buddhism, death and dying, Buddhist philosophy, and Buddhist ethics.

About Pacific World

Pacific World: Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies is an annual journal in English devoted to the dissemination of historical, textual, critical, and interpretive studies on Buddhism generally, and Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism particularly, to both academic and lay readerships.

The publication is funded through the generosity of BDK America.