Description
Positioned within the study of the global, this paper pulls from a thesis that studies Buddhist feminist thought in the international. The thesis in doing so, also hopes to contribute to building the canon of non-Western feminist political thought but is primarily a project of privileging non-Western thinking and religious thought as alternative sites for the discussion of the global.
The proposed paper discusses the concept of liberation- seen not as one watershed moment but of ongoing confrontation and struggle- as understood in the Therigatha: the writings of the first Buddhist women. In the Therigatha, there are 15 stock phrases of freedom: desire, the ending of rebirth, the destruction of the yoke, the obtaining of knowledge, the destruction of obsession, painlessness, the tearing of darkness, the end of fear, peace, conquest, unburdening, and far shores. Some speak of abstract liberation, others of their own attainment, or of the mediation of an other. In the Therigatha the liberated continue to face conflict. Liberation is continued struggle, but what has changed is the response to struggle. Each of these phrases and understandings is tied to a releasing emotion, embedded in a context of conversion or confrontation. As such, in each ‘confessional’ piece we find a charting of the emotions of the struggle for political liberation. The essay proposes to discuss three distinct understandings: grief, euphoria, and wretchedness using three selected poems from the text. As such, the essay hopes to suggest Buddhist feminist thought as an important set of thinkers for IR, and to reflect also on how the emotions of the Therigatha impact gender activism, identity, vocation and purpose in contemporary Buddhist political thinking, in particular how inward grief and wretchedness has been poured out into a violent and inflamed Buddhist nationalism in Myanmar and Sri Lanka.
