Kritik am Buch „The Shadow Of The Dalai Lama ... - Neues von Shi De

developed in Tantrism available for themselves and other women, that is, who are
pursuing a gynocentric project.
Outside of these groups one individual towers like a monolith and is highly revered and called as a
witness by all four: Alexandra David-Neel (1868–1969). At the start of this century and under the
most adventurous conditions, the courageous French woman illegally traversed the Tibetan highlands.
She was recognized by the Tibetans as a female Lama and — as she herself notes — revered as an
incarnation from the “Genghis Khan race”. (quoted by Bishop, 1989, p. 229).
In 1912 she stood before the Thirteenth Dalai Lama as the first western woman to do so. Despite her
fascination with Tibet and her in depth knowledge of the Lamaist culture she never allowed herself to
become completely captivated or bewitched. When it appeared there would be a second audience with
His Holiness, the Frenchwoman, the daughter of a Calvinist father and a Catholic mother, said : “I
don't like popes. I don't like the kind of Buddhist Catholicism over which he presides. Everything
about him is affected, he is neither cordial nor kind” (Batchelor, 1994, p. 311).
Alexandra David-Neel had both a critical and an admiring attitude towards Lamaism and the tantric
teachings. She was also repulsed by the dirty and degrading conditions under which the people of
Tibet had to live, and thus approved of the Chinese invasion of 1951. On the other hand, she was so
strongly attracted to Tibetan Buddhism that she proved to be its most eager and ingenious student. We
are indebted to her for the keenest insights into the shady side of the Lamaist soul. Today the author,
who lived to be over 100, has become a feminist icon.
Let us now take a closer look at the four orientations of women towards Lamaism described above:
1. The supporting group first crystallized out of a reaction to the other three positions mentioned. It
has solely one thing in common with a “feminist” stance, namely that it’s proponents dare to speak
out in matters of religion, which was very rarely permitted of Tibetan women in earlier times. The
group forms so to speak the female peace-keeping force of patriarchal Buddhism. Among its members
are authors such as Anne Klein, Carole Divine, Pema Dechen Gorap, and others. Their chief argument
against the claim that woman are oppressed in Vajrayana is that the teaching is fundamentally
sexually neutral. The Dharma is said to be neither masculine nor feminine, the sexes forms of
appearance in an illusionary world. Karma Lekshe Tsomo, a Buddhist nun of western origin, thus
reacts to modern radical feminist current with the following words of rejection: “A growing number
of women and also some men feel the need to identify enlightenment with a feminine way. I reject the
idea that enlightenment can be categorized into gender roles and identified with these at all. ... Why
should the awareness be so intensely bound to a form as the genitals are?” (quoted by Herrmann-
Pfand, 1992, p. 11). With regard to the social situation of women in the Tibet of old, the authors of the
first group proclaim, in comparison with those in other Asian countries they enjoyed the greatest
freedoms.
2. The discrimination against the female sex in all historical phases of Buddhism is, however, so
apparent that it has given rise to an extensive, in the meantime no longer surveyable, literature of
feminist critiques, which very accurately and without holding back unmask and indict the system at
all levels. For early Buddhism, it is above all Diana Y. Paul who has produced a sound and significant
contribution. Her book, Women in Buddhism, has become a standard work in the meantime.