52 BUDDHADHARMA: THE PRACTITIONER’S QUARTERLY
women—they were taught how to fold
robes and serve tea.NARAYAN HELEN LIEBENSON: I had been
teaching at the Cambridge Insight Medi-
tation Center for ten years before my
ex-husband started to teach there as well;
for ten years, it was always my name on
the schedule. And then when he started
teaching there, his name appeared in the
schedule before mine. It was so inter-
esting to have to deal with it because,
of course, it doesn’t matter, right? On a
certain level, who cares whose name is
first? It seems so petty, and yet I saw it
as something that had been internalized,
so I felt I had to speak to it. It’s not just
about me. It’s also about being a model
as a woman teacher, something that so
many women needed and still need.MYOAN GRACE SCHIRESON: I think one
important thing we do is to go against
the grain of being humble and respectful
in our leadership. It’s not just about us—
it needs to be done for other women.PEMA KHANDRO RINPOCHE: It’s so true.
One of my favorite quotes attributed
to Trulshik Rinpoche goes, “Every act
matters; even though everything is empty
and like a dream, every act matters.”
What we do now matters for future
female teachers and practitioners.
I love the idea of refusing to serve
the tea unless the men also had to serve
the tea. It makes me wonder about hownew or younger practitioners are meet-
ing these issues. What can we do in our
sanghas to change how we approach
gender roles and foster equality for
everybody?NARAYAN HELEN LIEBENSON: Well, I
guess I feel it’s changing anyway—gender
roles are getting more mixed up than
they used to be, and there’s a natural
flow behind that change. I remember
years ago a group of young people met
with a very traditional Burmese teacher,
an older male teacher, and it was clear
that to him, women were not as good as
men. Younger people encountering those
attitudes today aren’t going to continue
to practice. They’re not even going to
care about it, because they know that’s
not the truth. Younger practitioners and
younger people are a bit freer in that
way, maybe, than we were.REBECCA LI: I agree that it’s changing
already. And I believe it’s less about
advice than about how we act as
teachers, how we model ourselves. For
example, when we run a retreat or run
the sangha, we can stay away from the
established gender division of labor. In
some dharma centers, there is “women’s
work” and then “men’s work”: the
women are the ones who do the clean-
ing, the cooking, the reception, and
things like that. The men do the leading,
manage the people, teach, and talk in
front of the group. That’s not unique