Feminist shares Buddhist beliefs with UA crowd

Kristy Mangos Arizona Daily Wildcat Sandy Boucher, a writer, teacher, editor and long time Buddhist practitioner, gives a speech entitled "Feminism, Sacrifice and the Buddha Mind" last night on campus . Boucher recently published her third book, Turning the Wheel: American Women Creating the New Buddhism.

"My engagement with Buddhist meditation and teachings has profoundly changed my life," said Boucher, a writer, teacher, editor and longtime Buddhist practitioner.

Boucher spoke last night to about 75 people at the University of Arizona's Economics Building. The UA Women's Studies Department asked Boucher to come from her Oakland, Calif. home for the speech.

Boucher received a master's degree in history from the phenomenology of religion from the University of California at Berkeley. She also joined the nunnery of Parpadua in Sri Lanka.

She penned books on women and Buddhism, including Discovering Kwan Yin: Buddhist Goddess of Compassion and Opening the Lotus: A Woman's Guide to Buddhism.

Boucher's books are required reading for upper-division UA women's studies courses.

During the talk, Boucher told of how she turned to Kwan Yin‡- the foremost female divinity in Asia - to find enlightenment after her cancer diagnosis in 1982.

"When I was diagnosed, I went to Kwan Yin and asked her for help," Boucher said. "I hoped that she would appear and speak to me, but I realized I needed to look for the answer in myself."

After moving into remission and recovering from the cancer in less than a year, the philosophy of Kwan Yin stuck with Boucher. The figure of Kwan Yin is akin to a Christian saint - a being that comes very close to becoming enlightened, but instead chooses to share a vision with others.

"Kwan Yin as comforter, healer and female exemplar has been adopted as a personal deity by a growing number of Western women, whether Buddhists or not," Boucher said.

The most important distinction between Western religions and Buddhism is the issue of sacrifice, she said.

"There is sacrifice in Buddhism," Boucher said. "But the sacrifice is not to a god or a divinity. It is to other living beings, mostly animals."

Sacrifice is an act or action of making an offering of animal life to a deity or spiritual being, Boucher said.

"Jesus was the quintessential scapegoat or sacrifice," she said. "Jesus was deflecting God's vengeance away from us. In Christianity, Jesus suffered and died for our benefit. In Buddhism, all people suffer, but there is no value attached to our suffering."

Boucher was quick to point out that sacrifice is not only an action of the past.

"Children all over the world are sold into prostitution," she said. "When the Chinese invaded Tibet, many monks killed themselves so that the soldiers would not have to suffer the effects of the negative karma."

Although Buddhism is founded on eight largely misogynistic rules, Kwan Yin is a strong female role in the religion, Boucher said.

"The thing that attracted me to Buddhism was that there was not overbearing male figure that people had to venerate," she said.

Latesha Wright, a religious studies senior, said she was "enlightened" by the speech and the fact that Eastern practices were transferred to the West.

"When you are reading a book, there is some distance between you and the book," she said. "The discussion gave me a clarification of things I had read, as well as demonstrating to me that I should show more compassion toward everyone."

Judith Mc-Daniel, a women's studies professor, praised Boucher's perspective.

"Sandy is an independent scholar, but for me it's important that she has lived the conflicts she investigates," she said. "Her theory grows out of her practice."

Boucher also teaches writing workshops on chronicling your spiritual journey.

"When I think of Buddhism, I feel joy bubbling up in me, I sense the possibility of great clarity and happiness, I remember moments of peace so expansive that they allowed me to welcome and accept everything that flowed through me," Boucher said.