Gender, Identity and Tibetan Buddhism

Gender, Identity and Tibetan Buddhism is a cross-cultural study which creates links between the symbolic representations of gender in the philosophy of Tibetan Buddhism and contemporary thinking in relation to identity politics and inter subjectivity. It traces some of the important cultural factors in the representations of gender in Tibet’s archaic images, its monastic institutions, and in the symbolic space allocated to the male and the female in its religion. An in the light of Tibetan Buddhism’s popularity in the west, June Campbell raises important questions concerning the potential uses and abuses of power, authority and secrecy in the sexual practices of Tibetan Tantra, now that its teachings are being disseminated throughout the world. Taking a psychoanalytical perspective, the author elucidates the dynamic interrelationship between the inner lives of individuals, their gender identities in society, and the belief systems which communities create, both east and west.