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报 告 33

In conjunction with the International Women’s Day,
YBAM Sabah/Labuan SLC held an online seminar
entitled ‘Women in Buddhism’. The seminar was
co-organised by Mindful Mission in Singapore. The
speakers were the University of Peradeniya Graduate
Student Venerable Lee Jing, the Mindful Mission
Founder Venerable Faxun, the Buddhist College
of Singapore Speaker Lee Foong Ming, YBAM Vice
President Gan Chee Wei and YBAM Deputy General
Secretary Ng Hui Chen. They shared the challenges
and roles of women in the family, society, and the
Buddhist community. 黄慧娟分享如何善用时间，解决女性多重身份的问题。
Ng Hui Chen shared how to make the most of time available and solve the
problem of women’s multiple roles.
Venerable Faxun said that when facing or encountering
gender bias and discrimination, Buddhists should
look at the matters with compassion and educate the
public to not develop such an incorrect mindset. In
addition, women sometimes encounter things that
they are not comfortable to bring up with men, and
this is where female Buddhists and bhikkhunis play
an important role in guiding women and giving them
life counselling when approaching these matters.

Venerable Lee Jing said that the key to Buddhism is
‘self-benefit’ and ‘altruism’. Whether it is male or
female, we must meet the requirements of ‘self-
interest’ and ‘altruism’ when we contribute to the
work of Buddhism. For example, when serving
Buddhism, if women have no time to take care of
their children and bring difficulties to themselves or 李凤鸣谈女性在职场上的挑战。
those around them, then they should choose to put Lee Foong Ming talked about the challenges of women in the workplace.
aside Buddhist work and strive for self-improvement.
When we strengthen our own capacity and our
compassion is big enough, we will have enough faces a problem or feels tired, she must remember
energy to undertake Buddhist work. her original intention, and at the same time, she must
know how to make sacrifices and properly arrange her
Gan Chee Wei said women may encounter ‘bottleneck time for Buddhist work. In addition, women are more
situation’ in Buddhist work quicker than men because perceptive and delicate, and tend to be conservative
of their living environment. Today’s social structure in observing things and making decisions, while men
also puts more shackles on women, resulting in only tend to be more aggressive in risk management.
a few women being able to make it to the top of the When Buddhist work requires decision making, we
Buddhist hierarchy. He hoped that there are efforts should make good use of characteristics of both
to complement each other’s insufficiency when genders to synergise and complement each other to
doing the work of Buddhism in order to effectively achieve better results.
propagate Dharma.
Lee Foong Ming said that everyone should think
Ng Hui Chen shared that it is not easy for women beyond gender discrimination, think about how to
to balance family and work, and to allocate time to propagate Dharma, face the suffering of sentient
manage Buddhist work. She said, whenever a woman beings, and reach out to help them.