Preliminary Practices: Bloody Knees, Calloused Palms and the Transformative Nature of Women’s Labor

The Preliminary Practices not only initiate practitioners into a specific tradition, but also more fundamentally, into Vajrayana Buddhism as it is practiced in contemporary Tibet. In this paper, I explore the Preliminary Practices of a specific group of Tibetan Buddhist women in Bongma Mayma a rural area of Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai Province. I focus specifically on the nuns and lay women who utilize this set of teachings and practices. The Preliminary Practices not only initiate practitioners into a specific tradition (that of the Drikung Kagyu and more specifically the Amitabha practices of this lineage), but also more fundamentally, into Vajrayana Buddhism as it is practiced in contemporary Tibet. Although monks and male lay practitioners in this region also tend to perform the same Preliminary Practices, I focus specifically on women because of their unique relationship with bodily labor.