The Empowerment Model of Women for the Community Development According To Buddhist Principles

Abstract

This article has three objectives: 1) to study ideas and theories empowering women for the development of community based on modern sciences, 2) to study Buddhist principles in empowering women for the development of community, and 3) to propose the model in empowering women for the development of community based on Buddhist Principles. This is a qualitative research done by studying documentaries and in-depth interview of 9 key informants including non-participatory observation.

In the study, it was found that the empowerment ideas of women based on modern sciences in the matters of family, education, economics, society and politics. As far as the Buddhist principles in empowering women are concerned, four sublime states of mind and six directions should be applied to empower family, threefold training and four developments should be applied to empower the education, in economics the principle of virtues conducive to benefits in the present should be applied, in society four bases of solidarity and four virtues for a good householder life should be applied, in politics the principle of things leading never to decline but only to prosperity should be applied.

By virtue of those principles, the ways in empowering women based on Buddhadhamma can be divided into three levels as follows: 1) the first is the learning step; 2) the second is the practice step and 3) the third is the development step; Based on the mentioned application of those principles, the impartiality can be expected to the foundation of the proposed model as ‘LPD Model for Women’ which is in accordance with the data gained from interview of women leaders that the centre of learning had been established by this community and various activities are also provided through modern techniques for creating the endless higher and higher progressiveness.