Some places seem to live outside of time.
Vaishali is one of them.
It was here, more than 2,500 years ago, that Mahaprajapati Gotami—stepmother and aunt of the Buddha—walked barefoot with 500 Sakya court ladies, following in the Buddha’s footsteps. They came not to visit, not to praise, but to ask a simple question: “May women also walk the path of liberation?”
This question was asked three times. And at last, the final echo was heard.
For many today, Mahaprajapati is only just beginning to be remembered, including perhaps through news of the upcoming December 2025 Pilgrimage event in India.* Yet for us—Buddhist women from across the world—her legacy has always been alive, carried with reverence in our hearts.
In January 2013, we brought her story home again. We gathered in Vaishali—over 500 women from nearly forty countries—for the 13th Sakyadhita International Conference on Buddhist Women. It was the final year of my presidency at Sakyadhita International. A bittersweet moment. But truly, an unforgettable one.
Before the conference: faith over logistics
In November 2011, just before the idea of Vaishali was fully formed, I had been invited to speak at the very first Global Buddhist Congregation (GBC) in New Delhi. My husband, Dr. Frank Tien, joined many others on a group pilgrimage to Bodh Gaya afterward. But I had another calling. I flew alone to Patna, leaving the organized path behind. There, I was joined by Ven. Thích Nữ Như Nguyệt (Ven. Moon). Together, we rode in a dusty old taxi through the vast quiet of Bihar, heading toward the under-construction Vietnamese nunnery in Vaishali, our potential conference venue.
Was it ready? Absolutely not.
Could it work? Maybe.
And if not? We’d pitch tents.
Vaishali felt unchanged since the Buddha’s time—no airport, no real infrastructure. It was humbling to imagine Mahaprajapati’s feet on the same ground. No roads. No maps. Just faith.
We visited the Thai and Sri Lankan temples nearby, meeting with the head monks, seeking their blessings and support. Step by step, the vision took shape—fragile, but forming.
A thousand things to do and one precious goal
By the time January 2013 arrived, the temple still wasn’t finished. So yes—we pitched tents. Big ones.
Ven. Karma Lekshe Tsomo and I arrived in Vaishali a week before the conference. But even before that, her laptop crashed just before reaching Taipei, where I waited to meet her. While Sakyadhita Taiwan volunteers worked tirelessly—preparing translations, name tags, printed programs—Frank and I scrambled to get Ven. Lekshe a working laptop.
Ven. Lekshe and I had booked the cheapest possible flights from Taipei to Patna: first stop in Guangzhou, then Delhi, and finally Patna. Delays awaited us at every leg: an extra overnight in Guangzhou, long waits in Delhi. Exhausted and freezing, we finally arrived. And then the real shock hit:
It was cold.
Unbearably cold.
I rushed to send out group messages: “Please bring warm clothes!”
But few believed India could get this cold. So when our sisters arrived, they began layering everything they had—scarves over sweaters over shawls. We borrowed all the heaters from the only hotel in town and stationed them under the tents. They barely helped.
Even so, the tents became our sacred halls. Sessions filled with chanting, laughter, tears, and translation—lots of translation.
The cardboard booths and last-minute radios
One day before the conference began, the team hired to set up the interpretation equipment casually told us: “Oh, you need to provide your own radios.”
What? Radios?
So together with Ven. Liễu Pháp (Bhikkhuni Viditadhamma), I found myself running frantically through Patna, a headless chicken with a mission, searching for radios—the kind that could transmit simultaneous translations to our multilingual crowd. Back at the site, we constructed our own translation booths from thick cardboard boxes, taped and stacked with determination. They worked. Somehow.
During my time at Sakyadhita, we had prioritized translation and communication—not only to be heard, but to understand one another. I had even organized four “Dharma Translation Meditation Retreats” to train our volunteers. And here it was: that vision coming to life in a cardboard booth in a freezing field in Bihar.
Safety lights and solidarity
Then came another problem: no streetlights. We remembered the horrific rape case in Delhi that had just made global headlines. We were welcoming hundreds of women to a remote village. Darkness was not an option.
We appealed to the local police, and they smiled: “Sure, sure . . . you buy the lightbulbs, and we’ll install them.”
So, we did. And we fed them well, too. Thanks to that, local police protected us throughout the entire conference: visible, vigilant, and, in a way, part of our extended family.
Cold hands, warm hearts
Despite the cold, the chaos, and the cardboard booths, the conference was rich beyond measure. Our sessions carried warmth that no heater could offer. Over 500 Buddhist woman practitioners (and a few supporting monks and brothers) came from 37 countries gather together. We honored Mahaprajapati not just in speech but in action: in walking, serving, organizing, crying, laughing, translating, and standing together.
From the frontlines to the footpaths, every woman brought something sacred.
As Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo reminded us: “It’s already easy for us. We flew here. But Mahaprajapati and the 500 Sakya ladies—they walked. On barefoot. They made this possible.”
Indeed. Without them, none of us would be here.
A pilgrimage beyond borders
After a week-long conference, over two hundred women joined our post-conference pilgrimage to the Eight Sacred Sites—including Bodh Gaya, Sarnath, and even crossing into Nepal to reach Lumbini.
We retraced the Buddha’s path as Mahaprajapati once did. At Bodh Gaya, we even had an audience with His Holiness 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje. I still like to believe that our peaceful procession of Buddhist women planted a seed—one that may have later contributed to his active support for Bhikkhuni ordination.
At the Nepal border, I remember running back and forth between the visa office and the buses, like a headless chicken again, but this time to make sure no one got left behind.
Not needed, but never gone
That conference was my last year serving as Sakyadhita International’s president. It was the culmination of a long and beautiful chapter, one that I will always carry in my heart.
Now, I sometimes joke that I’m “no longer needed.” But I know the truth: Mahaprajapati is still walking. And so are we.
Her footsteps echo in every woman daring to speak, to serve, to ordain, to rise. They live in cardboard booths, in paper name tags, in last-minute radios and borrowed heaters.
They live in cold tents filled with warmth.
And wherever Buddhist women gather, in sisterhood, in resilience, and in joy, her journey continues.
* “Footsteps of Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī—Honoring Women in the Dhamma” was a large-scale pilgrimage that took place in the third week of December 2025. It is organized and supported by the Light of Buddhadharma Foundation International (LBDFI), Nava Nalanda, the United Theravada Bhikkhuni Sangha International (UTBSI), and the Tzu Chi Foundation, with additional support from the Bodhipakkhiya Dhamma Foundation and the Dhammadharini Support Foundation. The series of activities will also include the production of a documentary in 2026, among other initiatives.
Related features from BDG
Reflections From the Historic Gelongma Ordination in Bhutan
Book Review: Gotamī: A Life Rewritten by the Dhamma
Book Review: The Gathering: A Story of the First Buddhist Women
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