Karuna Dharma (; April 21, 1940—February 22, 2014) was an American Buddhist scholar and nun. She was the first American-born woman to become a fully ordained Buddhist nun in the Vietnamese tradition. She was the abbess of the International Buddhist Meditation Center of Los Angeles.

Biography

Karuna Dharma was born Joyce Adele Pettingill on April 21, 1940, in

Beloit, Wisconsin Beloit ( ) is a city in Rock County, Wisconsin, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 36,657 people. Beloit is a principal city of the Janesville, Wisconsin, Janesville–Beloit metropolitan statistical area (Rock Co ...

, to a Baptist family. She attended the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

where she met Ben Ting Fun Lum. They married and moved to

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

where he was an aerospace engineer for

McDonnell Douglas McDonnell Douglas Corporation was a major American Aerospace manufacturer, aerospace manufacturing corporation and defense contractor, formed by the merger of McDonnell Aircraft and the Douglas Aircraft Company in 1967. Between then and its own ...

. She met Vietnamese Zen Buddhist master Thích Thiên-Ân in 1969 when she signed up for a class on Buddhism. She was one of his first students. She helped him establish the International Buddhist Meditation Center (IBMC) in 1970. She took full ordination in the Lieu Quang school of

Vietnamese Thiền Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overseas Vietnamese, Vietnamese people living outside Vietna ...

from Thích Thiên-Ân in 1976. This made her the first fully ordained female member of the Buddhist monastic community in the U.S. Following Thích Thiên-Ân's death in 1980, she succeeded him in directing the International Buddhist Meditation Center. Karuna Dharma used the International Buddhist Meditation Center to assist Vietnamese refugees and was greatly influential in their resettlement in the United States following the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...

. Dharma interpreted the Prātimokṣa's prohibition on sexual misconduct as not applying to people in a committed relationship. She estimated at one point that one third of the community at IBMC was lesbian or gay. During Venerable Karuna Dharma's lifetime, she ordained nearly 50 bhikkhunis and hundreds of Buddhist clergy and laity. She served as president of the American Buddhist Congress and vice president of the College of Buddhist Studies and the Buddhist Sangha Council of Southern California. She founded Sakyadhita, the Buddhist-Catholic dialog, the Buddhist Sangha Council of SoCal, and the Inter-religious Council of SoCal. She had two daughters, Chrystine and Elan from a previous marriage prior to ordaining as a nun. Venerable Karuna Dharma died on February 22, 2014, from complications of Alzheimer's disease.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dharma, Karuna 1940 births 2014 deaths American Buddhist nuns American Zen Buddhists People from Beloit, Wisconsin Thiền Buddhists University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni Zen Buddhist nuns 20th-century Buddhist nuns 20th-century American nuns 21st-century Buddhist nuns 21st-century American women