Who am I? A response to the koan “woman” Jean Byrne [Published in Woman-Church: A Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion (Nov 2004)] Buddhist theory can provide a new perspective from which we can understand the problem of how to define ‘woman’. Relating Mahayana Buddhist ideas of emptiness and not-self to a definition of woman allows for the conceptualising of an idea of ‘woman’ which is simultaneously absolute and relative, without being oppositional. Mahayana Buddhist theory shifts the emphasis on gender from being a static category to gender as fluid and boundless. Such a conception allows for social action based on an idea of ‘woman’ without binding all women to an homogenising and fixed category - ‘woman’ - creating a space in which women can simply ‘be’. The question of how to define woman can then become a koan, allowing us to see our true nature, rather than invoking an intellectual crisis. The concept ‘woman’ is a necessary starting point for all feminist theory, yet as Luce Irigaray states, One woman + one woman + one woman never will have added up to some generic: woman. It is my contention that Buddhist, 1 particularly Mahayana Buddhist, ideas of self can contribute to a definition of ‘woman’ which avoids homogenisation by having a sense of subjectivity and self which is somewhat amorphous. The three major Buddhist traditions (Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana) teach that self, and as a result gender, are empty of any inherent existence or identity. From this perspective, thinking of gender or self as static, non-relational and fixed, is to search for that which does not exist. Two key aspects of Mahayana Buddhist theory that assist in resolving what Linda Alcoff (330) names as the ‘identity crisis’ in feminist theory are ‘not-self’ (anatta) and the relationship between conventional and ultimate, also understood as conditioned and