As thousands of Buddhist women gathered in Honolulu for the World Buddhist Women's Convention this week, the Lady Noriko Ohtani, president of the sponsoring organization, said Buddhists worldwide need to reach out to younger members.

Ohtani, president of the Jodo Shinshu Hongwanji-ha World Federation of Buddhist Women's Associations, gently held her purple prayer beads, occasionally patting the silken tassel as she fielded questions. As wife of the Monshu Koshin Ohtani, head of the Jodo Shinshu Nishi Hongwanji sect, she's married to a direct descendant of Shinran Shonin (1173-1272), the founder of the Jodo Shinshu denomination, which includes Hawai'i's largest Buddhist organization, the Honpa Hongwanji.

The number of women involved in Buddhist women's organizations has dropped almost in half in the past 25 years, yet the numbers of women ministers is on the rise, to nearly one in four, Ohtani noted. She motioned to a robed priest for the latest data: 24 percent of the priesthood is female, though only 2.8 percent of these women hold top positions in the religious leadership.

"However, I foresee more women coming into leadership," Ohtani said in a rare English-translated interview.

The sect is not experiencing the same decline in numbers of Buddhists in Japan as Hawai'i is, Ohtani said; however, the population in general is getting older.

"The average age of women members may be rising," she said. "So generally speaking, (the) traditional Buddhist order seems to be experiencing the same thing (as Hawai'i is).

"Up to this point, it was relatively simple for younger women to take over the organization. Now it requires more effort on our part to reach out to them."

Ordination studies for Jodo Shinshu take place on the Mainland and in Japan. English correspondence courses are being improved, she said, and in Berkeley, Calif., a Center for Buddhist Studies has begun operating as a center of Jodo Shinshu study for the United States.

The group is encouraging temples to reach out to younger women by offering dharma messages that are relevant to them — "not necessarily stiff, doctrinal messages or lectures," Ohtani said.

A mother of four, Ohtani said, through translator the Rev. Thomas R. Okano, that she tried to bring up her children — two girls, two boys — equally, though her oldest son, now 28, is destined to become the next abbot of the denomination. She's passed on the beliefs of the tradition through a Jodo Shinshu-school education, though Shinmon Kojun Ohtani went to a Tokyo university that was more secular.

Ohtani, who is on her first trip here in two years, said she expects her son will serve as an ambassador of Jodo Shinshu to the greater world.