The concept and practice of “Family Buddhism” is Doreen's most important contribution to Western Buddhism. She has never been interested in monastic Buddhism.

On hearing and studying the life of Prince Siddhartha who became the "Buddha" or a fully Awakened One in human life, we receive the strong impression that family life is antithetical to spiritual realization. After all, Siddhartha left his beautiful wife and newborn son to find the cause and cure of human suffering. And then, once he became Enlightened, he did not return to his family. He formed a community of celibate monks and taught mainly to them. Siddhartha is also portrayed as someone who had serious misgivings about the ordination of women as nuns or as serious devotees of the spiritual path. Some versions of the Prince Siddhartha story also emphasize his rejection of female sexuality and female Beauty in favour of the sublime Bliss within his own mind.

Early Indian Buddhists imitated Siddhartha's life story, and formed a religious structure that separated monks from women and everyday domestic life. Over the centuries, this monk tradition evolved into a two-tiered social structure in Asia – celibate monks who were "spiritual aspirants," and "lay devotees" who could not reach Nirvana in this lifetime, because they were not able to meditate for long periods of time in the forest. In Theravada Buddhism, it has always been understood that lay men and women are not able to become "Enlightened" because of their secular domestic lifestyle, but can only gain merit for a higher incarnation in future lifetimes, by serving and giving donations to monks.

This arrangement between monks and lay has been stable in Asia from 500 BCE to the present day. The "masses" have been, after all, largely illiterate until very recently. In Canada, however, we need a much different type of relationship between teachers of Buddhism and students of Buddhism. Western Buddhism is emerging as "Buddhism After Patriarchy".