Women and Nirvana
One of the accusations of a critic of Buddhism discussed in the previous post -- right before "its primitive cosmology of universe-toting turtles," which still make me giggle -- is "women cannot become Buddhas and must be reborn as men to attain Nirvana." I'd like to address that briefly.
I've written elsewhere about sexism in Buddhism and the first Buddhist nuns. There is inequality in the early texts, although some historians think the more discriminatory rules for nuns imposed in the Vinaya-pitaka were later additions.
Still, after years of exposure to Buddhism within the Japanese Zen tradition I had never heard of a rule about having to be reborn as a man until a couple of years ago. Since then I've learned this was a common belief in Asia for a long time, and still is in many places, but exactly where this idea originated is unclear to me.
I've heard Mahayana Buddhist blame Theravada Buddhism, and vice versa. The belief pops up here and there in some (not all) of the Mahayana sutras. But it is strongly contradicted in other sutras. One suspect the belief is a bit of cultural patrimony that seeped into institutional Buddhism.
Chapter 7 of the Vimalakirti Sutra contains, I think, the clearest repudiation of the must-be-reborn-as-a-man claim. In a passage that reminds me a bit of Virginia Woolf's Orlando (or at least the 1992 film version) a goddess caused the monk Sariputra to appear in her form, and she appeared in his. This was to demonstrate that the forms didn't matter -- "With this in mind, the Buddha said, 'In all things, there is neither male nor female.'"
I say believing one must be reborn as a man to enter Nirvana is silly. Now, if anyone know where one can find universe-toting turtles, do speak up.
Comments
I recall that in his book “Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution,” Ken Wiber refers to the cosmos as something like “turtles all the way down.” I am pretty sure that it’s not in any way a Buddhist reference. I can’t look it up as I am traveling in China right now.
The turtle reference is one of my favorite anecdotes. It’s sometimes credited to Bertrand Russell. Wikipedia has the story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down
There are various native American Indian tales about “Turtle” digging mud out of the river and carrying it on his back in order to make a place for humans to live. I can’t really make a Buddhist connection here, though I can point out that like lotuses, we humans also are capable of blooming in the mud.
I love that chapter of the Vimalakirti Sutra, & it is Orlando-like
My favorite passage is:
Goddess: Reverend Sariputra, the expression, “the Turtles of the past, present and future,” is a conventional expression made up of a certain number of syllables. The Turtles are neither past, nor present, nor future.
Their enlightenment transcends the three times!
Any ancient tradition, certainly one arising from the Far or Near East, is going to contain sexist content somewhere. The question is whether such references or beliefs are central or fundamental. It seems to me that in Buddhism they are clearly not. I suppose it is hard to get around the fact that Shakyamuni Buddha was a man–in ancient India, who else but a male would have had the freedom to wander the earth in search of the truth–but it is nice that the Bodhisattva of Compassion is usually represented as a woman and, in the Zen service at least, is revered as Kanzeon.
Piggybacking off of David’s point, I would add one observation (not my own):
“Construed as the symbolic ‘other’ of the male, feminine images have a potent function in Buddhist literature and practice. Since desire is conceived of as the fundamental cause of human suffering, the female, the paradigmatic object of male desire, frequently comes to represent the entrapment of samsara itself. At the same time, the paradigmatic quality of the male/female hierarchical dichotomy lends itself to numerous other, quite different, manipulations. In the Vimalakirtinirdesa, for instance, a wise female deity transforms the hapless Sariputra into a woman in order to demonstrate, through the apparent arbitrariness of gender, the principle of nonduality. While some scholars would see in this episode both a powerful female figure and the dismantling of gender categories (Schuster), it should also be noted that the female deity might be powerful in this context precisely because she is so unusual, so unconventional, and that gender breakdown might function as such a trenchant symbol of nonduality precisely because the gender hierarchy/dichotomy was so deeply entrenched in Buddhist communities. Herein lies the difficulty of interpreting female symbols in relation to women’s lives: This story could be seen either as empowering women, or as revealing their social disempowerment—or both.” – from the entry “Women” by Natalie D. Gummer in the Encyclopedia of Buddhism (MacMillan, 2003), pg. 901
[Incidentally, she is referring to Nancy Schuster’s “Changing the Female Body: Wise Women and the Bodhisattva Career in Some Maharatnakutasutras” in the Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 4, no. 1 (1981): 24-69.]
Rev. Danny, given that the Vimalakirti Sutra is primarily about the principle of nonduality, I’d say the simpler interpretation is the far more reasonable one. Beyond that, the very idea that an attribute of the skandhas is a requirement for “entering Nirvana” just plain makes no sense and is contradictory to every other teaching I can think of.
Sadly enough, gender bias is a live and well within many branches of the Buddhist tradition, where distinctions are made where no distinction actually exists.
This didn’t begin with the Buddha himself even though he had some reservation about it, but it should be remembered that the intial reservation was not related specifically to women, but also child… how young was to young, ect.
As in all things related to the early Sangha, these issues were addressed as the Sangha developed. Even the monastic rules governing community where in flux throughout the Buddha’s teaching career, only being set into law, so to speak, after a problem was encountered.
One should not only examine the written letter, but also the spirit in which it was given, especially in the area of precepts and the over-all intent behind the establishment of the Sangha in first place.
When all is said and done, it’s just as easy to violate a precept by ignoring the the written letter in its entirety as it would be to ignore the spirit in which it was first given.
There are talks between Buddha and Ananda about joining women in Sangha. We cannot totally say what Buddha told is with any kind of hatred towards females nor to really discriminate. But, if you really see, women are more attached with material world than men. This may be due to their peculiar mental and physical make up. But, of course there are very few females who are much “spiritual” than average man. Also, in earlier days, Sangha was operating out of forests, young women during their menstrual days can attract wild animals with the smell of blood etc. Even in certain temples in India, women were not allowed to go to temples during that period is mainly due to such kind of reasons. Now, the time has changed for good or worse. Now, women also can operate at the same level with the help of modern life style.Also, we should know one thing here, the “Buddhism” we practice here is only “Intellectual”. Not by throwing away all attachments and dependence. But, if these systems are seperated, are they still independent as Males? I doubt. There lies the answer.