Femininity in Buddhism
Is the religion patriarchal? Are its followers?
Is Buddhism Patriarchal? …An easy out is to say that Buddha and his teachings were not patriarchal, but Buddhist institutions were and many still are. But this is too simple.
That quotation is from an article by the Venerable Thubten Chonyi, a American nun in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and it reflects my understanding:
It’s complicated.
One complication arises from the time we’re living in. As we stumble toward realizing equal opportunity for all, we’re unsure what to do with concepts like masculine, feminine, and, by extension, patriarchal. So, let’s use “masculine” and “feminine” to mean characteristics that are often culturally assigned to one of those genders or the other even though individuals vary widely in the degree to which they display those characteristics.
We’ll start with my a.i. assistant’s summary of the subject:
Buddhist philosophy presents a sophisticated interplay between feminine and masculine principles that transcends simplistic gender binaries while simultaneously reflecting historical cultural constraints.
In other words:
It’s complicated.
Most of us know about Siddhartha Gautama’s first 29 years before he went on a six-year spiritual quest and became the Buddha. What we know, or think we know, about that comes from stories orally transmitted over the centuries, so they vary. Here’s a simple version:
Siddhartha Gautama was born around 567 B.C.E. in Lumbini, near the border of present-day Nepal and India. Siddhartha’s father was the king of the Shakya clan and brought his son up in luxury, mainly behind the walls of his palace. The father, Śuddhodana, was troubled by a prophecy that Siddhartha might become a spiritual leader and instead wanted the boy to inherit the throne. So, he did everything he could to shield Siddhartha from suffering.
Siddhartha married his cousin, Princess Yaśodharā, and they had a son named Rāhula. Still, something drove Siddhartha to learn more about life outside the royal quarters, so he had his trusted charioteer, Chandaka, take him out into the wider world, where he encountered what are called the “four sights”: an old man, a sick person, a corpse, and a calm and serene ascetic. When he questioned the charioteer, Chandaka told Siddhartha that all people get old, get sick, and die, and that some live an ascetic life to seek enlightenment beyond that cycle.
After deciding to find a way to rid the world of suffering, Siddhartha left the palace at night, rode his favorite horse across the Anomā river, shaved his hair and beard, removed his royal robe and jewels, and donned the saffron robe of an ascetic.
The bare-bones story fits the highly patriarchal climate of the Buddha’s time on earth. He displays no regret at leaving his wife, son, father, and friends. He’s dedicated to saving the world from suffering. If we were making a movie about that character in the late 20th Century, we might cast Clint Eastwood as Siddhartha Gautama.
Other versions of the story have him heartbroken but determined. He regrets having to leave his loved ones and is committed to returning to share with them his spiritual awakening. Some modern Buddhists feel that the night he left his family was harder for Siddhartha than the night he sat under the bodhi tree striving to awaken.
Students of Buddhism discuss and debate versions of the story as though it really happened, and I agree, but with an asterisk. It’s real because it exists and has existed in the minds of billions of people. That doesn’t mean that, with our limited human understanding of time and place, it fits into what we “know” about history. In the region where Siddhartha lived, we know that there was a Sakya clan and there were ascetics, but we also know that kingdoms and royal palaces did not yet exist. Scholars question whether the main character in the story was an “actual” person.
It doesn’t matter. The stories are very real. But the reality is plural.
“Plural” and “singular” aren’t relative, but forgive me when I say that the Buddhist Canon is less plural and more singular. The stories varied more over the centuries as they were conveyed orally and informally. The canon—mostly the Buddha’s memorized teachings—has fewer variations because it was transcribed earlier and with greater diligence than stories about him.
As my understanding of Buddhism has advanced and matured, I’ve returned increasingly to translations of those early teachings, where the Buddha says little about his early history and emotions. What he does say is that women and men have the same potential to be enlightened. He ordained women, created monastic communities for them, and elevated some to senior positions in his overall sangha.
One of the nuns the Buddha ordained was Somā, who, in a sutta named for her, clearly proclaims her equality when Māra, the demon who tries to divert people from enlightenment, challenges her. This translation is by Bhikkhu Sujato.
Then the nun Somā robed up in the morning and, taking her bowl and robe, entered Sāvatthī for alms. She wandered for alms in Sāvatthī. After the meal, on her return from almsround, she went to the Dark Forest for the day’s meditation, plunged deep into it, and sat at the root of a tree to meditate.
Then Māra the Wicked, wanting to make the nun Somā feel fear, terror, and goosebumps, wanting to make her fall away from immersion, went up to her and addressed her in verse:
That state’s very challenging;
it’s for the sages to attain.
It's not possible for a woman,
with her two-fingered wisdom.
Then the nun Somā thought, “Who’s speaking this verse, a human or a non-human?”
Then she thought, “This is Māra the Wicked, wanting to make me feel fear, terror, and goosebumps, wanting to make me fall away from immersion!”
Then Somā, knowing that this was Māra the Wicked, replied to him in verse:
What difference does womanhood make
when the mind is serene,
and knowledge is present
as you rightly discern the Dhamma.
Surely someone who might think:
“I am woman,” or “I am man,”
or “I am” anything at all,
is fit for Māra to address.”
Then Māra the Wicked, thinking, “The nun Somā knows me!” miserable and sad, vanished right there.
Regarding this sutta, Buddhist scholar Andrew Olendzki says:
This, in my view, is the definitive statement in the Buddhist tradition regarding the equality of the sexes. Whatever other words have crept into the literature—from ancient times to the present—whatever attitudes may have been expressed by Theras, Lamas, Roshis or Teachers over the ages, this position of thoroughgoing equality in light of the Dhamma is plainly stated by Soma, one of the Buddha's contemporary nuns.
That’s where it gets complicated. To my mind, the Buddha was millennia ahead of his time on the equality of sexes and classes. His predominantly male students got the message on the class but—even during his lifetime—failed to absorb and then pass along his attitude on the equality of women.
The result has been an, at best, uneven and, at worst, scandalous history of conditions for women in Buddhism. Even today, nuns in Asia get far fewer donations than monks and, in some disciplines worldwide, fewer routes to ordination. Lay women in the West are beginning to have more leadership opportunities, but they still lag in the East.
Considering this in the light of Buddhist spiritual mythology can be a jolting awakening to the human capacity for hypocrisy. Theravada (first-wave) Buddhist cosmology incorporates feminine symbols like the Earth Goddess witnessing the Buddha's enlightenment, representing the grounded wisdom of dependent origination, or the cycle of cause and effect.
Second-wave developments, especially evident in the Lotus Sutra, emphasized teachings like the Dragon King's daughter attaining Buddhahood in female form. The Sanskrit word prajnaparamita means “perfection of wisdom” and is embodied in female form. It is regarded as a deity who is the mother of all Buddhas. The female Buddha Tara exists in 21 forms or manifestations, some of them fierce defenders of suffering and opponents of unwholesome forces.
Vajrayana (third-wave) Buddhism systematized gender integration through deity yoga practices where practitioners visualize themselves as both male and female Buddhas. Vajrayana's dakinis embody the feminine as dynamic wisdom-energy that pierces spiritual complacency.
Buddhism is a beautiful tradition that respects the masculine and feminine in all of us. Unfortunately, some Buddhist teachers and practitioners have ignored or deemphasized that aspect of it.
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This is really such a lovely overview. One of the reasons I joined Yana: Tara Mandala was that I felt the divine feminine needed re-energizing and re-emphasizing inside the Vajrayana tradition. I studied for 25 years but found the male teachers I came across didn't quite fit and coming across Lama Tsultrim Allione and hearing her speak on many of the issues of patriarchy was a revelation. I finally found my teacher.