I agree, there is very little content, but what there is is very powerful. It seems as if there was a higher bar for inclusion. The many âgenericâ suttas just mention the monks, but the suttas with women are almost always quite exceptional. Many of theseâlike the cart simile of Vajiraâhave become classics and are often quoted in commentaries.
This reminds me of MN.146, Nandakovada Sutta where a lot very powerful similes are found.
With Metta
Thank you for this. I just spent some time reading some of the suttas âwithâŚâ and theyâre wonderful and striking.
Thatâs interesting. Unsurprisingly, even in the Buddhaâs time, women had to be undeniably exceptional to get the recognition they deserved, while, arguably, some of the monks didnât have to be to be included in the canon.
Thatâs a great teaching on anatta. Everyone should read it (SN 5.10) if they havenât already. Itâs really short.
Thank you, bhante.
This reminds me of the Culavedalla Sutta (MN 44) given by Bhikkhuni Dhammadinna in response to a series of challenging questions posed by lay follower VisÄkha. Fun note: According to the commentaries, VisÄkha was her former husband.
Much appreciation for the sutta references in this thread.
Contentment.
This forum has seen its fair share of discussions about gender, biological sex and the Buddhism. One of the things that came up frequently and that I personally found relatable was that when you become awakened you transcend the whole gender thing, your gender becomes ultimately irrelevant. It is no longer making you cling to existence and at best is just lingering somewhere on the furthest fringes of your awakened psyche.
If we agree on that, it doesnât matter whether the arahant giving the teachings in a particular sutta is male, female, non-binary or anything else. What matters are the teachings, not the teacherâs gender. It means there are no male or female perspectives both in the Thera- and Therigata, as the awakened monks and nuns were neither male nor female.
Yes, there are far less âfemaleâ suttas than âmaleâ ones and we all know why. So what?
I mean, we cannot do both. We canât maintain that it doesnât matter, which gender an enlightened being used to identify as, and at the same time be interested in which teachings were given specifically by biological women. It is irrelevant, just as the the colour of the Buddhaâs eyes, Ven. Mahamoggallanaâs skin colour or Ben. Dhamadinnaâs former familial relationship with VisakhÄ or absence thereof.
For me, it is far more important that we maintain this indifference to the gender of our monastic teachers today. We all should finally accept there are women who want to be nuns, who want to transcend their gender and sex, and after these women have been given an equal opportunity with men to leave a householderâs life, we should stop caring about their gender at all. Imagine there finally are equal opportunities for men and women to join the Sangha, and women would be underrepresented among the monastic teachers. Or men would be underrepresented and women would dominate the Dhamma talk scene. I wouldnât care both ways.
Sorry if I am coming across harsh or impolite, it really was not my intention to criticize you, I know you are coming from a good place and I donât want to blame you for that It is probably my personal obsession that I have to be consistent in my views that has made me write this post
Mostly i agree, but knowing that full ordination in Theravada monasticism is still recently restored, and not with the equanimity which i expected 30 years ago, makes me think, how did it get here? May hate/fear, attachment/repulsion, ignorance be eradicated, by diligent practice.
Likewise, by abstract principle Iâm highly aligned to where youâre coming from, but in addition to ERoseâs important point, I think itâs also worth remembering that the reasons why we are interested in the teachings of the arahants is because we ourselves are not awakened beings and we are still caught up in all sorts of delusions.
When we look to these spiritually perfected beings, one of the things we might think to ourselves is, âwell, nice for you that you broke out of samsara, but how does that relate to me and my continued suffering?â The broader the pool of âbackstoriesâ, the greater the possibility that someone might be able to relate their own situation to that of someone who made the journey to the further shore and gain confidence that âthis liberating teaching applies to me, too.â
Gender and race should be irrelevant, but itâs not for those who have to deal with harassment, bigotry, getting paid less, etc because of it. For as long as there are personal distinctions and experiences among people of different genders and races, these distinctions should be respected, and their experiences should be heard. One of the points of representation is to give voice to everyoneâparticularly those who have been pushed to the margins of their society.
Youâre welcome.
This forum has also seen its fair share of @vstakanâs views on gender, biological sex etc.
I have to say I agree with the conclusion you reached yourself!
As this is user-generated content it reflects the interests of people using the site. Itâs fair to say that D&D is certainly making up now for the rather one sided gendered view that weâve had of Buddhism for the last few thousand years.
Inside the DD âbubbleâ we might think this way. However the world outside is rather gendered.
i donât think that âmaking upâ for misogyny is possible. It has caused great suffering and entanglements for so many beings (of all possible flavors).
However, patiently eradicating hate fear greed and ignorance is possible for each and everyone imo. Even those which manifest sometimes in gendered views.
In MN 68, the Buddha clarifies why he proclaims the spiritual attainment of his disciples. He doesnât do this for superficial reasons, but to inspire others by their example.
I think this is one of only two times that laywomen are specifically mentioned in the Majjhima Nikaya.â Regardless, itâs made clear in the context of this sutta that although laywomen arenât mentioned as frequently in the texts (perhaps to not offend the prejudices of the era), the teachings are indeed for everyone. Thereâs no distinction made here between the spiritual attainments possible for male or female lay followers.
Take a laywoman who hears this: âThe laywoman named so-and-so has passed away. The Buddha has declared that, with the ending of the five lower fetters, sheâs been reborn spontaneously and will become extinguished there, not liable to return from that world.â And sheâs either seen for herself, or heard from someone else, that that sister had such ethics, such qualities, such wisdom, such meditation, or such freedom. Recollecting that laywomanâs faith, ethics, learning, generosity, wisdom, she applies her mind to that end. Thatâs how a laywoman lives at ease.
Bhikkhu Bodhi footnote:
It should be noted that whereas the declarations of attainment made by monks and nuns begin with arahantship, those for men and women lay followers begin with non-returning. Though early Buddhism recognises the possibility of lay persons attaining arahantship, in all such cases attested to in the Nikayas, they do so either when on the verge of death or just before requesting admission into the Sangha.
It matters a great deal that there are these disparities in the sutras. It is essential that we understand the historical reasons for them, and the terrible effects the negative and limiting views of and discriminatory treatment and rules for women (and other groups) have hadâand continue to have throughout the world today.
For instance, by some estimates ~100 million female fetuses have been aborted in Asia since the sonogram became available in the early 80s. Negative of women and womenâs potential are the primary source of this practice⌠and Buddhism is one of the primary sources of those views.
Practitioners need to understand that the voices we âhear/readâ in the sutras (including what is presented as the Buddhaâs âvoiceâ) are those of different people in the early sanghas⌠who had very different agendas, and VERY different understandings of Buddhism, practice, etc. Some of those âvoicesâ are downright evil. Some enlightened. A great majority of Buddhists in Asia believe that every word attributed to the Buddha in the sutras --even every word in the sutrasâis perfect and true and factualâŚ
The view that any gender disparities in the sutras is unimportant and irrelevant is common in Asia, and it is one of the main reasons why so little has changedâŚwhy almost no one DOES anything to bring an end to the hatefulness and oppression.
Itâs common for people say ânone of this matters, woman are inferior, and anyway everything is empty/perfect⌠if you talk about gender you are clearly unenlightened and attached to genderâ etc. etc. etc.
But Buddhistsâ attitudes toward women and treatment of women (and the laity and people of other religions/sects/and often nationalities, and the poor/sick/unfortunate and many other groups) in Asia are often DEEPLY hateful and discriminatory and oppressive. ⌠the views of women almost always are.
Those who are hurt are not just the targets of the negative views and treatment. EVERYONE is harmed. The perpetrators of the discrimination have the heaviest karma in this type of karmic system, in fact.
And after all, in the case of women, we are talking about every personâs mother (and sister, wife, friend, colleague, co-worker⌠) When womenâs status is low and when they are oppressed it has all kinds of negative effects on their children⌠and the entire planet. ⌠wars result from leaders who are cruel and hateful in part because of bad parenting.
Do to all this negativity, cruelty, indifference and oppression, what is conventionally referred to as âBuddhismâ in Asia, is in fact, for the most part, its antithesis.
Please read the following articles to understand further why it is so important for all Buddhist to discuss this issue and understand it and spread the word and act to ensure that the negative views are transformed, and the discrimination brought to an end⌠and itâs important to know what some of the major consequences of the inequality have been:
Alan Sponberg âAttitudes toward Women and the Feminine in Early Buddhismâ
Allison Goodwin - Right View, Red Rust and White Bones: A Reexamination of Buddhist Teachings on Female Inferiority
Sujatoâs work (maybe write to ask Sujato about it as he probably has some important new writings on the subject)
Analayo - âWomenâs Renunciation in Early BUddhismâ in a book by Jampa Tsedroen and Thea Mohr called âDignity and Disciplineâ
Ouyporn Khuankaew - Buddhism and Domestic Violence
Practitioners need to understand that the voices we âhear/readâ in the sutras (including what is presented as the Buddhaâs âvoiceâ) are those of different people in the early sanghas⌠who had very different agendas, and VERY different understandings of Buddhism, practice, etc. Some of those âvoicesâ are downright evil. Some enlightened. A great majority of Buddhists in Asia (and quite a number in the West) believe that every word attributed to the Buddha in the sutras --even every word in the sutrasâis perfect and true and factualâŚ
There are many âvoicesâ in the sutras that declare monastics to be
âsuperiorâ⌠but the essential core teachings totally contradict those teachings.
Check out Soma Sutta âAnyone who thinks Iâm a woman or Iâm a man or Iâm ANYTHING AT ALL is fit for Mara to addressâ
and the MANY ESSENTIAL teachings on nondiscrimination such as:
âAnyone who thinks Iâm superior or Iâm inferior or Iâm equal does not understand things as they areâ (we are interconnected and interdependent⌠not separateâŚ)
(Read Allison Goodwin Right View Red Rust and White Bones⌠There is a section on those teaching in that article.)
I lived in Asia for 7 years and found the monastics to generally hold far more entrenched negative views of women than the lay people. Their ego identities are also more entrenched in those beliefs.
The vast majority of the teachers in Asia are monks and nunsâand so they are also thus more responsible for perpetuating the negative views of women and MANY other groups, and the discrimination against women and other groups.
Itâ VERY common for monastics in Asia and the West to have an entrenched view that they are superior to the laity, to women, to people of other religions and sects. etc⌠and to look down on those people and treat them as inferior, oppress them on that basis. Thus Buddhism becomes a means of building up the ego and harming and oppressing others.
It is easy to see that such practitioners are not superior, though they believe themselves to beâŚand convince others that they are.
People who are very disciplined fantastic meditators, and able to discipline themselves in many other ways, are often evil, petty, small minded and highly attached to various identities.
If we look at the effects of the belief that âI am a superior practitionerâ or âXYZ types of people are superiorâ we can see that they are not conducive to the abandonment of ego attachment. (They can also cause people to blindly follow the supposedly superior sorts.)
As the Sutra of Hui Neng says: âThe mind should be used in such a way that it is free of ANY attachment.â
Thank you for your input Sila
I agree in principle with the many great points you make, but I canât really support statements like the ones quoted above. While I think that the discrimination you talk about is a proven fact, I find that they are often not âheardâ, by those to whom they may apply. What I mean by that is that I am certain that no-one would identify themselves as being âevil, petty, small minded, and highly attached to various identitiesâ. As a result they pick up on the language and either just write off the message, or engage in endless debates about if it is true etc.
Often these (and indeed any) conditioned views are completely invisible to the individual. What is needed is to find ways of drawing back the curtain of views that are severe hindrances to both the individual and to other beings, to the reduction of suffering and liberation.
For example, I heard a really wonderful way of getting the message across that âwomen who wear clothing that displays their physical attractiveness are asking to be sexually assaultedâ. A simile was presented that said if âa man wears and expensive watch, he is asking for, and deserves to be, robbedâ. All of a sudden it becomes about universal human rights⌠that you have a right for your body or possessions to be safe⌠Until there was a way to effectively communicate the issue in a way that they could identify with, there was no effective way to get insight.
In the case of discrimination of women in following the Buddhas path⌠we need ways to enable the ones who propagate this behaviour and cultural customs - to actually see for themselves, to ârealiseâ - firstly that these hindrances are within them and then to alter their behaviour. It is as the Buddha says, intellectual knowledge is not enough, one needs to see and know the dhamma for oneself.
Please understand, I 110% support the need for more understanding, compassion and change in practice, in a great many (most) situations. I am just concerned that dialogue about this, results in a coming closer together of the 4 fold Sangha, and not in greater division and polarisation of views.
In many ways, I think that the more men who realise this is the situation, and speak out, then the more others may be jolted out of their blindness, and gain a clearer view and greater insight into the negative effect of millenia of conditioning. It is a very hard thing to see through such entrenched views, unless one has experienced the result of it personally. There are quite a few who have demonstrated not only the capacity to do this, but courage and commitment in acting on these realisations, Bhante being one of them. We just need more.
Indeed I see this as benefiting those individuals with harmful entrenched, and as yet masked, views, as well as buddhist women and all beings. IMO this is the fundamental work of the N8fP - to demolish the hindrances that guarantee continued suffering and continual rebirth.
With respect and Metta
This is kinda off-topic.
In the suttas, non-returner status is presentedârather consistentlyâas the ideal for lay followers. I believe Bhikkhu Bodhiâs footnote was simply highlighting this point. It wasnât saying that monastics are superior.
Additional sutta references can be found here.
sadhu, sadhu, sadhu. Thank you.
Itâs taken me almost a month to work up the courage to respond to this question, as Iâm sure Iâll get accused of being delusional and willfully ignorant of this or that teaching, but Iâve never felt the need for an explicitly female voice in the suttas. I was raised to believe that my mind is every bit as good as the mind of any given male and I have conducted myself with that belief for all of my 49 years. As such, I choose to ignore any sutta that suggests otherwise, and will happily extrapolate teachings that specify a male audience to include myself and all others.
Where I am inclined to see more female representation is in living examples of good dhamma practice, including, but not limited to, bhikkhunis.