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Buddhist Teachings About Women
What does Buddhism say, in particular, about the nature and role of women? The teachings of Buddhism are much debated in this regard. There are people who will wholeheartedly maintain that Buddhism is a patriarchal religion that oppresses women. There are others who say that, compared to women in other Asian countries, Buddhism is helpful to women because it teaches that women, just as men--through the working out of their own karma--can achieve enlightenment. Yet others would suggest that the question of male and female is irrelevant to Buddhism and to explore this is to deviate from the main spiritual teachings of the tradition. Women such as Ajaan Parichart of Mahidol University, maintain that if women are to be released from their particular struggles in Thailand: poverty, HIV/AIDS, religious discrimination, in particular, they should argue not on the basis of equal rights, but for equal value, because this can be supported through the teachings of Buddhism and is not as controversial and threatening as a call for equal rights. The Buddhist texts themselves speak of women in terms of two primary forms: women as symbols of something higher than the self, embodying forces central to life and death and women as flesh and blood realities. (Tomo, 1999) They also utilize, just as do all the other world religions, three primary categories for women: temptress, mother, and mystic. (Tomo, 1999) Here are some texts that illustrate how Buddhist texts portray women as temptresses:
Why can't women embark in business/court? Buddha said: Women folk are
Uncontrolled, envious, greedy, weak in wisdom, Ananda. (Anguttar Nikaya II.81)
According to the Agganna Sutra, a mythological story of the development of human society, creation began when "self-luminous" being descend to earth from he world of radiance. As increasing craving developed, so did private property, division of labor and elected rulers. As it progressed, the beings gradually loft their luminosity and they took on the matter of earth, with sexual differentiation playing a big part in this "fall." At first the beings had been neither male nor female, but as they began to eat solid food, cravings developed along with gender differentiation and sexual attraction which becomes an integral part of samsara. (Tomo, 1999) Samsara is the cyclic wheel of existence from birth, to death, to rebirth that is fueled by karma and creates the unsatisfactory nature of existence that the Buddhists know as dukkha. Sexuality is seen as a potential cause of anarchy because it is motivated by this craving. Thus, a sense of shame and blame is used to protect the world from lawlessness. "Without it," according to the teachings, "promiscuity such as exists among goats, sheep, fouls, swine, dogs, and jackals." (AN I.50) Sex is therefore linked to the sensuality that is linked with desire that fuels karma and thus binds humans to rebirth and the unsatisfactory cycle of karma. Thus, according to the Majihima Nikaya III. 125, the ideal to be emulated in life is an 80 year old monk who never has sense pleasures arise. While sexuality and sensuality are linked inextricably as a major part of the source of suffering in the world, one finds, in Buddhism, discourses that demonstrate the unique ways that women, as mothers, are linked especially with this suffering and, at times, with its alleviation, as their love is held up as a kind of model. Here are some specific teachings about mothers:
Loving care of a mother is an image of holiness. (Buddha compares his two main
disciples Saripatta and Moggallana to a mother and a foster mom.) (MN III.248)
Women are also discussed according to their duties and responsibilities to their husband:
A woman child, O lord of man, may prove even better offspring than a male. For
she may grow up wise and virtuous. Her husband's mother reverencing, true
wife. The boy that she might bear may do great deeds and rule great realms yea,
such a son of a noble wife becomes this country's guide. (SN I. 85)
Many Buddhists see these teachings somewhat of an advance over earlier Hindu teachings about women, because they do provide women with some basic rights. According to Susan Harris, in return for her devotion to her husband and children, she has to the right to receive respect, courtesy, faithfulness, a certain amount of authority within the home, and gifts for adornment. (Tomo, 1999) Just as women are linked with sensuality, childbearing, and suffering, so are women linked with another major tenet of Buddhism: anicca. Anicca refers to the fleeting, impermanent nature of reality. Women's beauty is often used to illustrate this aspect of reality.
Crooked as a rafter, bent, leaning on a stick, going along palsied, miserable, youth
gone, teeth broken, hair thinned, skin wrinkled, stumbling along, limbs
discolored. (SN, II.181)
To make matters even a bit more complex, women are also described in a more mystical way because of their ability, just as a man, to renounce society and take on the spiritual quest. The Buddha reluctantly agreed to have women serve as nuns. He believed that their presence in the Sangha would limit its life by 500 years. According to tradition, his right hand man, Ananda, came to him on behalf of the women who had walked out to his forest temple from the city to request ordination. Here is the Buddha's reply:
If, Ananda, women had not obtained the going forth from home into homelessness
in the dhamma and discipline proclaimed by the Truth-finder, the Braha- faring
Ananda, would have lasted long, true dhamma, would have endured for a
thousand years. But since, Ananda, women have gone forth...in the dhamma and
discpline proclaimed by the Truth-finder, now, Ananda, the Braha- faring will not
last long, true dhamma will endure only for five hundred years.
Once accepted into the Sangha, the Buddha required that women follow 311 precepts as opposed to the male monk's 227 precepts. Women nuns, no longer how long they had been ordained, were required to bow down before male monks who were their juniors. Women nuns were believed to be equally capable of attaining enlightenment as men. In some of the dialogues of nuns, written in the Therigatha, we find them teaching men. From the mystical point of view, seeing men and women as equal in the reaching of nirvana, women appear to be quite capable and are noted for their wisdom, meditational power, dhamma teaching, and supernatural powers. Come O Dhira, reach up and toch the goal where all distractions cease, where sense is stilled where dwelleth bliss, win thou Nibbana, win that sure salvation. (Therigatha)
Some Thai feminists, such as Chatsumarn Kabilsingh (otherwise known as Samaneri Dhammananda) maintain that the Buddhist scriptural texts contain within them male bias and do not adequately reflect the teaching of the Buddha himself since he did not write anything down and the texts we have come nearly 300 years after his death. Furthermore, it is known that there were numerous women who were acting as enlightened bhikkhunis upon the Buddha's death, but no women were invited to attend the council of 500 men who began to establish some basic principles after the Buddha's death. Finally, women have been denied access to the texts because of lack of education. Because the Tripitaka was only available to the public in the Thai language since 1957, women who lack the monastic training in Pali language, were unable to read for themselves and depended mainly on the dhamma talks provided by men and subject to selection and interpretation. (Kabilsingh, 1991) Finally, she and others claim that the Sangha and the government should recognize the ordination of Thai women as monks because "Any religious institution holding a bias against women undermines its claim to be a religion of enlightenment, since enlightenment is impartial to gender, race, or any other distinction" (Kabilsingh, 1991)
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