Introduction
Amongst the three universal religions, Buddhism has the good fortune of having a generally positive image in the eyes of most modern Westerners. Unlike Christianity and Islam, the stereotypes commonly associated with the Buddha Dharma cast it as largely compatible with liberal values. This often extends to those Westerners who have embraced Buddhism as their own spiritual path.
These seekers are not infrequently distressed to encounter in Buddhism what, to their minds, are the same retrograde attitudes as those borne by the Abrahamic faiths. The following extract from an epistle by Rennyo Shōnin, the second founder of Jodo Shinshu (the largest sect of Buddhism in Japan) is representative:
“To begin with, being women—hence wretched creatures of deep evil karma, burdened with the five obstacles and the three submissions—you were abandoned long ago by the tathāgatas of the ten directions and also by all the buddhas of the three periods; yet Amida Tathāgata alone graciously vowed to save just such persons [as you] and long ago made the Forty-eight Vows. Among these vows, beyond [promising] in the Eighteenth Vow to save all evildoers and women, Amida then made a further vow, the Thirty-fifth, to save women because of the depth of their evil karma and doubts.” (Letter 10, Fascicle 1, BDK Edition)
What these converts imagine they encounter in texts like the above is an outrightly misogynistic equation of the feminine with “evil”, along with a denigration of the spiritual capacities of women for enlightenment. This alleged sexism in Buddhism may, in the absence of a satisfactory explanation, drive many women (and men) from the Buddha Dharma.
The present essay is intended as an apologetic for the apparently sexist and/or misogynistic statements to be found throughout the Buddhist scriptural corpus and commentaries. This apologetic will reflect a specifically Jodo Shinshu or Shin Buddhist perspective, as this is the faith of the author, but what is argued here is largely applicable to the Buddhist Tradition as a whole. It is not the author’s intention to insinuate, in defending Buddhism from charges of sexism, that Islam or Christianity are any more deserving of being so designated. Rather, others are better qualified to make similar defenses of those religions.
Naturally, this is not the first defence to be made of Buddhism on this score. However, previous apologiae have usually taken the form of some claim to the effect that scriptural passages that appear to denigrate women merely reflected the prejudices of the times. Since we are speaking here of religion, something which guides us to Absolute Truth outside of time, a critical reader may see such an account as suggesting cultural relativism. I hope, therefore, that the following essay, by approaching matters from a metaphysical standpoint beyond cultural relativism, may reassure those horrified by the prospect that Buddhism may in fact be misogynistic, while providing an account nuanced enough to avoid the aforementioned pitfall.
Are women ‘of evil karma’?
Many of the troubling concepts we encounter in Rennyo Shōnin’s letters find their origin in the words of Shakyamuni Buddha. Indeed, if one delves into the sutras recording Shakyamuni’s revelation, we will find not only the basis of these, but also many others besides. Some will even be very surprising to the sensibilities of the modern Western reader. For example, talk of women’s insatiable sexual desire runs directly counter to the persistent Western prejudice, inherited from the Victorian era, that female sexual desire is necessarily dwarfed by the male sexual appetite, if not altogether nonexistent (a prejudice kept alive not only by contemporary misogynists and the public imagination, but also by some aspects of feminist discourse). In what follows I will make the argument that the contemporary follower of the Buddha can rest assured that these prejudicial statements can be set aside while remaining completely true to the intention of the Tathagatha. However, before doing so I will affirm one, apparently, sexist claim.
I beg my reader to bear with me in this line of argument. It is a sensitive issue, and I can only hope that my reader will proceed in a spirit of charity rather than immediately abandoning the text at this point. Before proceeding, I would like to redouble my position that the claim to be affirmed is only apparently sexist.
Rennyo Shonin states, in line with the sutras, that birth in a female body is the product of bad karma. On initial reading, I too found this claim disturbing. However, on deep reflection and consideration one cannot but come to the conclusion that the female body must be the product of bad karma.
the female body is a source of much greater physical dukkha than the male
It would be helpful at this junction to bring to mind Simone de Beauvoir’s concept of the sex/gender distinction, keeping in mind however that in terms of a human being’s metaphysical integrity, the two aspects of are intrinsically interconnected despite their modernist separation by theoreticians like Judith Butler. ‘Sex’, in de Beauvoir’s lexicon, refers to the material body. By ‘gender’ she denotes the socially constructed identity associated with that body. With this in mind, when we read the sutras, we see that when the bad karma of being born a woman is bemoaned, it is explicitly the female body which is being discussed. That is to say, sex, not gender. This is not to suggest, as does de Beauvoir and her successors, that particular gender roles are arbitrarily ascribed to female bodies, nor any intrinsic inequality of genders. Rather, this distinction is here invoked to gain greater clarity of what is under discussion when Buddhism speaks of female birth being a product of karmic evil. It cannot be, as a superficial impression of such passages may lead one to believe, that femininity as such is an evil karma or else this would violate the principle of sexual complementarity.
Shakyamuni Buddha taught that life was characterized by dukkha, a Sanskrit word awkward to translate into English as it encompasses both the concepts of unsatisfactoriness and suffering. It seems obvious that the female body is a source of much greater physical dukkha than the male. On the relatively lesser end of the spectrum women have certain relative inconveniences, like the inability to urinate standing up, smaller bladders and the pain of running without a sports bra. Further up the spectrum there is the greater effort required for the sexual satisfaction of the female body as compared to the male. In addition, there is the greater complexity of the female sex organ and urinary tract which are the cause of more frequent health complications and the attendant suffering. Then we have the rather more severe burdens like the monthly physical and emotional suffering of the ‘period’ or discharges of the menses, which runs through almost half a woman’s life today (or most of a woman’s life in times past – given lower life expectancies) culminating in the climax of the suffering called ‘menopause’ (sometimes preceded by hormonal imbalances that can, in extreme cases, lead to years of crippling depression). In addition to there is the hardship connected to pregnancy. Sore feet, aching backs and much more may be compensated for by the joy of carrying another life within one’s body, but then this too climaxes in the extreme and sometimes life-threatening physical trauma of childbirth. Childbirth often comes with its own cruel postscript of perinatal mental health afflictions, including antenatal, peripartum and postpartum depression, and incontinence. In Rennyo and Shakyamuni’s times, childbirth was a far more life-threatening undertaking than it is today, on top of which women would give birth more often on average than they do today. Added to all this, there is the generally-speaking lesser physical strength of women and their relative lack of anatomic ability to resist the violence of the most common forms of rape. This vulnerability to physical violence, sexual and otherwise, has been the source of untold suffering by women over the ages, particularly in societies lacking the state apparatus necessary for the enforced pacifism that many of us have the benefit of living under.
As Shakyamuni Buddha taught, all suffering is the product of bad karma. The female body with its attended greater dukkha as compared to the male body must therefore be the product of bad karma. However, it is important to recognize in affirming this what is not being said. It is not claimed that the female individual apart from her body is inferior to male individuals, at least in terms of her moral worth. Indeed, as Shinran Shonin[[1]] says, he (and by implication all of us) is not only an evil person, but the worst of people, an icchantika, bound for a self-made hell were it not for Amida Tathagata’s saving power. Shinran Shonin was clearly a man, and if he recognizes as a fact that he is amongst the worst of people, then male moral superiority over women is effectively negated from a transcendent human perspective. In this sense, we can say that Shin Buddhism teaches that women are just as bad as men, not worse. Similarly, we can say the Buddha Dharma teaches that women are just as good as men, and we will return to this point later in this paper.
One may argue that, given the historically (and often tragically contemporary) unjust conditions women are born into, female gender may also be the product of bad karma. In that all suffering is the result of bad karma, this is true. However, the singular focus in the sutras on female bodies and the relatively more contingent nature of this latter source of female dukkha leads one to believe that this is not what is primarily being referred to by the bad karma of being born female. It is simply that, in a general sense, the outer condition of women is differently weighted with dukkha than that of men.
Women’s capacity for enlightenment
This important point about the relative physical experience of being a woman having been addressed, we may now turn to Shakyamuni Tathagatha’s other troubling statements on the female sex. The Buddhist canon is replete with statements apparently deprecating women’s capacity to attain enlightenment. Indeed, addressing these one-by-one would require a book length treatment, given the size of the Buddhist corpus. Fortunately, this is not necessary, as they may all be addressed by way of a single argument. To appreciate this argument, however, will require a brief review of the related concepts of upaya and pàn jiào (判教).
Upaya is the Sanskrit word for the doctrine that Shakyamuni Buddha tailored his teachings to the capacities of his audience. This is made possible by the fact that all the teachings, being expressed in words, inevitably fall short of the Ultimate Truth which is ineffable. That any articulation of this Truth is an inevitable compromise of the Truth allows Shakyamuni to bend and shape the teaching to best suit the needs of the audience. It should, in this context, be kept in mind that all Buddhist teachings are ultimately instrumental in that their primary purpose is not to articulate the Truth, but to communicate methods by which the Truth may be realized firsthand. The famous Buddhist turn of phrase is that the Buddha’s teachings are all fingers pointing to the moon. This means that the teachings read as a whole often appear to contradict each other.
When Buddhist texts arrived in China, usually with little or no context, Chinese exegetes had to make sense of these apparent contradictions, and so devised the system of pàn jiào. Different sects of East Asian Buddhism used this system to interpret different hierarchies of teachings, variously trying to determine which most accurately articulated the Truth and, more importantly, which advocated the most efficacious means for attaining Enlightenment in the context of the current times.
The broad outlines of this hierarchy of teachings are generally similar amongst East Asian sects, although the implications vary widely. The Avatamsaka Sutra is regarded to have been expounded first, proffering (in symbolic language) the direct experience of enlightenment although this is explicitly stated to have only been comprehensible to the most spiritually advanced disciples. Thereafter the Theravadin canon was taught, followed by the far more voluminous Mahayana canon culminating in the Tathagatagarbha Sutras like the Lotus Sutra and the Mahayana MahaNirvana Sutra[[2]]. The Three Pure Land Sutras are considered to have been exposited conterminously with the Tathagatagarbha Sutras (the second Pure Land Sutra, the Contemplation Sutra, was preached at the same time as the Lotus Sutra, while the third, the Amida Sutra, was taught at some point between the Lotus and Nirvana Sutras). While the Tathagatagharbha Sutras may continue to be regarded as the peak doctrinal unveiling of Shakyamuni Buddha’s message (Hōnen Shōnin[[3]] never repudiated the Lotus Sutra as a great teaching, having come out of the Tendai Tradition which holds this sutra as supreme, while Shinran Shōnin’s doctrinal magnum opus, the Kyogyoshinsho relies heavily on the Nirvana Sutra), the Pure Land Sutras are held to be the peak of the teaching from a Shin Buddhist perspective. As efficacious practice supersedes articulation of ultimately ineffable Truth in Shakyamuni Buddha’s mission, the Pure Land teaching is taken to be Shakyamuni Buddha’s true purpose in appearing in this world.
all apparently misogynistic statements in earlier teachings may be set aside as upaya
Having established this as the framework of Shin Buddhist exegesis, we can now address how it is that sexist statements in the Buddhist canon should be viewed. The Tathagatha’s nature being characterized by perfect compassion, his purpose in appearing in the world must logically be, and is explicitly stated by Him to be, universal salvation. That his ultimate teaching should therefore be universal salvation through Other Power is therefore unsurprising. Surveying the Sutras through the lens of the pàn jiào set out above, it is apparent that the Buddha’s teachings followed a pattern of being extremely exclusive early on, and becoming progressively more inclusive later, culminating in the truly universal teachings of Tathagathagarbha (doctrinally speaking) and Pure Land (practically speaking). This gradual opening follows two vectors. The first is from those highest in the hierarchy of spiritual capacity (the Bodhisattvas to whom the Avatamsaka Sutra was expounded) down to the hell-bound icchantikas (whose Buddha-nature is affirmed in the Nirvana Sutra, and for whose sake Amida’s Primal Vow is especially revealed). The second is along the vector of the social hierarchy, from early teachings that restricted liberation to the monastic elite[[4]], down to women, children and non-Indians. The exclusivist elitism of early Buddhism is well attested to in Julius Evola’s The Doctrine of Awakening. As much umbrage as the present writer takes with Evola’s broader thought, he is correct in this regard. It is telling that Evola had little interest in later Buddhism (militarized Zen of the 1940s notwithstanding) and he considered Pure Land to be a degenerate form of Buddhism. We can therefore see that the Tathagatha’s final and maximally inclusive teaching, that of the Primordial Vow and Tathagatagharba, represent His true intent, and all apparently misogynistic statements in earlier teachings may be set aside as upaya.
Shin Buddhism regards men and women as equally good in the sense of their capacity to attain Buddhahood.
The principle of upaya — that Shakyamuni Buddha accommodated his teachings to the capacities of his audience — applies not only on the micro-level to the specific individuals being preached to, but also on the macro-level of the time and place in the world where the Tathagata appeared. To illustrate, it is significant that the Buddha uses a lotus flower as a symbol, which naturally occurs in South and East Asia, and not an African, European or American flower. As is attested to in the sutras (most famously in the Lotus Sutra), even devoted followers of the Buddha were willing to abandon him should his message not accommodate their preconceived notions. So, less innocuously than our example of the lotus flower, it should not be surprising then that Shakyamuni should accommodate the prejudices of the South Asia of that time.
This point seems appropriate to illustrate how it is that Shin Buddhism regards men and women as equally good in the sense of their capacity to attain Buddhahood. As mentioned above, the Tathagathagarbha doctrine is crucial in Shin Buddhist soteriology. The Tathagathagarbha, or Buddha-nature, dwells in everything including, according to Shinran Shonin, plants and stones, let alone women. As articulated elegantly by D.T. Suzuki in his introduction to his translation of Shinran Shonin’s Kyogyoshinsho, it is by the presence of Buddha-nature in all that the establishment of faith is possible. This is explicitly stated in the Kyogyoshinsho to be equally true for men and women. Furthermore, once faith is established, those in whom it is established are said to be equal to Maitreya, in that they are one death away from complete Buddhahood. As this pertains equally to men and women, Buddhism can be said to view men and women as equally good in regard to their True Self.
The 35th Vow
This, to my mind, leaves only one troubling matter, and that is the apparent sexist statements contained in the final teaching. From a Shin Buddhist perspective, there exist two issues in this regard, both centered on the 35th Vow of Amida Tathagata and both referred to in Rennyo Shōnin’s letters. These are the matter of women’s abandonment by all other Buddhas and their supposed inability to attain Buddhahood in their female bodies (the most important of the Five Obstacles referred to by the Shōnin).
Amida Buddha’s 35th Vow, detailed in the Larger Amida Sutra, reads:
If, when I attain buddhahood, women in the immeasurable and inconceivable buddha lands of the ten directions who, having heard my Name, rejoice in faith, awaken aspiration for enlightenment, and wish to renounce womanhood should after death be reborn again as women, may I not attain perfect enlightenment. (BDK Translation)
“Reborn” here is traditionally read to mean rebirth in the Pure Land. This Vow serves as a supplement to the promise of universal salvation contained in Amida Buddha’s fundamental Vow, the 18th Vow, in singling out women. Rennyo Shōnin makes it explicit that this is the basis for his claim that only Amida Buddha has promised women salvation. To modern eyes this vow may seem very disturbing. Why are women so wretched as to be abandoned by all other Buddhas? Why is this Vow necessary, if the 18th Vow has already promised universal salvation? Perhaps most damningly, why must women first transform into men in order to be born in the Pure Land?
If we remember that Amida Buddha is, according to Shin Buddhist doctrine, the supreme Buddha and all other Buddhas are manifestations of Him, then the reason that all other Buddha’s have abandoned women is that their vows of salvation are only provisional vows to lead sentient beings to take refuge in Amida Buddha anyway. From one perspective, perhaps the despair generated by other Buddhas’ abandonment is precisely a means to drive women into the open arms of the One Buddha Amida. From another perspective, it should be pointed out that Rennyo Shōnin also wrote that only Amida’s, and not other Buddhas’, Vow was efficacious for the salvation of men:
…both men and women, [should realise that] even if they entrust themselves to the compassionate vows of the various buddhas, it is extremely difficult for them [to be saved] by the power of those buddhas… (Letter 4, Fascicle 5, BDK Translation)
This then begs the question why the 35th Vow is necessary, if the 18th already provides universal salvation? In response, we may point to women’s likely incredulity in past ages at the promise of being saved on the same terms as men. While the Buddha Dharma, and religion generally, does not disparage femininity as such, this was often was a feature of later Traditional societies (and it must born in mind that, in the grand scheme of things the era belonging to and post-dating the Axial Age comprise a late phase in the era of Tradition). As a brief digression, I would observe that it was this belittling of the feminine which set the stage for the rebellion of the feminine against the masculine. To re-employ an image I have used before to illustrate the hierarchical relationship between the sexes – the masculine is the leading element in the social body much as the head is the leading element of the body. In the societies that Buddhism was providentially intended for, the sexual dynamic had taken much the same shape as that of the well-known figure of the proud academic who, only valuing the cerebral, neglects the needs of his body only to discover as he enters middle and old age, that his mind is ultimately undermined by a sickly body.
Returning to our theme, it is to be expected that women reared in such societies should have internalized such a devaluation of the feminine, and thus be disbelieving of their own potential to achieve Buddhahood. Thus, scriptural statements that literally pertain to all may well have been read to apply to all (men). This is unsurprising in a cultural context that regarded women as less than full adult humans. Indeed, there is also a linguistic reason for this uncertainty. Chinese – the canonical language of most of the Mahayana world – uses the masculine third person pronoun 他 to denote groups of mixed sex, generating an ambiguity. Rennyo Shonin clearly recognizes the potential for such an erroneous reading, as can be seen for example from Letter 6, Fascicle 5:
When sentient beings of this evil world of the five defilements entrust themselves to the selected Primal Vow, indescribable, inexplicable, and inconceivable virtue fills the existence of these practitioners.
In this hymn, “sentient beings of this evil world of the five defilements” refers to all of us, including women and evildoers. (BDK Translation)
The 35th Vow serves specifically to reassure women that they are, indeed, included in Amida Buddha’s promise of salvation.
If it were unambiguous in the minds of the faithful of the time that women are included in the 18th Vow (whatever our current reading of the text may be), why would Rennyo Shōnin feel the need to include this clarification? Similarly, “and evildoers”, refers to icchintakas, severe sinners who were excluded from salvation in Shakyamuni’s penultimate teachings. This is similar to the issue of women in that, given the context of their earlier exclusion, icchintakas inclusion in Shakyamuni’s final teaching was a matter that required explicit clarification and confirmation. This is not to denigrate icchintakas, as it is not to denigrate women, since Shinran Shōnin considered himself to be an icchintaka. The 35th Vow is therefore a necessary addition to the 18th Vow. It serves specifically to reassure women that they are, indeed, included in Amida Buddha’s promise of salvation.
It is noteworthy in this respect that the 35th Vow is only mentioned in the first of the Three Pure Land Sutras. The second, the Contemplation Sutra, was preached to an all-female audience while the third, the Amida Sutra, states:
Sariputra, all good men and women who hear the Name of Amida Buddha expounded by all the Buddhas and the name of this sutra) are protected by all the Buddhas and dwell in the stage of Non-Retrogression for realizing highest, perfect Enlightenment. (Inagaki Translation)
Here, in the final Pure Land Sutra, we see that no distinction is made at all between men and women.
Finally, the critical reader may respond that this is all well and good, but why then does the 35th Vow suggest that women must transform into men before they can attain Buddhahood in the Pure Land? They might point to similar alleged assertions of female equality in the Lotus Sutra. In the famous story of the Dragon Princess attaining Buddhahood contained in that Sutra, the Princess transforms her female body into a male body before becoming a Buddha. Is this not a final affirmation of feminine inferiority?
We can give two answers to this. On a lower level, this may be seen as a compassionate promise of liberation from the greater relative suffering of the female body detailed above, all the more intense at the time of its revelation. A literal, contextless reading of the 35th Vow does merely promise rebirth as a man, and does not specify rebirth in the Pure Land.
On a higher level, one should be reminded of what rebirth in the Pure Land denotes. According to Shinran Shōnin’s metaphysical reading of the Pure Land Sutras, rebirth in the Pure Land means nothing less than the immediate attainment of Buddhahood and highest, perfect Enlightenment at the moment of death. We should, in this connection, call to mind Nagarjuna Bodhisattva’s tetralemma. Nagarjuna Bodhisattva is the first patriarch of Shin Buddhism. His tetralemma refers to his teaching regarding the ontological statues of a Buddha. Nagarjuna says that enlightenment is so beyond our present deluded conceptions, only four negative statements can permissibly be made about it. A Buddha:
A) Cannot be said to exist.
B) Cannot be said to not exist.
C) Cannot be said to both exist and not exist.
D) Cannot be said to neither exist nor not exist.
This serves to exhaust all of our possible conceptions of what a thing could possibly be. To then ask what the sex of such a thing-beyond-conception has is truly facile. We cannot then but come to the conclusion that this is a final accommodation on the part of the Buddha to the prejudices of the times. Male bodies are seen as the best of human bodies, Buddhahood is the best of all things, therefore Buddhas must be said to have male bodies. We might find such an accommodation distasteful, but one can only wonder what absurd modern prejudices the Buddha would accommodate were He to appear in the world today.
There is indeed reason to argue that Buddhism did serve to some degree to erode these prejudices in Asia over the centuries. Under the influence of the 25th Chapter of the Lotus Sutra (which describes Avalokiteshvara taking innumerable forms to save sentient beings, including that of women), Avalokiteshvara and Mahasthamaprapta Bodhisattvas (the manifestations of Amida Buddha’s compassion and wisdom respectively) have come to be depicted as female in East Asian Buddhist art as a matter of course. Perhaps most East Asians today would find the notion that Avalokiteshvara could be a man quite baffling. Some years ago, I told a Chinese friend about the Tibetan doctrine that the Dalai Lama is a manifestation of Avalokiteshvara Buddha. She assured me that this is quite impossible, because Avalokiteshvara “is a woman.”
A final point needs to be made in this connection. If the ultimate ontological status of the Buddha cannot be said to be gendered in any way, it is true that his provisionally manifested bodies are of necessity male. There are good symbolic reasons for this that I have addressed in an earlier essay, “Why Is Amida Male?”.
Conclusion
I hope that what I have written in the above has provided readers with comfort and reassurance that there is in fact no discrimination against women in the Buddha Dharma.
I would like to close with a final observation. The Truth which Shakyamuni Buddha sought to reveal to us is Absolute. That is to say, it is not contingent, and stands outside of time. By very virtue of this fact, however, it is therefore ineffable. In order to gain access to this Truth, it has to enter into time, and be expressed in words. To borrow an image from the Daoists, the Buddha must carve the block for us. This means the ineffable Truth must be expressed in a series of symbols that are necessarily contingent. By symbols I mean not only the concepts expressed in words, but the words themselves (for what are words, but a complex of symbols). In doing so, they are caught up in all of the unsatisfactoriness or dukkha in this world of suffering which we endure.
The Buddha’s skillful means or upaya therefore negotiate contingent socio-historical facts, such as deep prejudice against women. What was historically a compassionate means of overcoming this prejudice in India of the Fourth Century BC and Japan of the 15th Century AD, now becomes a further impediment to accessing the Truth. Perhaps this is a symptom of Mappo, the Dharma Ending Age. The task then of Buddhist teachers in this age is to rearticulate the Dharma while staying true to the primordial content of the teaching, in order to make it accessible to all those possessed of the good karma to do so.
[[1]]: The founder of Jodo Shinshu
[[2]]: Strictly speaking, part of the Theravadin sutras (recorded in Pali) were spoken contemporaneously with the Mahayana sutras, but for audiences of – in the Mahayana view – more limited ability. The Pali Nibbana Sutta was spoken, for example, after the similarly name Mahayana MahaNirvana Sutra. The order given here is therefore only secondarily and imperfectly chronological, and primarily in terms of its anagogical assent
[[3]]: The first founder of an independent Pure Land school in Japan
[[4]]: This could perhaps be seen as a Buddhist analogue to Brahmanism
