Women have been part of Buddhism since its inception in India, both as nuns and laity. As the tradition progressed, both within India and beyond, texts and traditions emerged that are or can be perceived as negative towards women. Within Buddhist texts, this negativity is shaped around two factors – the construction of a ‘female nature’ that is positioned as inferior, and expositions that identify sexual desire as something to be transcended (for those treading the path) that are or can be conflated as a problem with the female body (as a site of desire).
This article will survey both of these issues from the perspective of Buddhist doctrine and Buddhist ethics (as I have begun to do elsewhere, see Collett 2018). Within this more comprehensive, encyclopaedic setting Buddhist doctrine and ethics are positioned more fully as the (obvious) starting point for analysis relating to gender issues. Hence, once more establishing that if we want to know what Buddhism says about gender we look to doctrine and ethics for the answer.
It is said that water is able to wash away impurities,
But how do you know the water is not dirty?
Even if you erase the distinction between water and dirt,
When you come in here, you must still be sure to bathe!
(Chinese nun Zhitong [d. 1124], translated by Grant 2003: 43. Inscribed over the entrance to the bathhouse at Baoning Monastery.)
The question posed by the nun Zhitong is deceptively simple. Water, of course, can easily be dirty. But in advocating the obliteration of a cognitive distinction between the water and the dirt, for all those who come along to the bathhouse with a desire for ablution, she strikes at the heart of a Buddhist worldview that challenges our fundamental ways of knowing and seeing.
To illustrate this, this article will examine three key Buddhist doctrines and discuss how each relates to the issues of gender and to Zhitong’s probing question. The three doctrines are dependent arising, the doctrine of no-self, and the Mahāyāna notion of emptiness. These are central Buddhist teachings and hence fitting exemplars, but they not definitive; they are central teachings amongst many. Further, doctrinal schema in Buddhist traditions interlace to produce a comprehensive system of thought. Therefore, at times, I also refer to other aspects of Buddhist doctrine and practice.
Both Buddhist texts and Buddhist traditions can claim that women are inferior to men. When this is asserted, the most common reason given is an appeal to the limitations of women’s nature, characteristics, and abilities. In these appeals, a particular picture is painted of women: they are good for nothing but domestic chores; their minds are of limited scope; they are flighty, over emotional, and irrational. In these traditions, women are often characterized as manipulative, controlling, mean-spirited, and deceptive. They mock others and prey on weaknesses. Each of these criticisms are directed to all women, who are regarded as one homogenous group; this is just how women are. It is their nature. They cannot change. And no amount of ‘sweet words’ from women’s mouths will offset these perceived fundamental characteristics (see Collett 2021: 45–62).
But to say that women are inferior to men because of their nature contradicts basic Buddhist doctrines. At its heart Buddhism, as a religion, is concerned with human transformation. The attainment of Awakening and realization of nirvana are possible only because the transformation of human nature into something other – and better (from a Buddhist point of view) – is possible. This transformation can only be conceived of and achieved because of the nature of sentient beings and the nature of the world. Both of these are malleable and adaptable, constantly in flux and ever changing. Hence, an allegation that women’s (deleterious) nature is fixed, static, and unchanging does not marry with the true nature of human existence and experience as Buddhism teaches it. If human nature is fixed and unchanging then Buddhism could not exist, because the quintessential goal of Buddhism – Awakening – would not be possible.
A range of Buddhist texts illuminate these points. The following discussion draws on Buddhist canons and their commentaries, as well as other literature. It will make use of the long tradition of Mahāyāna philosophy, including excerpts from the work of key thinkers. Buddhist traditions and forms of Buddhism in various countries emphasize and focus on different aspects of doctrine and practice. The doctrines focused on here, whilst not consistently and continuously central in every Buddhist tradition, certainly underpin many basic facets of what constitutes a Buddhist worldview.
2 Dependent arising
In Buddhism, the attainment of Awakening and realization of nirvana are possible because, ultimately, change is possible. The way in which change occurs is presented in Buddhist texts in a number of ways. One of the key principles relating to this is the doctrine of dependent arising. This doctrine is important in early Indian Buddhism and the Theravāda tradition and is modified in Mahāyāna; it tends to be known as the doctrine of paṭicca-samuppāda. In Pāli, paṭicca means ‘cause’ or ‘condition’ and samuppāda ‘arising together’. The doctrine is based on the principle that nothing comes into being in the world without a cause. All phenomena arise in dependence on something else. Nothing comes into being independently. The principle can be described as:
When this exists, that comes to be; from the arising of this, that arises. When this does not exist, that does not come to be; with the cessation of this, that ceases. (Majjhima-nikāya II 32, author’s translation)
According to the doctrine of dependent arising, all things come into being and pass away. All phenomena are in a constant state of motion, part of the flux and flow. The doctrine relates to the entire phenomenal world we experience – and, importantly, to ourselves. To illustrate this doctrine by way of a concrete and easy example, here are reflections of a modern Buddhist practitioner on the causes and conditions of one particular plant flowering outside his kitchen window on a particular day:
Despite its seeming delicacy, the Lavatera outside my kitchen window would probably sustain on soil far poorer than that in my garden. It would probably thrive in a climate much drier than the last few damp English summers have been and it is reasonably resistant to pests and encroaching weeds. What it really would not survive, outside my kitchen window, is my not liking it. Plants that I don’t like get no space in this small patch of London garden. If I didn’t like it, it would not be there now. An absolutely crucial condition for the continued existence of this shrub is my desire to have it where it is. My taste in flowers is a significant condition for the existence of that particular plant, and my taste in flowers, of course, is itself conditioned. It depends, in part, on the way I was brought up, so my mother and father and their ideas of good and bad taste are important conditions for the existence of my Lavatera.
If they had taught me differently, it would not be there. Indeed, if my mother and father had not met, at a tennis party, in Johannesburg in 1948 it would not be there, as I would not have been around to have planted it. If my mother had been too ill to attend a tennis party on that day, no Lavatera. Her good health on that day is an important condition in its life. And it follows that if my parents didn’t exist in the first place, neither would our plant, so another important set of conditions for its flourishing is the history of my entire ancestry. (Kulananda 1994: 69–70)
The same doctrine is specifically applied to the coming into being and passing away of the human being. This is expressed as the circle of twelve causal links. Each aspect of a person comes into being dependent upon something else. Although this is presented as a cycle (of existence) it does have a starting point, which is ignorance (in Sanskrit avidyā and in Pāli avijjā). The word avidyā is the Sanskrit word vidyā (meaning ‘knowledge’) with the negative prefix -a. This negative prefix does not only mean the exact opposite, like English prefixes non- or un-. It can also imply something that appears like the thing negated, but is not exactly it. This ignorance can appear as something other: it can appear as understanding, but is not. Each causally conditioned by the others, the twelve links are:
[…] dependant on ignorance, volitions arise, dependant on volitions, consciousness arises, dependant on consciousness, name-and-form arise, dependant on name-and-form, the six senses arise, dependant on the six senses, contact arises, dependant on contact, feeling arises, dependant on feelings, craving arises, dependant on craving, clinging arises, dependant on clinging, existence arises, dependant on existence birth arises, dependant on birth old age and death arise […]. (Udāna 1.i, author’s translation.)
The process of the human being coming into existence, described in these twelve links, starts with ignorance. From this a human being comes to be formed, piece by piece. Consciousness arises, then the human body. The human form gains senses, and these interact with the world. From this contact, desires arise. These desires are both everyday mundane desires and existential ones, including the desire to continue to exist. The human body wears out eventually, but the impulses, mental habits, and desire to continue to exist mean the entity begins the cycle again. The twelve links are taught as a cycle, a cycle of existences, with the human person in constant motion, coming into being, experiencing the world, feeling desire. Every aspect of this process, the process of life and death, comes about dependent on something else. Consciousness, as an aspect of this process, like all of human nature, comes into being dependent on certain other conditions, and it ceases to be accordingly as well. Thus, human nature is not static and unchanging – quite the contrary.
The possibility of the transformation of human nature into something that may be beyond our current level of comprehension is a fundamental part of the foundations of the Buddhist tradition. Without it, Buddhism itself would not be possible. To judge a woman as inferior to a man because of her ‘female nature’ is undoctrinal, according to dependent arising. Typical negative characteristics of women identified in Buddhist texts – that women are wicked, vile, debased, cruel without pity, detestable, devious, weak, lacking intelligence (see Collett 2021: 45–62) – are each aspects of human nature. Human nature is, according to the teaching of dependent arising, causally conditioned. It is subject to constant change.
Therefore, if a person is cruel or devious, their cruelty or deviousness is causally conditioned. Their cruelty or deviousness has arisen, come into being, as a result of a certain set of circumstances or conditions. There will always be reasons why a person exhibits cruelty towards others, and those reasons, like all things, are subject to change. Once those reasons change, once the conditions that have caused the cruelty to arise cease to exist, then the cruelty will cease to exist.
Take as an example a woman who is a wife and mother, whose husband treats her badly, and whose extended family makes constant unwanted demands on her time. They frequently request that she also take care of the other children in the family, as well as her own, never taking her needs into account. They expect her to do more than her fair share of the domestic chores, and criticize her if she does not. They do not value her opinion, nor her contribution to the upkeep of the family. Such a woman might, when under duress, be unkind to her own children, without wanting to be, but because of the stress caused by the treatment she herself receives. But if she were to leave the marriage and find better circumstances for herself that made her happier, the cause of her unkindness would cease. Once the cause of the unkindness is taken away, the behaviour ceases. It is even possible to say, in relation to this, that if a person believes all women are cruel and devious the cause of that may be the behaviour of the person who holds the view. If such a person treats women badly, this could alter the behaviour of those on the receiving end. Similarly, if that person’s behaviour changed, the behaviour of others around them would change.
On the question of low or weak intelligence, Buddhist texts acknowledge that there are some who are less able than others, but also that this aspect, again, is subject to change. In a well-known episode from the legendary account of the Buddha’s life, when he is deciding whether to teach the truth he has discovered, it is said he surveys all beings in the world and sees some able to comprehend his teachings, and others less so:
[…] the Blessed One saw beings with little dust in their eyes and those with much dust in their eyes, with keen faculties and with dull faculties, with good qualities and with bad qualities, easy to teach and difficult to teach, and a few who dwelt seeing blame and fear in the other world. Just as in a pond of blue or red or white lotuses, some lotuses might be born in the water, grow up in the water, and thrive while submerged in the water, without rising up from the water; some lotuses be born in the water, grow up in the water and stand at an even level with the water; some lotuses be born in the water, grow up in the water but would rise up from the water and stand without being soiled by the water – so too, surveying the world with the eye of a Buddha, the Blessed One saw beings with little dust in their eyes and with much dust in their eyes, with keen faculties and with dull faculties, with good qualities and with bad qualities, easy to teach and difficult to teach, and a few who dwelt seeing blame and fear in the other world. (Saṃyutta-nikāya I 136, author’s translation)
This is, evidently, not a gendered example. There is no suggestion that women are the beings blinded by the dust in their eyes. And for those for whom growth is difficult, all is not lost. Buddhist texts advocate activities and exercises that enable a person to overcome their lack of intelligence, such as, for instance, keeping the company of wise friends or learning to ask better questions. On keeping the right company, the Dhammapada says, in a chapter on the wise:
If you see a wise man who
Sees your faults, tells what is blameworthy,
You should keep company with such a one
As a pointer-out of treasures:
If you keep company with such a one,
It becomes better, not worse, for you. (Translated by Roebuck 2010: 17)
According to the doctrine of dependent arising, all things arise in dependence on conditions, and change when those conditions change. This is the case for human beings as well as for all of the phenomenal world. Women are bound by this law to exactly the same extent as men. All aspects of a woman’s character, personality, and nature are subject to dependent arising. The only possible argument that could challenge this would be that women are not human, and thereby their nature is not human nature. As I have noted elsewhere (Collett 2021: 62–64), I have only ever found one instance of this in the Buddhist writings with which I am familiar. And, certainly, this one assertion of a single, unnamed commentator cannot be taken as ‘the Buddhist view’. I have also advocated elsewhere that in instances such as these, rather than taking the words of one author, or sometimes perhaps several, as ‘the Buddhist view’ it is better to understand these as the words of one monk (in this case), who happened to have authored a commentary on the teachings of a Buddhist teacher (see also Horner 1990: xx). There are myriad historical examples of eminent women who did practise Buddhism, made good progress on the path and became teachers, demonstrating – if it needs to be demonstrated – that women, like men, can progress on the path to Awakening and thereby must be human and have human nature (see Collett 2021).
The doctrine of dependent arising offers a way to look backwards at what caused an event to come about in the first place. The same causal nexus, however, applied to a forward projecting model, can account for Buddhist ethics and the Buddhist notion of no-self. The graphic below demonstrates this.
Figure 1. Causation in dependent arising and ethics (courtesy of Matt Coward-Gibbs).
The solid lines represent all of the possible causal conditions that caused an event to happen. The dotted lines represent the possible outcomes of an event that happened today. To demonstrate, let’s say that, today, you told a lie. You told the lie to two people. Your lie affected the behaviour of those two people, and each one of them told other people. Your lie had multiple impacts. Because of your lie, you were not able to sleep, worrying that the lie might be discovered. The next day you were very tired. Your fatigue impacted on your actions. The changes to your actions affected several people, and caused them to behave differently, which in turn had an impact on other people, people you do not come into contact with. In this micrograph that represents just a few outcomes of a single moment, we see that one lie can produce many possible consequences. If we now imagine ourselves within each of these trajectories, that is, the person we are the day we tell the lie, and the person we become as a result of the consequences of the lie, we can also see multiple possibilities with regard to our self – who we are and who we can become. This is all possible whether we are male or female. And whilst some of the choices we make day-to-day might be influenced by our gender to some extent, because we are all human we each have the opportunity to make these choices.
3 The doctrine of no-self
The Buddhist doctrine of no-self has often been misunderstood. The doctrine does not posit that there is no existent self (which would be counterintuitive), but rather that there is no fixed and permanent essence to the self. The term used for the doctrine in Sanskrit is anātman; in Pāli, anattā. From the use of this word we can see how some of the Buddha’s ideas were formed via his response to the world around him. The Buddhist doctrine of no-self was a response to the Brahmanical worldview prevalent in the historical milieu from which Buddhism arose.
A key aspect of Brahmanical worldview is that of ātman, the self or soul that transmigrates. The Buddhist doctrine of anātman essentially rejects this. There is no eternal soul that has an essence that continually transmigrates through lifetimes. The Buddhist doctrine of no-self is linked to the notion of dependent arising; the self, who we are, is subject to change. Who we are is causally conditioned. This is easy to see if we think about our parents, and the physical similarity that most of us share with our parents or other family members. Our physical self, then, we can understand as causally conditioned. With regard to our personality and character traits, some of these we can also easily grasp as causally conditioned.
Early Buddhist teaching on the nature of the self focuses on the constituent parts that comprise human life. Each person is made up of five component parts, usually called aggregates. They are material form, feeling, perception, volition, and consciousness. Men are not composed of different aggregate parts than women. Men and women are made of the same parts. Each of these aggregate parts are impermanent: they arise on the basis of conditions and pass away when the conditions cease to exist. The body begins to form at conception and, following death, begins the process of decomposition.
The English word ‘aggregate’ is used here to emphasize that each of these parts of which a person is comprised are each themselves made up of many other parts. The material body is made up of flesh, bones, tissue, and so forth, which are themselves a combination of the elements, earth, water, fire, air. Feeling is produced from a combination of factors. If we touch something that is hot, our nervous system sends messages to the brain to remove our hand because of the unpleasant feeling. We become angry with ourselves for being careless, or scared of the physical pain and any potential risk of further pain. Exactly how we respond to each experience we have is causally conditioned.
Applying these ideas to the negative statements about women, it is easy to see they do not accord with this theory. The corporeal bodies of men and women are made of the same stuff. The bones of a man are made of the same material as the bones of a woman. Their skin is the same. The components that comprise the human eye the same. A male ear is not formed differently to a female ear. Limbs, joints, internal organs, are all constituted the same. Therefore, for Buddhist texts to say women are foul, as they do (Collett 2021: 45–62), or comment explicitly that the female body is vile, filthy, or base (again, which does occur), this can only be true if all human bodies – male, female, nonbinary – are the same.
Similarly, in terms of negative depictions of women in Buddhist texts that describe their characteristics as deceit, villainous will, manipulation, being mean-spirited, these are all component parts of the spectrum of human behaviour and experience. Each is born from feelings, perception, volition, consciousness. All are impermanent and subject to change. Each person feels, thinks, wills, or enacts such things at certain times. Such feelings, thoughts, and volitions come and go in any human psyche. There are good feelings and bad feelings that come and go. Perceptions alter, moments of consciousness arise and pass away. To say that one woman’s feeling of greed, at one moment, should define her is antithetical to this teaching. To say that a woman has a consciousness filled with deceit at all moments, and for that she should be maligned, denies the reality that change is not only possible but necessary.
As with dependent arising, so with the doctrine of no-self. Both are doctrines central to Buddhism – both are part of a system that advocates that human nature is malleable and subject to change. Human nature is shaped by circumstance and can therefore change in different circumstances. Throughout the history of the tradition, many Buddhist thinkers have commented on the false view of a separate, permanent self. The best-known earliest example of a doctrinal exposition on the nature of the self is in a text in which a monk, Nāgasena, is in conversation with a king (called the Milindapañha). In attempting to teach the king about the idea that there is no fixed, permanent essence to the self, Nāgasena espouses that, in reality, there is no Nāgasena. He tells the king that Nāgasena is merely a word, a name, and if we look and try to find who or what Nāgasena is, we cannot find anything that constitutes this person we see in front of us. Nāgasena asks, are any of the component parts that make up his body the real Nāgasena? Is it his hair, his teeth, nails, skin, bones, kidney, liver, heart, intestines? None of these are Nāgasena, and neither are any of the other aggregates. Applying this to statements about women, there is, in reality, nothing there that constitutes a ‘woman’. ‘Woman’ is an empty word, just as the name Nāgasena is only a name, and if we look we see no entity can be apprehended.
For Mahāyāna Buddhism it is the same. Featuring the laywoman Gaṅgottarā, one Mahāyāna text relates a conversation between her and the Buddha, a dialogue in which she demonstrates complete and full comprehension of his teachings. The nature of the self comes up several times. When the Buddha greets her, as she approaches, he asks her ‘Where do you come from?’ Gaṅgottarā answers that, if the self is illusory (that is, nonexistent), how can she have come from anywhere? There is no self to have done the coming, no self to have been, initially, somewhere else. There is no self within the ‘you’ pronoun in the sentence. She then takes up all the component parts that comprise the human person, and questions the Buddha as to why, when the self is illusory, he persists in even talking about its constituent parts:
‘If all things are empty space, why does [the Buddha] speak of form, feeling, perception, volition, and consciousness […]?’
The Buddha told Gaṅgottarā: ‘When I speak of a “self”, for example, although I express the concept of a word, actually the nature of a “self” is inapprehensible. I speak of form, but in reality the nature of form is also inapprehensive, and so it is with the other[s] […]. Just as we cannot find water in mirages, so we cannot find a nature in form, and so it is with the others […].’ (Translated by Zhang 1983: 37–39, with two changes)
According to this answer, no aspect of our form, nature, or being is graspable or comprehensible – by implication, this includes female nature.
Other Mahāyāna philosophers made similar evaluations on the nature of the self and the world in which we live. The phenomena we experience do not have true substance, are empty perceptions:
Change and no change, suffering and ease, the self and not-self,
the lovely and repulsive – just one suchness is the emptiness they are.
Perceptions – mere words, so the leaders tell us,
Perceptions forsaken and gone, and the door is open to the beyond
Those who succeed in ridding themselves of perfection
They have reached the beyond, fulfil the teacher’s commandments. (Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpārmitāsūtra, translated by Conze 1973: 20–21)
Nāgārjuna, the most influential of all Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophers, also writes about emptiness, and the nonexistence of entities we conceive of as existent:
Those who see essence and essential difference
And entities and nonentities, They do not see
The truth taught by the Buddha.
(Mūlamadhyamikakārikā, translated by Garfield 1995: 45)
Another influential Mahāyāna philosopher, Vasubandhu, even goes so far as to advocate that when a person walks from A to B, the person who arrives at B is not the same as the person who left A. Only fools, he says, see an entity and a thing called ‘walking’ (Edelglass and Garfield 2009: 299–300). Liberation, or Awakening, can only be achieved, according to Vasubandhu, by completely eradicating all forms of belief in a self. In response to a question about why an individual might have the experience, ‘I am happy, I am not happy’, part of Vasubandhu’s reply is:
People of ordinary intellect come to believe ‘I am white; I am dark; I am fat; I am thin; I am old; I am young.’ They identify themselves with these things. (Edelglass and Garfield 2009: 299–300)
Utilizing these categories of existence and experience – ‘I am a woman, you are a man, I am honest, you are deceitful’ – needs to be abandoned for any who seek liberation.
References to other key aspects of doctrine and practice are often conjoined with these philosophical evaluations of the nature of the self. The need for compassion towards all beings is often particularly linked with Mahāyāna Buddhism, although it is present in the majority of Buddhist systems of thought. Any practitioner who seeks to distil perceptions as ‘mere words’, who aims to understand the perceptions of self and no-self as ultimately empty, should, as well, according to this text, have ‘an even mind towards the whole world’. They should cultivate ‘the notion of father and mother’ towards all others. They should have ‘benevolence and a friendly mind’ towards others, be ‘amenable’ and ‘soft in speech’ (translated by Conze 1973: 44).
Another teaching that relates to the doctrine of no-self is ignorance, or avidyā, as noted above. To perceive things that are impermanent as permanent is ignorance. Schools of Mahāyāna do not all concur on the exact nature of ignorance, nor how it manifests in relation to perception of self. But for certain philosophers and proponents of the various schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism, avidyā results in seeing unity where there is plurality, permanence where there is transience, and universality in place of what is unique and particular.
Universality is a characteristic of condemnations of women and their traits, which typically paint all women the same stripe. In reality, of course, each woman, as with each man, is unique. The human condition is transitory, not permanent. As all things are subject to change, and ultimately empty, to say women’s nature is not, and to decry it as static and unchanging is a form of this type of ignorance, avidyā.
For Dharmakīrti, another important Mahāyāna philosopher, who lived during the sixth or seventh centuries, ignorance is responsible for a deluded person seeing momentary things to be lasting, unchanging, permanent. For Dharmakīrti, the false view of a self is the foundation for other aspects of ignorance:
Once [the notion of] self exists, the notion of other [arises and] from this distinction between self and other [is born] grasping and aversion: bound by these two, all the moral faults arise. (Pramāṇavārttikakārikā, translated by Eltschinger 2010: 35)
It is only once we have created a perception of another person or being, separate to us, that we can begin to experience aversion to them.
Śāntideva is another influential Mahāyāna thinker who writes on the nature of the self. Śāntideva’s best-known work is the Bodhicaryāvatāra. The focus in this work is compassion, which is a key tenet of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Advocating compassion towards all beings and at all times, Śāntideva reflects on the nature of anger and hostility towards other beings:
I feel no anger towards bile and the like, even though they cause intense suffering. Why am I angry with the sentient? They too have reasons for their anger.
[…] Beings are by nature pleasant. So anger towards them is as inappropriate as it would be towards the sky if full of acrid smoke. (Translated by Crosby and Skilton 2002: 70, 72)
Śāntideva’s Compendium of Training cites many examples that disparage women. To say that all women are foul, detestable, villainous, wicked, ungrateful, deceitful, morally inept, manipulative, does not strike the same chord that Śāntideva aims for here, in the above quote. Arguably the comments on women are not meant as statements of fact, but rather as a means to disable men’s desire for them (see Mrozik 2007). That is to say, Śāntideva does not truly believe that women are foul and deceitful, but rather that it is useful for a monk to think about them this way. If a monk develops a dislike of women, and seeks to avoid them, this will help him in his pursuit of the goal. Looked at in this way, assertions that women are foul are teachings aimed at monks and other male practitioners. They are not intended as statements of fact. The truth is the relentless need for compassion, and to develop the perception that in reality there is no self, and no ‘male’ or ‘female’.
In a different chapter of the Bodhicaryāvatāra, Śāntideva offers another teaching that is, again, not a comment on the nature of the world as we experience it but a way of seeing and perceiving the world that is useful for the adept, or skilled practitioner, to develop. In this chapter, Śāntideva teaches that the religious adept should practise exchange of self and other. He teaches that we are all connected, and connected to such an extent that any suffering experienced by one entity is suffering for all. Suffering is not ‘owned’ by the person experiencing it; therefore, if others suffer, we all suffer. In Śāntideva’s words:
I should dispel the suffering of others because it is suffering like my own suffering. I should help others too because of their nature as beings, which is like my own being […].
One should acknowledge oneself as having faults and others as oceans of virtues. Then one should meditate on renouncing one’s own self-identity and accepting other people.
In the same way that the hands and other limbs are loved because they from part of the body, why are embodied creatures not likewise loved because they form part of the universe? […]
Therefore, in the same way that one desires to protect oneself from affliction, grief, and the like, so an attitude of protectiveness and of compassion should be practiced towards the world. (Translated by Crosby and Skilton 2002: 130–131)
According to this view – which is reminiscent of the Mahāyāna ethic to not disparage others and praise oneself – even if another person is cruel, devious, ungrateful, immoral, or indeed of low intelligence, the correct response to them is one of compassion. Vilification of others is not appropriate for several reasons:
Disparagement or unjust criticism of others causes harm.
To only acknowledge faults in others and not in oneself is egotistical and antithetical to the aim of realizing selflessness.
One should experience concern for others, and seek to protect them from harm.
Compassion is the most fitting response because, essentially, any faults of others are causally conditioned. Also, because of the interconnected nexus of conditions that underlies human social life – because we are not as separate as we think we are – any suffering of one is related to, connected to, and can be shared by others. Any harm that we enact can bring bad consequences for us, as well as for the person to whom we do the harm.
4 Emptiness and sexual transformation
Thus far, in this article, the focus has been on the perceived traits and characteristics of women, on how a ‘female nature’ can be constructed, and the issues with that. One other issue that can arise in Buddhist texts is with the female body. At times, when teachings advocate for a transcendence of desire, especially sensual desire, both male and female bodies are identified as sites of desire. On other occasions it can be the female body only that is construed as the problem, although sometimes such passages are misread. Another notable way in which the body and biological sex enter the picture in Buddhism is in narrative episodes on sexual transformation. The idea of spontaneous sexual transformation is not an exclusively South Asian phenomenon; however, it does appear in both Brahmanical and Indian Buddhist texts, and seems to be a literary device that rather captured the imagination of early and early medieval South Asian storytellers and writers. Within the Indian Buddhist tradition, its presentation in – mainly – Indian Mahāyāna texts has received a great deal of scholarly attention. Scholars express a range of views. These concern the extent to which the theme of sexual transformation is intended to illustrate that Buddhist doctrine advocates for gender equality. The key debates in Buddhist studies have been fashioned around questions such as, ‘is it or is it not an assertion that sex and gender are unimportant?’ and ‘does a woman need to change into a man to make progress on the path?’
The Mahāyāna notion of emptiness can be seen as a development of the doctrine of dependent arising. As all things arise in dependence on others and cease to be when those conditions cease, they can be said to be empty of inherent existence. Things do not exist independently, are not self-originated, but are ultimately interwoven into the flux and flow of conditions. A table is created by raw materials such as wood and metal, and a carpenter is necessary to construct it. The table ceases to exist if it is taken apart or breaks. Therefore, it has no inherent existence and our conceptual category of ‘table’ is empty. In episodes of sexual transformation, our categories of sex and gender, male and female, are demonstrated to be empty, to have no inherent existence in and of themselves. Especially since the 1980s, a great deal of scholarly debate has centred on how, exactly, such examples relate to views about – and treatment of – women in the history of Buddhism. The same examples have been described as the preconditions for the idea that women need to be reborn as men to make progress on the path.
A passage in the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa is the best-known example of a story of sexual transformation. The Vimalakīrtinirdeśa is a Mahāyāna text, in which a layman, Vimalakīrti, proves himself to be more able than non-Mahāyāna monks. Śāriputra, one of the Buddha’s direct disciples in early texts, is cast as the ‘fall guy’ in the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa – paling in wisdom and understanding compared to the great Vimalakīrti. In this following passage, one of the goddesses present teaches him a lesson on emptiness:
Śāriputra: Goddess, what prevents you from transforming yourself out of your female state?
Goddess: Although I have sought my ‘female state’ for these twelve years, I have not yet found it. Reverend Śāriputra, if a magician were to incarnate a woman by magic, would you ask her, ‘What prevents you from transforming yourself out of your female state?’
Śāriputra: No! Such a woman would not really exist, so what would there be to transform?
Goddess: Just so, reverend Śāriputra, all things do not really exist. Now, would you think, ‘What prevents one whose nature is that of a magical incarnation from transforming herself out of her female state?’
Thereupon, the goddess employed her magical power to cause the elder Śāriputra to appear in her form and to cause herself to appear in his form. Then the goddess, transformed into Śāriputra, said to Śāriputra, transformed into a goddess, “Reverend Śāriputra, what prevents you from transforming yourself out of your female state?” And Śāriputra, transformed into the goddess, replied, ‘I no longer appear in the form of a male! My body has changed into the body of a woman! I do not know what to transform!’
The goddess continued, ‘If the elder could again change out of the female state, then all women could also change out of their female states. All women appear in the form of women in just the same way as the elder appears in the form of a woman. While they are not women in reality, they appear in the form of women. With this in mind, the Buddha said, “In all things, there is neither male nor female.”’ Then, the goddess released her magical power and each returned to his ordinary form. She then said to him, ‘Reverend Śāriputra, what have you done with your female form?’
Śāriputra: I neither made it nor did I change it.
Goddess: Just so, all things are neither made nor changed, and that they are not made and not changed, that is the teaching of the Buddha. (Translated by Thurman 1976)
In the debate on the question regarding such episodes of sexual transformation, two polarized views have been expressed. In one of the earliest publications on this, Nancy Schuster (1981) argues that the phenomenon of sexual transformation appears to be illustrating something of what could perhaps be called a feminist agenda, in that it demonstrates that the conceptual categories of sex and gender are, ultimately, empty – used as it is in these episodes to illuminate the key Mahāyāna concept of śūnyatā (emptiness). She concludes her discussion of the topic by stating that:
‘Changing the female body’ is a narrative theme which was probably developed by Mahayanist writers in order to confront traditional Buddhist views of the spiritual limitations of women […] [In Mahāyāna texts] […] this notion is criticized and put in its proper place according to the perspective of the śūnyavāda [doctrine of emptiness]. In these texts, the supposition that maleness and femaleness are ultimately real is negated by the realization of the universal emptiness and sameness of all dharmas. (Schuster 1981: 54–55)
In a publication that appeared a few years later, Diana Paul (1985) devotes about thirty percent of her book on women in Mahāyāna to the topic of sexual transformation. Paul attempts a survey of attitudes to sexuality and the body across a range of Buddhist texts, both Mahāyāna and non-Mahāyāna, and then provides translations of key scenes from Mahāyāna texts during which one type of sexual transformation or another occurs. Having studied some of the same texts as Schuster, Paul’s view is quite different. She says:
The Buddhist considered the body itself as imperfect and degenerate, whether in ascetic or erotic engagement. The body indicated imperfection and immorality […]. Since the feminine represented the deceptive and destructive temptress or ‘daughter of evil’, the feminine body represented imperfection, weakness, ugliness and impurity. Transformation of sex represented a transition from the imperfection and immorality of human beings (the female body) to the mental perfection of Bodhisattvas and Buddhas (the male body). (Paul 1985: 175)
Quite aside from the two opposing views exemplified by Nancy Schuster and Diana Paul’s respective arguments, a third interpretation is possible. Perhaps these episodes are not intended as a comment on gender at all. Schooled as we are, in the modern world, in the scientific paradigm, it can be difficult for us to imagine worldviews outside of science. We understand biological sex as nontransmutable. Our sex organs grow as part of us when we come into being in the womb. They are fixed and cannot be changed, unless we undergo medical intervention. This is a scientific view of sex, and one so ingrained it is almost impossible to imagine conceiving of biological sex in any other way. But, without science to guide us, how would we understand sex and different sex organs? It is not necessary to transpose a scientific or European Enlightenment worldview onto ancient Indian ideas. And so it is unnecessary to wonder why key Buddhist texts use stories and images of sexual transformation to demonstrate the emptiness of existence and experience as conceptual categories. Perhaps there existed an understanding that transformation of sex was eminently possible, and, as such, represented an excellent example of emptiness.
Another, related aspect of sexual transformation to consider is whether it is only sex that changes or gender as well. If merely biological sex transforms, and not one’s gender, then the negative assessment of the narratives – that they are proposing a woman needs to change into a man – become unworkable. In Mahāyāna examples, as with Śāriputra and the goddess, bodies change but minds do not. Śāriputra maintains his own mind, as does the goddess. Śāriputra has the mind of the man in a female body, and the goddess vice versa. This can be compared with many Hindu narratives in which the transformation is more complete; a person who transforms has no memory that they were previously another sex.
Other Mahāyāna examples are similar, such as the example of Candrottarā (discussed in Collett 2021: 46–47). The text about Candrottarā implies that she was an advanced bodhisattva when she was born, because as soon as she was born she grew to the size of an eight-year-old, and began reciting dharma. She gives profound teachings, which impact the audience such that they have ‘no thought of desire, no hatred, no hostility, no greed, no delusion, no anger, no jealousy, no envy, no defilement of any kind, or other anguish’ (Paul 1985: 194). Other texts depict female teachers in Mahāyāna with analogous attributes. So those of female gender have qualities similar to an advanced bodhisattva (Osto 2007).
One question put to Candrottarā is this: ‘One cannot become a Buddha while being female. Why don’t you change your sex now?’ Candrottarā replies, ‘the nature of emptiness cannot be changed or altered. This is true of all phenomena. [Consequently] how can I change my woman’s body?’ [that is, when it is already empty] (Paul 1985: 195). She then does change from a girl into a boy; she changes sex, and then continues to teach and help others in the same way she (or now he) had when female. So no change of gender is proffered. S/he still maintains her same mind, the mind of an advanced bodhisattva who can teach in a profound way; no loss of memory of having been another gender is indicated, no taking on of male characteristics or qualities. She is the same, except that she is now biologically male.
In the well-known story in the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra, the nāga princess character changes sex. Like Candrottarā, the character and qualities of the person she is do not change after her change of biological sex. Therefore, it may be argued that, in both cases, following the change of biological sex both remain gendered female. Their mental qualities, character, and attributes (to offer profound teachings or to act as an example to others) do not change once their sex changes. Whether the episodes and narratives are interpreted as misogynist, sexist, androcentric, or none of these, depends on the extent to which one sees it through a lens that understands biological sex as a (generally) incontrovertible category of existence and experience. If it is not – if gender is the reality and biological sex the appearance – then this would call for a discussion of the question in different terms.
These are the three possible ways to read the episodes on sexual transformation: that they are positive about women, negative about women, or not intended as a comment on sex and gender at all. Historically, the view sponsored by most Buddhist traditions tends towards the second; that the passages demonstrate women’s bodies as ‘wrong’, and women’s need to transform into men so they might make progress on the path.
5 Conclusion
This brief exposition of foundational Buddhist doctrine demonstrates that Buddhist doctrine does not support any claims for any inviolable aspects of human nature, nor harsh speech towards others. Compassion underpins every aspect of teaching and practice. Thereby, with regard to any human being we meet or come across, compassion should fortify all responses. Accordingly, any contempt for women expressed in Buddhist texts has no place in Buddhism, and neither does a response to it that is unethical. Any argument that women are inferior to men that is based on characteristics of supposed ‘female’ nature or aspects of the female body are undoctrinal, and should be abandoned.
In the inscription that begins this encyclopaedia entry, the twelfth-century Chinese nun Zhitong talks about developing awareness of the nondifferentiation of phenomena. When entering a bathhouse to take advantage of what it offers, one might muse on the nature of water. Whilst usually considered something that cleans, in reality water might contain dirt. When reflecting on the vital questions, whether we understand the ‘dirt’ to be women themselves or views about women, as Zhitong points out, the ultimate aim is not to sift the dirt from the water and then try to scrub ourselves clean with that, but to realize the nondifferentiation between water and dirt. Our desire should not be to collect the dirt into an impenetrable ball to use in an attack on others who do not agree with us, but to take a bath anyway, regardless of any imperfections the water might carry – and to be at peace with that.
Figure 1. Diagram of causation in dependent arising and ethics by Matt Coward-Gibbs, used with permission.
Bibliography
Further Reading
Collett, Alice. 2016. Lives of Early Buddhist Nuns: Biographies as History. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Collett, Alice. 2018. ‘Buddhism and Women’, in The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Ethics. Edited by Daniel Cozort and James Mark Shields. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
552–566.
Collett, Alice. 2021. I Hear Her Words: An Introduction to Women in Buddhism. Cambridge: Windhorse Publications.
Peach, Lucinda Joy. 2002. ‘Social Responsibility, Sex Change, and Salvation: Gender Justice in the Lotus Sūtra’, Philosophy East and West 51, no. 2: 50–74.
Tsomo, Karma Lekshe. 2002. Women in Buddhist Traditions. New York: New York University Press.
Works cited
Collett, Alice. 2021. I Hear Her Words: An Introduction to Women in Buddhism. Cambridge: Windhorse Publications.
Conze, Edward (trans.). 1973. The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines and Its Verse Summary. Bolinas, CA: Four Seasons Foundation.
Crosby, Kate, and Andrew Skilton (trans.). 2002. Śāntideva, The Bodhicaryāvatāra. Oxford: Oxford University Press. First published 1995.
Eltschinger, Vincent. 2010. ‘Ignorance, Epistemology and Soteriology, Part II’, Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 33, no. 1-2: 27–74.
Garfield, Jay L. 1995. The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhymakakarika. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Grant, Beata. 2003. Daughters of Emptiness: Poems of Chinese Buddhist Nuns. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications.
Edelglass, William, and Jay Garfield (eds). 2009. ‘Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośa: A Critique of the Soul’, in Buddhist Philosophy: Essential Readings. Translated by Charles Goodman. New York: Oxford University Press,
297–309.
Horner, I. B. 1990. Women Under Primitive Buddhism. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. First published 1930.
Kulananda/Michael Chaskalson. 1994. ‘Conditionality and the Two Truths’, Western Buddhist Review 1: 66–80.
Mrozik, Susanne. 2007. Virtuous Bodies: The Physical Dimensions of Morality in Buddhist Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press.
Osto, Douglas. 2007. Power, Wealth and Women in Indian Mahayana Buddhism: The Gandavyuha-Sutra. London: Routledge.
Paul, Diana Y. 1985. Women in Buddhism: Images of the Feminine in the Mahāyāna Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press. 2nd edition.
Roebuck, Valerie (trans.). 2010. The Dhammapada. London: Penguin.
Schuster, Nancy. 1981. ‘Changing the Female Body: Wise Women and the bodhisattva Career in some Mahāratnakūṭasūtras’, Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 4, no. 1: 24–69.
Thurman, Robert A. F. (trans.). 1976. The Holy Teaching of Vimalakīrti: A Mahāyāna Scripture. University Park/London: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Zhang, Zhenji (ed.). 1983. A Treasury of Mahāyāna Sūtras: Selections from the Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtra. University Park/London: Pennsylvania State Press.
