After college, I started working for the Buddho-Gandhian NGO Sarvodaya Shramadana which ran a training center for the network of monks they recruited as managers of village development initiatives. In 1984 I accepted an invitation to temporarily ordain as a monk, which conveniently fit with my own research on the political and racial views of monks. While ordained for four months I stayed in a number of temples, both traditional pastoral temples and meditation oriented temples with foreign monks, and worked on a number of exegetical essays along the lines of Ling's work, including this essay on Buddhist Feminism. It was eventually published in 1986 by the Toronto Zen Lotus Society in their journal Spring Wind.
Like all of my essays of that period, this essay reflects the heuristic that, since "true Buddhism" was radically rational, liberal and egalitarian, anything in the Buddhist tradition that didn't fit with my socialist, feminist, Enlightenment values must have been the corrupting influence of, or tactical compromises with, the prevailing social forces of greed, hatred and ignorance. The problem with that heuristic is that there is no true essential Buddhism, no perfect dharma transmission collecting sexist smudges and constantly trying to burn them off. There have only been human beings connected in some way to the Buddhist tradition, with all their myriad values and social contexts. Buddhism certainly did provide an opportunity for women to escape domesticity, forced marriage, and impoverished widowhood by becoming nuns. But the second-class status of nuns was unfortunately just as authentically Buddhist.
The un-Buddhist nature of this kind of "true faith" approach to history was finally made clear to me by Robert Sharf, who I befriended in 1985 while studying in Japan. Sharf's work on Japanese Zen's deep intermingling with Japanese militarism had already burned off any romantic ideas about Zen he might have harbored, and he passed along that dharma transmission to me with a sharp slap up the side of my head.
So, thanks to our friend Molly Brown who finally transcribed an old photocopy of the article, I present it here as a bit of my intellectual juvenilia, an early take on a topic that I still think is fascinating and important, but that I would approach very differently today.
Buddhism, as a way of living with compassion and insight, is radically liberating for women. Yet Buddhism as a historical institution reflects both 2500 years of men's power over women, "patriarchy”, and women’s struggle for empowerment. One can find within the Buddhist tradition women who prefigure modern feminism by two and a half millennia, and yet writings which equal the worst anti-woman polemics of any religion.
The liberative project of dharma-practice, as opposed to historical Buddhist culture, is intrinsically opposed to patriarchy. Patriarchy, as the limiting of human potential, is rejected by those who cut through habitual, socialized thoughts and behaviors. Patriarchy, as the institutionalization of violence against women is rejected by those who practice peace. Patriarchy, as the proprietary relationship of the sexes in the patriarchal family, where men own women’s sexuality, their labor-power, and children, their product, is rejected by those who eschew the illusion of self in property. Throughout history spiritual radicals have been driven from everyday patriarchal society, "the householder life", into radical sexual alternatives such as celibacy.
Early Buddhism’s influence on the position of women was historically progressive, The Buddhists and their contemporaries, the Jains, were the first Indian mendicant orders to admit women, and thus greatly expanded women's social options. Women in 500 B.C. India had no property rights, no control over their household affairs or choice of husband, and from 500 A.D. until the 1900's widows were sacrificed on their husbands' funeral pyres. The brahminical caste-system was strongly patriarchal, as summed up in this phrase from the laws of Manu:
Their fathers protect them in childhood,
their husbands protect them in marriage,
their sons protect them in age,
a woman is never fit for independence,
(quoted by Khantipalo)
The system was especially constraining for upper-caste women, from whose ranks many of the early Buddhist Sisters came. Many of the early Sisters were also from the aristocratic republics, such as the warrior clan of' the Shakyans from which Shakyamuni Buddha came. As these republics were slowly absorbed by the expanding imperialist monarchies, as were the Shakyans during the Buddha's lifetime, the democratic rights of noble women were further constrained. [As Goonatilake (1982) points out, during the pre-brahmin Vedic period women were more equal with men, in marriage, education, and access to the practice of religion.]
At this time of great social changes, some strong independent women did renounce society and become wanderers, such as the Buddha's ex-wife Yasodhara, who decided to follow the example of her ex-husband, after he left, she shaved her head, donned patchwork robes, and ate one meal a day from a bowl. (Later, she became a nun and attained enlightenment.) But these women mendicants were not widely accepted. By providing a culturally approved alternative to marriage, the Sisterhood made freedom from the patriarchal family widely available. Young women were given leverage over their fathers' choice of husband, choose well or I'll become a nun!
The Buddhist Sisterhood was India's first "women's space", a life separate from, if somewhat subordinate to, monks, wandering, studying, and meditating in the company of other women, free from restrictions, of children and family, The Sisterhood was an option for those strong, intelligent women for whom the patriarchal family would have been stifling, or ’’women-identified women" who today might become lesbians, or women with strong introspective personalities, or simply women whose situation in lay life would be otherwise bleak, such as widows, spinsters, or abandoned wives.
Though the Buddha had admitted several of these wandering women ascetics to his Order before he created the Sisterhood (Byles), he formally created the new Order only after being approached by a delegation of women from his warrior-caste Sakyan clan, headed by his aunt and step-mother Mahapajapati Gotami, These privileged women had cut their hair, donned robes, and walked' 200 to 300 miles to ask admission to the Order, They arrived crying, covered with dust and with swollen feet. The Buddha refused three times. Then the Buddha's closest disciple, Ananda, taking pity on the women, interceded and asked directly if women could attain enlightenment, The Buddha acknowledged that they could and subsequently created the Sisterhood.
Women are capable, after going forth from the home
unto the homeless life under the Dhamma set forth .
by the Tathagata (the Buddha), of realizing the
Fruits of Stream-winning, Once-returning, Never-
returning and Arahantship (the four stages of
Enlightenment)
Yet he predicted that the dharma and the Sangha would decline twice as fast, in 500 years rather than 1000, and he laid down eight rules to stem the tide of degeneration.
1. All nuns, no matter how senior, must bow to all monks, no matter how junior.
2. Sisters shall not spend the rains-retreat in a district where there are no brothers
3. The bi-weekly meeting for the reciting of the code of conduct shall be set by a brother, and a sermon preached at these meetings by a brother.
4. Sisters must invite criticism at the end of the rains-retreat from both the Brotherhood and Sisterhood
5. Sisters guilty of wrong-doing shall do penance to both orders.
6. A Sister may take full ordination after observing the major vows for two seasons.
7. Sisters may not speak among brother, though brothers may speak openly among Sisters.
8. ??? (said eight rules above, only seven listed)
These rules have strongly suggested an anti-woman streak in the Buddha, especially in light of the even more misogynist writings in later Buddhist scriptures. But the revolutionary nature of this innovation, in its context, suggests quite the opposite. At the mundane level, Buddha was taking the risk that all celibate orders of both sexes run, of being slandered as "free-lovers", and indeed the Buddhist scriptures recount that the nuns were slandered in this way. On a larger scale, the Buddha's prediction that the dharma and Sangha would eventually decline can be seen as a recognition that the integration of enlightenment into worldliness, that the interdependence of Sangha and laity represented, would eventually end in a new status-quo. The more revolutionary the institution, the more hostility from the "powers that be", and the sooner racist, castist, patriarchal society would storm the "dharmadhatu" ("dharma fortress”). In a sense, the eventual elimination of the 'Sisterhood In most Buddhist countries represents a diminution of true dharma, patriarchy’s co-option of the revolution, and these rules are an avoidance of the “infantile disorder of ultra-leftism”, radical extremism.
It doesn't really make any difference if this was the intent of the Buddha or not. Scriptures are a deadly trap if we are attached to them, rather than holding on to our own analytical, experiential understanding, as Buddha warns in the Kalama Sutta. A feminist perspective can be derived from analysis of one’s experience, the most basic "principle" in Buddhism. A Buddhist does not have to find feminism in the scriptures any more than she has to deny modern astronomy and search for the mythical Mount Meru at the center of the world.
On the other hand, if we have faith that there was a radical experience of insight passed down from the Buddha, it is important to examine the scriptures for the influence it had on Indian women before setting the scriptures aside. Indeed, an examination of the early Buddhist scriptures provides much evidence of the ways women’s power and a feminist analysis were articulated in early Buddhism.
For instance, several nuns and lay women were among the Buddha's ablest and wisest disciples, Theri (Sister) Khema, a, former slave, was worshipped by King Pasenadi after she had taught him about the concept of non-existence after death. The unshrinking Punnika Theri, another former slave who had been freed by her master so she could become a nun, once, lectured to a brahmin:
O ignorant of the ignorant- who has said that one
is freed from evil karma by water baptism? If this
is so, all the turtles, frogs, serpents and crocodiles
will go to heaven!
Two serious offences in the monastic code require lay women to act as judges of a monk's guilt if he is seen in suspicious encounters with other women. The Buddha enjoined that young boys need both parents’ permission in order to ordain, which contravened the supremacy of the father. Buddhism does not stigmatize widows, and allowed them to remarry.
One of the few scriptures given specifically for lay-people is the Sigalovada Sutta, an excellent example of how the Buddha reinterpreted traditional Hindu-brahminical ideas. In it he advises a boy not to make sacrifices to the gods of the 6 directions but rather to regard 6 social relationships (between parents and children, teachers and students, husbands and wives, friends, employers and employees, and laity and renunciates) as the 6 directions, worthy of the worship of fulfilled responsibility. It was a rather new idea at the time that a husband had as many responsibilities to his wife as she to him; 1. to show her respect, 2. to show her compliance, 3. not to commit adultery, 4. to leave her in charge of her sphere, 5. to supply her with finery. By elaborating these sets of interdependent relations the Buddha pointed away from authoritarian, propertarian relations, where Superiors had no responsibility to inferiors, towards a more paternalistic society.
While the Buddha subordinated the Sisters to the monks in matters such as paying of respects, speaking in public, and the necessity to stay near and be taught by monks, he guarded their equality and independence in other areas, When six monks had some of the Sisters wash, dye and comb sheep’s wool for them, causing the Sisters to neglect their meditation, Buddha made a rule that monks not have Sisters do such work for them. (Might a modern application be that men should help with child care at meditation retreats?) After some monks had come in a group to visit the nuns, the Buddha made a rule that only one senior monk, chosen by the other monks, was to visit the Sisters every two weeks for their lecture, and then he was to leave before nightfall. A monk once coerced a nun into giving him her robe, accusing her of selfishness when she protested that the nuns were poorer than the monks. The-other nuns were enraged, causing the Buddha to forbid exchange of robes between the Orders except through a formal procedure.
Unlike other religious traditions, the segregation of nuns had nothing to do with their impurity, for instance, Buddhism does not stigmatize menstruation. Rather their separateness was to protect both Orders from falling back into the habitual, patriarchal behavior patterns of lay-life, drawn by the powerful magnet of sexual attraction. There is the story of the monk and nun, formerly man and wife, who were frequently meeting alone. Once they were inspired to expose themselves to each other and the monk ejaculated on his robe. Then the nun, his former wife, washed his robe for him. The uproar when this came to light caused the Buddha to forbid nuns from washing monks robes.
By far the most interesting indication of "feminism" in the Buddhist canon though is the volume of Buddhist nuns' enlightenment stories, the Therigatha, a companion piece to the parallel collection of monks' enlightenment theories. The author of the Therigatha, Soma Theri, is challenged in another scripture by the personification of illusion, Mara, that women have no capacity for wisdom. She replied:
What should a woman’s nature signify when
consciousness is strong and firmly set,
when knowledge, rolls ever on, when - she by
Insight rightly comprehends the Dharma?
Am I a woman (in these matters) or am I
a man, or what am I then? Is one who talks
like this fit to talk to Mara?
Though the Therigatha has many verses which emphasize the pessimistic and anti-sensual side of early Buddhism, many also express an awareness of the unique sufferings of women and the value of the freedom of monastic life. For instance, Kisa-Gotami Theri’s verse sings of the pain in women's lives; bearing children, having them die, losing one’s husband:
Lowly and destitute by birth
reborn a thousand times
she (woman) suffered untold sorrow.
The tears her eyes shed were as
boundless as the sea…
Born to a lot so humble,
a target for scorn, by the
light of truth she won release.
Cutting through the conditions which bind women's potential, the path of liberation removes those hindrances which are women’s lot. These were not just narrowly interpreted as desires, but also external conditions and exploitation of women’s labor, as in Sumangala and Sumangalamata Theris’ (here merged) songs:
Free! Free! I am from all defilements
from shameless spouse, from' pestle and mortar
I’m free. From weaving harsh rushes whichbruise the fingers, from reeking smells of
stale cooking pot. Free! Free!
Am I so wonderfully free!
From ploughshare, sickle and mammottee
from those three crippling things am I free,
so well am I freed, so free.
Split, split, as the rushes did break
I have so well destroyed lust, and hate,
In reverence I sit by root of tree,
I say "Oh this indeed is peace" as in
quietness I meditate.
Oh happiness! Now here I’ll stay, just here.
No drudgery of toil for me, no drudgery ever!
Sumangala, now meditate! Sumangala, now meditate!
Sumangala, delay not, now- live!
The importance of the Sisterhood as an alternative to arranged marriage is portrayed in the story of Isidasi Theri, which begins with two nuns of royal birth sitting Biy a river after finishing their almsfood.
Of the two, more beautiful was Isidasi,
the other, the pious Theri Bodhi,
both learned, skilled in meditation,
from every fetter free.
Theri Bodhi enquired what had made Isidasi...
Turn away from home and hearth?
Seated solitary in the shade,
Isidasi, who could with skill preach the Truth
...explained that she had been given by her beloved father to a wealthy suitor, and had lived as his obedient wife. Though she had served him and his relatives attentively and humbly…
with harsh and angry words
my husband would always address me.
Her husband finally left her. When her husband’s parents asked him what she had done, he said she was not at fault and that he simply did not love her. Thereafter, her parents gave her to a second nobleman.
For a month I lived as a slave in his house
attending on him devotedly. Yet he too drove
me away.
After that, her father enticed an ascetic monk to marry her, but he only stayed two weeks before taking again to his robes and begging bowl. Understandably depressed, Isidasi felt her only options were suicide or the Sisterhood.
Then one day, on her way for alms,
the noble Jinadatta stepped into my home.
A nun so pious, so full of poise,
who observes so well the vows,
who is wise.
Isidasi offered her alms and then respectfully requested admission to the nun’s order. When her father protested, pleading with her to stay and suggesting that she offer alms to the monks and nuns instead, Isidasi proclaimed her independence.
I alone will bear myself the
consequences of my deeds.
With her parents’ blessing, then she ordained, and achieved deep knowledge and calm in 7 days.
(To be continued - Part 2 on March 6, Part 3 on March 7, Part 4 on March 8)
special thanks again to Molly Brown for transcribing this from the original 1984 essay