THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN BUDDHISM: My experience with theory and practice
Talk prepared for Women’s Studies 100 at UNBC 2004
Judith Johnson johnsonj@cnc.bc.ca
It is a given in Buddhism that women can accomplish as much as men spiritually, and that women and men are fundamentally and equally human, but Buddhism has a history of reflecting the current social situation of women in its hierarchical structures rather than automatically expressing this spiritual equality in a social way. Women have as much social equality in most western Buddhist organizations as they do in any other western organization, but in India and Asia it has been rare for Buddhism to be a source of status for women in a social sense, even within its own institutions.
Regardless of this, Buddhist practice has been a source of strength for women and men dealing with the difficult circumstances of their lives. As my teacher put it once “Buddhism is saving the world one person at a time.” The emphasis is on accepting the way things are in this moment and on responding creatively to that. There is a lot of similarity between the western idea of “consciousness raising” and the Buddhist struggle to “see things as they are.” Both require a person to see things from new perspectives and to examine themselves. But, to put it bluntly, I have found that consciousness raising for political purposes can easily degenerate into whining, or into “I’m more oppressed that you” or “I’m more politically correct than you” contests. Of course people do this during Buddhist training as well, but to train as a Buddhist you put yourself in situations where you won’t get away with anything except prolonged and brutally honest self examination, and teachers are trained to assist with this. There is no room for blaming other people for being the way they are, we just take responsibility for seeing and responding as well as we can to what is. It is a very difficult process, but past a certain point it brings its own reward. People who have gone through this training appreciate their lives more, and exercise a type of freedom that cannot be removed by any external authority, or by loss of physical freedom or status. This appreciation and freedom is very precious.
Historically, social reform has not been a focus of Buddhist practice, but this is changing as Buddhism adapts to west. Buddhist teachers like the Vietnamese Thich Nhat Hanh, who has practiced in the west most of his life, are starting to promote “engaged Buddhism.” Engaged Buddhism addresses social issues, but individual development is still the starting point, and the main purpose of Buddhist practice. With a better and more direct understanding of self, a person can be a positive influence in their own small sphere. Without this understanding individual behavior can be very destructive even within the bounds of idealistic social structures. We see this in the west all the time. Democracy and feminism have not ended misogyny, although I am personally grateful for the limits that they place on its expression.
Buddhism was established as an oral tradition, with written records coming later, and it was established in a very different time and place. I am not a historian. I don’t expect to ever really understand the situation of early Buddhists, yet it is necessary to have some idea of how things started. I need to try and understand how a religion that recognizes and often nurtures women’s spiritual potential, and which at its heart recognizes the abilities of women, has embodied oppressive social structures for so long.
Gotama (often called the Buddha) founded Buddhism in India 2600 years ago. He is recorded as permitting the ordination of women, but grudgingly. He said that permitting ordination of women would cause Buddhism to die out faster than it otherwise would and he severely limited women’s role. His monastic rules, called the Vinaya, prevent a nun of any rank from correcting a monk of any rank, and they insist that nuns always be accompanied by another nun while monks may live and teach independently. The special rules for women may have protected women 2600 years ago. Given the culture of India at the time, a solitary independent nun would have been at constant risk of rape and other violence. Gotama’s recorded reason for the restrictions he placed on women was longevity of Buddhism. This was a pragmatic reason that had to do with Buddhism surviving current circumstances, not with women’s perceived lack of ability or need for protection.
In Zen it is not unusual to hear that even “Buddha” does not go far enough. Gotama’s attitude to women convinces me of that. Even having developed a powerful tradition, with benefits that include a falling away of preconceived ideas and prejudices, he chose to acknowledge the spiritual equality of women in a very limited and unenthusiastic way. To be fair, the idea of acting on women’s spiritual equality in a social context would have been unthinkable to him, as unthinkable as giving up on social equality would be to us.
Buddhism discourages blind faith. Gotama taught that one should not simply choose to believe any external authority. He insisted that people verify everything for themselves through direct experience. This reliance on individual investigation is highly compatible with science and probably accounts for the current popularity of Buddhism in the west. The Vinaya, which dictates everything a monk or nun may do, may seem to contradict this emphasis on individual responsibility, but the existence of strict rules makes sense from a Buddhist perspective because a simple strict environment is needed to reach a stage in development where a person is able to verify things by direct experience.
Because rules were needed Gotama made rules, and because the concept of social equality of women was beyond Gotama’s thinking the rules on women’s role simply reflected the social norms of the time. It may be that initially the Vinaya worked for women, protecting them in the society of the time. Special rules may even have been intended to help women accept the reality of the world they lived in. As Buddhism flourished these rules actually helped create the world the people lived in, with its rigid idea of women’s subordinate role. This is ironic as Buddhist practice usually loosens rigidity, rather than reinforcing it.
Today the restrictions that the Vinaya places on women are seen as harmful by many Buddhists, both women and men. In many times and places Gotama’s special rules for women have been used as an excuse to continue the subordination of women, and as an excuse to neglect women’s spiritual development. What is amazes me about early Buddhists is that the women asked for equality within the religion. The concept of social equality was not beyond them. It seems that Buddhist training strengthened early Buddhist women to protest against the restrictions placed on them.
In the modern west, women are permitted and expected to act with authority, but are not necessarily respected as authority figures. We are not necessarily granted or taught how to handle authority within families. There are a lot of negative attitudes to women in general, and there are a lot of negative stereotypes of women who take on traditionally male roles. Buddhist training strengthens us to deal with these circumstances.
In my own practice I have found myself confronting my own sexism, my anger
at men, and my reluctance to accept my nurturing side. These characteristics
are a powerful part of my identity and are clearly part of how I have been conditioned
by my experience. If I want to mature in my practice I must accept and embrace
these aspects of “myself” so that I can let go of them. The idea
is to let go of all fixed identities and fixed views in order to have a more
complete view of everything, seeing it from many perspectives and in context.
I am in the process of doing this with my discomfort at being female and what
that has meant in my life. I already find things that cost me days of anger
and stress in the past merely amuse me now. I don’t mean that I don’t
respond to sexism. I still do what I can to reduce it in myself and in others,
but it doesn’t hurt as much because my
relationship to it has changed.
Because I actually have plenty of authority as a western woman I often find
that genuinely laughing at sexism, or at male attempts at intimidation, is a
way of removing their power. But the laughter has to be from the heart, and
that takes years of difficult practice. It is not easy for me to take the female
role in the zendo and serve tea on bended knee. I am still more comfortable
with the authoritarian male leadership role, but this is
changing. That is the nature of Zen practice: you do what is difficult until
you can embrace it. Both men and women take turns in the “female”
and “male” roles in the zendo, and in those roles the two are expected
to work things out as equals, for the benefit of the group.
It has been very good for me to have a male teacher assist in this process. Of course it would be equally good, but different, to have a female teacher. Eventually I hope to be comfortable with my “male” side and my “female” side, or in the gender free way that my teacher often puts it: with my “plus” side that initiates action, and with my “minus” side which is the ground of my being from which wisdom arises. Being all action and no wisdom is not a happy place! (Having wisdom without the ability to act would not be happy either.) Integration of plus and minus is the most difficult, the most satisfying, and the most liberating thing I have ever attempted.
The details of Buddhist practice have been modified every time Buddhism arrived in a new culture. In all Buddhist traditions lineage is important. Students are the heirs, or spiritual descendents, of their teachers.
In the Theravadan tradition the emphasis is on following the letter of the Vinaya and studying other written records of early Buddhist teachings. In Kamloops BC, there is a Theravadan Forest Thai tradition monastery called Birken. Spending a week at Birken gave me a chance to talk privately with their only nun, a Thai woman, and to debate publicly with the monks. The monks are all North American men. Given that women have extreme low status in this tradition it did not surprise me that the only nun was a Thai woman who told me that men are different, she could never have made the bold moves that led to the establishment of Birken monastery in Kamloops. (As a woman who has made many successful bold moves and who plans to make a few more, I feel no need to emulate her.)
Birken, with its ties to the Thai Buddhist patriarchy is in a complex political situation. I won’t attempt to go into it in detail here, I don’t understand it all anyway. In outline, the situation is that the monks at Birken are in favor of ending the subordination of women in their order, but are limited in authority by the Thai patriarchy and the Vinaya. They report that two western monasteries have women’s orders with full ordination for women, which is not available in Thailand, but they also report that they have difficulty finding women leaders.
This makes me laugh, why would a woman leader enter the Thai Forest tradition when gender equality is automatic in most North American Buddhist organizations? What surprised me was that well over half the lay followers at this monastery are western women. This is a struggle that I don’t need to participate in personally, but it looks as if this tradition is going to get a steady challenge from women.
The Theravadan tradition has been westernized in an extreme way, to form what is called Vipassana (Vipassana also refers to a meditation technique.) Here there is a blending with other Buddhist traditions through the umbrella organization the Insight Meditation Society. The emphasis is on practice as a householder (not monastic life), the Vinaya is not followed, and women are often leaders.
Tibetan and Zen traditions don’t follow the Vinaya, but have their own rules adapted to Tibetan, and to Chinese and Japanese cultures. Although women have rarely been leaders in these traditions, it has happened. Even in feudal China, where Zen originated, women could be recognized as Zen masters (see Miriam Levering’s work cited below.) I have also included a reference to a thirteenth century Japanese Rinzai Zen Abbess in the recommended reading.
It is not difficult to locate western female Zen and Tibetan teachers. Here are some of them. Bikshuni Pema Chodron was one of the first North American westerners ordained as a Tibetan monastic. She is now Abbess at Gampo Abbey in Novia Scotia. White Wind Zen community in Ottawa has a Western male leader (Anzan Hoshin Roshi), but many of the monks and lower ranking teachers are women. Roshi Egyoku is a woman spiritual leader at the Los Angeles Zen Center. Charlotte Joko Beck established the Prairie Zen center in Illinois.
Recommended Reading
Roshi Egyoku's formal
ascension as Abbot of the Los Angeles
Zen Center
An account of Japan’s Rinzai Zen Abbess Mugai
Nyodai Mugai Nyodai (1223-1298)
Birken Forest Thai Monastery (Kamloops BC).
Pema Chodron, Abbess at Gampo Abbey
Insight Meditation Society,
information on teachers including Sharon Saltzberg and Myoshin Kelly.
Prairie Zen Center (founded by Charlotte Joko Beck) http://www.prairiezen.org
Miriam Levering,
Publications on women Zen students and masters in the Sung Dynasty in China.