Читать книгу Women in Buddhist Traditions - Karma Lekshe Tsomo - Страница 9

In the social views disseminated by the brāhmaṇas,² a woman was expected to marry and follow the dictates of her husband—indeed, she was taught to view her husband as god (pati means “god” and also “husband”) and be totally devoted to him.³ By contrast, a Buddhist woman could decide, if she wished, to leave the household life and become a nun. If women from Buddhist families preferred to marry, they generally had more freedom than most to select their own partners. The Buddha gave advice about how to live a happy married life, but there are no religious laws that pertain to marriage in Buddhism.⁴ Marriage is a civil contract, in which religion plays little role. Monks or nuns may be invited to recite prayers or impart blessings, but marriage alliances are not sacred or sanctified by any higher power. There are no religious strictures against premarital sex or widow remarriage. Buddhists are encouraged to live by five lay precepts, which include abstaining from sexual misconduct, but these are personal choices, not divinely sanctioned obligations. The closest thing to a Buddhist legal code is the vinaya, a collection of texts that explain the precepts for monastics.

Customs regarding marriage, divorce, and property rights are culture specific. In Buddhist cultures, religious authorities generally prefer to leave family matters to the discretion of those concerned, giving counsel according to the Buddha’s teachings when it is sought, and avoiding what are deemed “affairs of this world.” In most Buddhist societies, clerics are celibate monks and nuns.⁵ Although they may have been previously married (like Buddha Śākyamuni himself), celibate monastics are not expected or encouraged to take part in worldly matters. They are to abide by Buddhist values including generosity, ethical conduct, patience, mindfulness, wisdom, and loving-kindness. Religious values and the exemplary conduct of well-restrained monks and nuns undoubtedly influence Buddhist decision-making and interpersonal relationships, but monastic institutions have no jurisdiction over the lives of laypeople and no influence or particular interest in marriage practices, except to impart blessings and wish everyone peace and happiness.⁶

In the Buddhist view, violence against any sentient being, including animals, is never religiously sanctioned. Although some Buddhists may condone violence in a life-or-death situation, the first precept is to abstain from taking life and is widely interpreted to mean refraining from harming any sentient being. In the family, especially, because it is the environment for the nurturing of children, violence in any form is discouraged. Instead, the Buddha taught his followers to live with loving-kindness and compassion for all in thought, word, and deed. Meditations on loving-kindness focus especially on loved ones and then extend to all living beings. Although teaching nonharm as a moral principle does not ensure that all Buddhist families are havens of domestic peace and harmony, Buddhists value nonviolence and generally try their best to live up to this ideal.

Buddhist thought and social custom are often interwoven and influenced by beliefs and practices that predate the introduction of Buddhism. Gender hierarchies that privilege men over women, especially in politics and religion, are evident in all Buddhist societies. Although according to the Buddhist understanding of karma, the natural law of cause and effect, social and economic inequalities may be the result of a person’s actions in the past, injustices cannot be justified by Buddhist teachings. The Buddha admitted seekers from all social and economic backgrounds into his community; in fact, the original Buddhist monastic community may be the earliest documented example of democratic governance.⁷ Still, socially embedded customs tend to give priority to males. These customs may reflect local practices or early Indian values, but the privileged place of males in Buddhist families, organizations, and societies may also be influenced by the privileged place of monks in Buddhist monastic institutions. In Buddhist societies even today, boys are more likely to get their parents’ blessing and encouragement to enter a monastery. Boys are encouraged to become monks, in part to create merit (good karma) for their parents, but it is rare for girls to receive similar encouragement to become nuns. Until recently at least, the higher status of monks over nuns has contributed to a general preference for boys over girls. As a result, monks have traditionally far outnumbered nuns in Buddhist societies.

Relationships between monks and nuns are prescribed in the monastic codes, influenced especially by the “eight weighty rules” (Pāli: garudhamma; Sanskrit: gurudharma) in the vinaya that assign monks a superior status in the monastic ordering. Although the rules for monastics do not apply to laypeople, this gender differential in the monastic community seems to have been influenced by gendered social norms and to have perpetuated certain gender-specific social practices, preconceptions, and expectations that give priority to men over women.

For example, at the time of the Buddha, monks outnumbered nuns, so the teachings that have been preserved are often directed to monks. As a first step in overcoming self-grasping, the Buddha advised his followers to visit graveyards and cremation grounds and to meditate on the nature of the human body.⁸ Through meditation, he taught, one can see things “as they are” and thus cut through ignorance and delusion. By understanding that all human beings are equally subject to death and decay, one can see through the illusion of a separate, independently existent self. By understanding the true impermanent nature of things, one can see that although human bodies may appear attractive on the outside, inside they are full of many disgusting substances. Insight into the true nature of the body thus helps to free one from sensual attachment and the disappointments that arise from that attachment. Because the Buddha was addressing an audience of celibate monks, he used the unpleasant qualities of the female body as an example. The Buddha presumably used the “foul” nature of the female body as an example to help his audience of celibate monks cut through desire and maintain their commitment to renunciation, but the teaching may have perpetuated preconceptions about the impurity of women in patriarchal culture. If the Buddha had been addressing an audience of celibate nuns, he would presumably have used the unpleasant qualities of the male body as an example. Unfortunately, out of context, the references to the disgusting nature of the female body have been interpreted to imply that the male body is somehow superior to the female body.

Such scriptural passages contributed to the impression that a male rebirth is preferable to a female rebirth.⁹ In Buddhist societies, one frequently hears that “being born as a woman is the result of bad karma,” even though there is no evidence that the Buddha said such a thing. How do these teachings on the impure nature of the human body affect women, who are frequently associated with the body due to their unique reproductive capability?

The Buddhist scriptures include many positive representations of women, for example, extolling the love of mothers for their children, but the texts are inconsistent. One narrative describes the Buddha as being reluctant to admit women to his new mendicant community and portrays him as admitting Mahāprajāpatī only after she agrees to accept the eight weighty rules that subordinate nuns to monks.¹⁰ In this narrative, the Buddha is shown as predicting the decline and disintegration of his teachings, the Dharma, within five hundred years as a result of admitting women to the saṅgha, the monastic order.¹¹ These narratives reflect the patriarchal gender relationships and expectations that existed in Indian society at the time. Despite the liberating nature of the Buddha’s teachings and the practical alternative of monastic life for women, these stories have helped to reinforce patriarchal norms in Buddhist societies. Gradually, literary references to nuns’ active, public participation in Buddhist activities became less frequent; the contributions of monks became the central focus, and often women are absent from Buddhist narratives altogether. This declining visibility of women in the scriptures seems to be linked with the socially and scripturally sanctioned subordination of women. Reinforced by unequal educational opportunities, gender inequalities in the saṅgha seem to mirror ambivalent attitudes toward women in society in general. As a consequence, in the Buddhist texts there are both powerful images of highly realized women and also passages that tend to diminish and disparage them.¹²

The story of women in Buddhist traditions is multifaceted, varying over many centuries and a huge geographical expanse. The interrelationships among the Buddhist traditions are also complex and fluid, transfigured with the spread of Buddhism to other Asian countries and now all over the world. In these pages, we will identify commonalities in the experiences of Buddhist women, keeping in mind that the histories and cultural developments of the Buddhist traditions make each one unique. In the coming years, as scholars uncover more materials about these traditions and women’s roles within them, we will certainly need to revise our thinking beyond this introductory survey. For now, we will trace Buddhist women’s history in its early stages in India, and then expand to later periods of historical development in selected Asian and non-Asian contexts. This history will include stories of Buddhist women who live celibate lives as nuns, women who live family lives as wives and mothers, and women practitioners who do not fit neatly into either of these categories. The stories of Buddhist renunciant women will include those who observe the more than three hundred precepts of a fully ordained nun (Sanskrit: bhikṣuṇī; Pāli: bhikkhunī), as well as nuns who observe various enumerations of five, eight, nine, or ten Buddhist precepts. We will discuss whether and how these distinctions affect women’s spiritual practice, education, social acceptance, and the economic support they receive from the lay community. We will mark the significant characters and turning points in Buddhist women’s history, including recent developments that parallel the globalization of Buddhism.

The Buddha taught a path to the goal of awakening, attained by abandoning all mental defilements or destructive emotions. Awakening is therefore a quality of consciousness or awareness, and consciousness has no sexual markers or gender. In the course of re-becoming, over many lifetimes, sentient beings take different forms and different sexes. Lacking any intrinsic essence, beings also lack any intrinsic gender. The celibate ideal, which is perceived to be the ideal lifestyle for abandoning desire, is also ultimately devoid of any intrinsic gender identity. The celibate, renunciant state as well as the liberated state can therefore be conceived as beyond gender distinctions. Yet gender distinctions remain on the conventional level, retained in rituals, personal perceptions, everyday interactions, and practical matters in daily life. In Buddhist monasteries, monks and nuns are typically segregated. Celibate monastics are not free from gender identities or from gender discrimination.

It is common to hear apologists say that there is no gender discrimination in Buddhism and that awakening is beyond the distinctions of male and female. Claims of gender equality are contradicted, however, by numerous examples of inequality in the perceptions and treatment of women. Pollution taboos that prohibit women from entering religious sites while menstruating are still found in some Buddhist societies even today, for example, in Bhutan, Burma, Ladakh, and Thailand.¹³

Gender distinctions may also be conceived in a positive light. For example, today the choice to identify with a specific gender or elsewhere on the gender spectrum—non-binary, non-gender conforming, or no gender at all—is considered by many to be a human right. Although the notion of erasing or going beyond gender identity may be held forth as a means of eliminating gender discrimination, erasing gender distinctions altogether is a contested ideal, especially for those who have struggled with gender identity and finally embraced a preferred gender. In the modern era, with greater sexual freedom, some also challenge the traditional assumption that celibacy (brahmacarya, “the pure life”) is the ideal lifestyle for achieving liberation.

When Buddha Śākyamuni presented his teachings on liberation from suffering, he taught a path of mental purification and transformation of consciousness that was equally accessible to women and men, both lay and monastics. Yet throughout much of Buddhist history, the experiences of women have most often been confined to prescribed familial and monastic institutions, and women’s own ideas, preferences, and contributions have often been dismissed, repressed, or overlooked. Today, many Buddhist scholars are drawing attention to the scriptures and legends that helped to shape attitudes toward women and are rethinking the complex interactions of religion, culture, and society that affect Buddhist women’s lives and choices. Especially in recent decades, with a growth of interest in Buddhist and feminist ideas internationally, new questions are being raised about the status of women in Buddhist societies and also about the assumptions that underlie contemporary narratives about them. These studies illuminate the diverse spiritual paths that women have taken in this major wisdom tradition.

The Buddha taught that all beings have the potential to purify their minds and become free from mental defilements, suffering, and rebirth. As the various Buddhist traditions developed, a woman could aspire to the highest goal envisioned by her tradition, whether to become an arhat (a liberated being), a bodhisattva (a being on the path to perfect awakening), or even a fully awakened Buddha. Even if the path was described as arduous, especially in a female body, a woman could achieve the highest goal her tradition had to offer, in theory at least. In the tradition known today as Theravāda (“path of the elders”), prevalent in South and Southeast Asia, the goal is to become an arhat, one who is liberated from cyclic existence. In the tradition known as Mahāyāna (“great vehicle”), prevalent in North and East Asia, the goal is to advance on the bodhisattva path to become a fully awakened buddha. Many statements denying that a woman can become a buddha appear in both Theravāda and Mahāyāna texts, but the existence of numerous female arhats during the time of the Buddha is ample evidence that women were able to achieve that specific goal. In the Mahāyāna tradition, it is believed that all sentient beings not only are capable of becoming buddhas but also will eventually become buddhas. It follows that women have the potential to become fully awakened buddhas. However, according to the Sūtrayāna branch of the Mahāyāna tradition, although it is possible for a woman to practice on the bodhisattva path and stages in a female body and eventually become a buddha, in her final lifetime she must appear in a male body, like Buddha Śākyamuni. In the Vajrayāna branch of the Mahāyāna tradition, which teaches practices of visualizing oneself in the form of a fully awakened being, it is said that a woman can become a buddha in female form. The classic example is Tārā, an exceptional woman who generated a strong determination to achieve full awakening in female form for the benefit of sentient beings, and successfully did so.¹⁴

Only the Mahīśāsaka, an early Buddhist school of thought, in which phenomena are regarded as existing only in the present moment, taught that a woman cannot become a fully awakened buddha, but this school died out in India long ago.¹⁵

In actuality, many women in Buddhist cultures do not aspire for these lofty attainments. Instead, they tend to pursue devotional practices quietly and to support the spiritual endeavors of men, who dominate the social and religious hierarchies. Nevertheless, throughout history there have been extraordinary women practitioners who challenged social norms and emerged from the silence, giving testimony to their courage and exemplifying Buddhism’s liberative promise. Through the power of these stories, beginning with accounts of the first female arhats in ancient India, Buddhist women have glimpsed their own potential and gained inspiration to persevere on the path to awakening. In contemporary Buddhist feminist circles, these accounts, both in history and legend, are being highlighted as models for women’s realization (direct insight into the Buddha’s teachings) and spiritual liberation.

Buddhist texts and communities convey divergent representations of women. The presentation of women as the seducers and corrupters of men is epitomized in the story of the Buddha’s temptation by the voluptuous “daughters of Māra” the night before his enlightenment. (See figure I.1.)

Some of the less favorable portrayals and attitudes toward women may be traced to the pervasive patriarchal bias that characterized ancient Indian society during the early centuries of Buddhism’s development, but these attitudes may also be traced to the Buddha’s alleged reluctance to admit women to the saṅgha, the eight weighty rules that he reportedly imposed upon Mahāprajāpatī, and predictions of resultant decline. The eight rules, which legislate monks’ authority over nuns, may have contributed to persistent gender bias in Buddhist religious structures that have given priority to monks and ensured the continuity of the bhikkhu saṅgha (community of monks) but not the bhikkhunī saṅgha (community of nuns) in Theravāda Buddhism. Even if women in Buddhist societies are aware that female arhats existed in Buddhist history, they may easily become discouraged by the meager support contemporary nuns receive toward their requisites: meals, robes, medicines, and dwellings. They may also become discouraged by the lack of validation and encouragement for women, especially those who opt out of the culturally preferred roles for women as wives and mothers.

Figure I.1. Painting of the future Buddha tempted by the seductive power of women while meditating under the bodhi tree, by Tiffani Gyatso, at Centro de Estudos Budistas Bodisatva, Caminho do Meio, Viamão, Brazil. Credit: Photo by Karma Lekshe Tsomo.

Gender discrimination in Buddhism is not a phenomenon that applies only to some bygone era. Even today, Buddhist women in many countries, including Western countries, may encounter ingrained prejudices and assumptions about women’s nature and capabilities, perpetuated by women and men alike. These prejudices and assumptions become clear if, for example, a woman decides to remain single, to not give birth to children, or to become a nun. Learning more about the variety of roles women have played in Buddhist traditions illuminates the ways in which women in diverse cultures have navigated the expectations of society, by either accepting, ignoring, or transforming them.