Women in Buddhism
Scholars such as Bernard Faure and Miranda Shaw are in agreement that Buddhist studies is in its infancy in terms of addressing gender issues.
His investigation culminated in the conclusion that Shakyamuni's teachings make no distinction regarding women's enlightenment, thus asserting gender equality in Buddhism.
Buddhism was receptive to issues of gender and it was the active participation and agency of the Buddhist women in religious, spiritual and social matters that prevented the society from remaining unresponsive to their presence".
Bhikkuṇī are systematically taught and told to follow the footsteps of Bhikkhu through an institutional mechanism that is so strong that whosoever tries to challenge it faces backlashes from the Buddhist community.
However, in societies where men have always been the authorities and the ones given wider choices, a negative view of women might be seen as simply reflecting the empirical political reality.
Such a perspective is found in a number of sources of different periods, including early Buddhist literature in the Theravāda tradition, Mahāyāna sūtras, and tantric writings.
"[66] Faure states that the ancient and medieval Buddhist texts and traditions, like other religions, were almost always unfavorable or discriminatory against women, in terms of their ability to pursue Noble Eightfold Path, attain Buddhahood and nirvana.
[64] In the Five Obstacles theory[note 1] of Buddhism, a woman is required to attain rebirth as a man before she can adequately pursue the Eightfold Path and reach perfect Buddhahood.
[71] In Chinese and Japanese Buddhist communities, since the 19th century, in addition to these five obstacles, women have been recognized as having three subordinations, namely, the need for women to obey their parents in youth, their husbands in middle age, and their oldest son in old age, which inherits from the Chinese Confucian traditional texts of the Book of Rites, the Kongzi Jiayu, and the Indian Mānavadharmasāstra.
[72] Some scholars, such as Kenneth Doo Young Lee, interpret the Lotus Sutra to imply that "women were capable of gaining salvation", either after they first turned into a man, or being reborn in Pure Land realm after following the Path.
[75] According to Wei-Yi Cheng, the Pali Canon is silent about women's inferior karma, but have statements and stories that mention the Eightfold Path while advocating female subordination.
In Theravada Buddhism, the modern school based on the Buddhist philosophy of the earliest dated texts, achieving Buddhahood is a rare event.
Sometimes they are the consorts of the main yidam of a meditation mandala but Buddhas such as Vajrayogini, Tara and Simhamukha appear as the central figures of tantric sadhana in their own right.
On the website of the Karmapa, the head of the Karma Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism, it is stated that Yeshe Tsogyal—some thirty years before transcending worldly existence—finally emerged from an isolated meditation retreat, (c.796-805 AD), as "a fully enlightened Buddha"[86] (samyak-saṃbuddha)[citation needed].
There are predictions from Sakyamuni Buddha to be found in the thirteenth chapter of the Mahayana Lotus Sutra,[87] referring to future attainments of Mahapajapati and Yasodharā.
In the 20th century Tenzin Palmo, a Tibetan Buddhist nun in the Drukpa Lineage of the Kagyu school, stated "I have made a vow to attain Enlightenment in the female form—no matter how many lifetimes it takes".
While Mother Earth is associated with the Goddess Prithvi, Alex Wayman asserts that the divine feminine in Tantra is connected with a plethora of terms including prajna ('insight'), yogini ('female yogin'), vidya ('know how'), devi ('goddess'), matr ('mother'), matrka ('mother' or 'letters'), and mudra ('seal' or 'gesture').
Samding Dorje Phagmo In the fifteenth century CE, Princess Chokyi-dronme (Wylie: Chos-kyi sgron-me) was recognized as the embodiment of the meditation deity and female Buddha in the Vajrayana tradition, Vajravarahi.
Chokyi-dronme became known as Samding Dorje Phagmo (Wylie: bSam-lding rDo-rje phag-mo) and began a line of female tulkus, reincarnate lamas.
Another female tulku lineage, that of Shugseb Jetsun Rinpoche (Wylie: Shug-gseb rJe-btsun Rin-po-che) (c. 1865 – 1951),[91] began in the late nineteenth century CE.
[92] While she received teachings of all the Tibetan schools, Shugseb Jetsun Rinpoche was particularly known for holding a lineage of Chöd, the meditation practice of offering one's own body for the benefit of others.
[93] At the start of the twentieth century, Shugsheb Jetsun Rinpoche—also called Ani Lochen Chönyi Zangmo—founded the Shuksep or Shugsep (Wylie: shug gseb) nunnery located thirty miles from Lhasa on the slopes of Mount Gangri Thökar.
As William Nadeau explains in his book Asian Religions a Cultural Perspective, "In the Mahayana countries, however, the nuns' order remains strong, particularly in Tibet and in Chinese speaking communities.
According to Diana Paul, Buddhism inherited a view of women whereby if they are not represented as mothers then they are portrayed as either lustful temptresses or as evil incarnate.
One of the attractions for women in Vajrayana Buddhism of following the path of a yogini rather than that of a bhikkhuni nun was the opportunity to practice amidst family life with a husband or spiritual consort and possibly have children.
[106] In Early Buddhism, the Sigalovada Sutta of the Digha Nikaya in the Pali Canon describes the respect that one is expected to give to one's spouse.
However, since the ideal of Early Buddhism is renunciation, it can be seen from examples such as the story of the monk Nanda and his wife Janapada Kalyāni that striving for the bliss of Nirvana is valued above romantic love and marriage.
The Dalai Lama spoke at a conference on Women in Buddhism at the University of Hamburg in 2007: Warfare has traditionally been carried out primarily by men since they seem better physically equipped for aggressive behavior.
"Somā responds to this taunt in verse: "What difference does womanhood make when the mind is serene, and knowledge is present as you rightly discern the Dhamma.
It is an aspect of feminist theology which seeks to advance and understand the equality of men and women morally, socially, spiritually, and in leadership from a Buddhist perspective.
