A Woman's Road to Freedom
Religions have often treated women as second class citizens.
Vajrapushpa investigates the position of women in Buddhist tradition, and in the WBO.
There was a queen infatuated with her own beauty; there was a daughter of a domestic slave as well as a prostitute and a teacher of Jain philosophy there were daughters of wealthy families, there were mothers whose children had died, and mothers whose children had left home. These, and many other women, went for refuge to the Buddha during his lifetime and found freedom in his teaching.
For many of them, this may initially have meant freedom from kitchen drudgery, or from the limitations of purely intellectual pursuits. For many of them as they gained insight into the unsatisfactoriness of conditioned existence — it came to mean freedom from the rounds of rebirth.
Perhaps in some peoples minds there still lingered a little doubt as to whether a woman could reach the highest goals of spiritual development — a woman with her two- finger consciousness only capable of testing whether grains of rice are cooked. Mara (a devil, or shadow in Buddhist mythology), appearing to the nun Soma, tried to make her a victim of this confusion. But she, already an Arahant, knew better:
How should the woman’s nature hinder us? Whose hearts are firmly set, who ever move With growing knowledge onward in the Path?
And, as an alternative translation of the verse suggests, one who is over-concerned, over-identified, with his or her sex, is susceptible to the confusions, to the arrogance and the self-doubt that Mara is always ready to conjure up.
After all, the Buddha had stated that women were capable of gaining Enlightenment. There is nothing in her nature to prevent woman from doing so. The fundamental task for both men and women is the transformation of human nature, steeped as it is in greed, hatred, and delusion.
Apart from being a step of immense spiritual significance, joining the Order of nuns was also a significant step in a society in which woman was primarily seen entirely in the light of her functions as daughter, wife, and mother, i.e. in relation to men, and not as an independent individual. The only other group of ‘free’ women in the Indian society at that time were the prostitutes.
It is interesting to note, however, that the status of women during the Indian Buddhist era was on the whole higher than it had been before — and higher than it has been since. Collective freedom in the sense of a general level of legal, financial, and psychological independence is an important stepping stone to spiritual freedom, gained through individual effort and motivation.
The Western Buddhist Order, in which men and women are members of the same, united, Order, reflects the importance of shared commitment to the Three Jewels, above and beyond all other differences. On the other hand, that fact that out of the 283 Order members only 45 are women, reflects a different sort of story, a story of biological, social, cultural, and psychological conditioning to which both men and women have been subject.
There is no obvious or simple answer to the question as to why there should be such an imbalance within the Order — and why it seems to take women longer to reach the point of readiness for ordination. The answer is made up of many different threads. There is, on the socio-psychological level for instance, the push-pull dynamic of the mother-daughter relationship. A mother wants her daughter to have greater freedom than she ever had, yet simultaneously convinces her that she will never escape, never be free and independent. She will always have to put other peoples needs first. This mixed message instills in a woman a sense of insecurity, a lack of self-esteem, a hunger for affection and acceptance.
Women have been convenient targets for psychological projection, carriers (for men) of much that is alien — whether desirable or not — in human nature: destructiveness, sexuality, mysteriousness, emotional dependence, and complexity. Mutual projection between men and women (for no doubt women project many things onto men) has become crystallized in educational, religious, social, and cultural patterns which define a woman’s place in society — and define her nature and her identity.
It is such patterns, with their unconscious undercurrents, that feminism as a doctrine and as a movement, has sought to illuminate and to eradicate. The numerous handicaps and restrictions experienced by women have left their marks. There has been an inevitable reaction in many areas of life: a forceful assertion of equality — if not of superiority — as regards men. Both degraded and idealized in the myths and histories of many religions, women find it difficult to create for themselves an active role of their own in the spiritual life.
Even though the currently fashionable quest for a womens spirituality may have a part to play in the process of creating a new degree of psychological independence and autonomy for women, it has, at least from a Buddhist point of view, a number of limitations. By emphasizing womens unique spiritual qualities, it sets up new boundaries between men and women. The rejection of men and what they represent, i.e. the masculine principle of power and reason, and the deification of the female principle — of caring and nurturing — does not help any more than the reverse process has helped. Men and women need to grow into psychologically and spiritually balanced individuals.
Although members of the same Order, men and women in the WBO regularly attend single-sex Order meetings, retreats, and conventions, and many women Order members live in women’s communities. It must be stressed, however, that such separating of the sexes for certain practical purposes has nothing to do with a more negative separatism. The often negative reasons for separatism are rooted in hatred of the opposite sex. This kind of segregation leads to false notions of inferiority and superiority and to the appropriating and disowning of certain qualities, conveniently labeled as masculine and feminine. The Western Buddhist Order has no existence apart from the Order members — male and female — who comprise it. The women who have joined the Order have done so as spiritually motivated individuals, and not to assert their common identity as women.
The decidedly more positive reasons that underlie our own single-sex situations, therefore, are based on an understanding of the individuals emotional and spiritual needs. Single-sex situations within the Order and the FWBO serve to create an atmosphere in which self-knowledge, self-acceptance, emotional clarity, and motivation for spiritual development can grow unhindered by distraction and projection.
Besides offering a general ambiance conducive to development, single-sex situations can, perhaps more importantly, act as practical spiritual workshops. Vajraloka and Taraloka, for instance, are retreat centres for men and women respectively. Their existence means that the monastic lifestyle, with a strong emphasis on meditation practice, is available to both men and women in the Order and the FWBO.
It is only natural and necessary that women Order members devote much of their time to teaching, and practising with other women. However, their overall frame of reference is the entire Order, their ultimate concern the entire movement, their field of activity the whole world.
From psychological freedom and positive self-image, so valuable in themselves, there is still much further to go: She grows in faith, grows in virtue, in learning, in generosity, in Wisdom. Making such growth, brethren, she wins the essential and wins excellence.