Chapter 7: The Life of the Buddha

Further thoughts on The Life of the Buddha, a collection and translation by Nanamoli:

This is the chapter on admitting women into the sangha. The Buddha's stepmother, the woman who raised him, nursed him, when his mother died soon after he was born. She wanted to join the sangha. The Buddha initially said no but she came back and he gave 8 conditions, and she accepted them.

Now is this where I think like I do with Shakespeare? With Shakespeare I don't think he's anti-semitic or misogynistic or racist, no more than the average person, he just captured these forces in his plays. Merchant of Venice has a depiction of a jewish man, from the standpoint of a playwright in a country that banned jewish people. And Taming of the Shrew is just how women were handled then, women were married off by their fathers. And Othello was just how Moores were treated in those days. Our interpretations of the plays can be racist as well, supposedly John Adams thought Desdemona deserve being killed for marrying a black man.

Anyway, I'm not sure how women were treated in the Buddha's time, but there is an amazing book that captures women going into the spiritual life, and might be the first feminist spiritual classic: Therīgāthā. I found it a really powerful book when I read it on retreat. It wasn't the theme of the retreat, I just find I can read a lot deeper when I'm on retreat, and I found it very inspiring.

So was the Buddhist sexist by applying 8 rules for women? Was he capturing the sexism in the society to apply skillfully?

Could he have given a simple yes, let them in. I don't know, but that's what I would do from my unenlightened perspective twenty five hundred years into the future, from America, who's only had the Dharma for 200 years, only about a tenth of the Dharma's existence on Earth.

I do know that one of the amazing monasteries in the USA is led by a woman: Sravasti Abbey. I'm not aware of any sex scandals in that sangha--the plague which most large sanghas in America have had to face, why I would recommend smalls sanghas. Everyone owns their own spiritual life and I wouldn't let anyone put some idea on mine that would limit it, or my daughters.

There is also a prophecy that because women were let into the sangha that the Dharma would be on earth for less time. I'd say that if anyone trots that out, it's a hook for people who want to blame women and have negativity towards them, so what out for anyone who brings this up.