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why do some Buddhist teachers say enlightenment is only attainable by a female?
evolve
Explorer
I thought Buddhist teachings weren't sexist 
but now I'm confused? Do all Buddhist believe this?
thank you
but now I'm confused? Do all Buddhist believe this?thank you
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The bodhisattva Tara is said to have made the vow to only be born as a female until samsara is emptied.
thus it isn't something attained.
but speaking directly to your question. both females and males can realize their inherent enlightened nature.
thus teachers who teach this are either stupid or culturally bias. anyone who is a true and sincere practitioner will see the obvious absurdity of male verse female duality.
and taiyaki, I agree with you, and yeah it doesn't make sense that we'd have to be female to realize enlightenment
I personally have never heard any teacher make any such statement, so some kind of link to a creditable source would be helpful.
Thanks!
A female has a different body and one chromosome different... I have always wondered if females have a different sort of mind, don't know how to architechturally, if you will, analyze.
Any thought experiment ideas into how a male and female 'mind energies/structure' could be? In chemistry reactivity is always related to structure. So the question arises of how a females mind is structured differently from a males?
The difference I have heard of is the corpus colossum (spelling) joining the two hemispheres of the brain is different with more mass and connections I guess. The right brain sees the big pictures and is religious and intuitive. The left brain is logical and sees details analytical and so forth.
I would theorize that females are more integrated and can accomplish communication relationships more easily while integrating with order and activities. The male I imagine can focus on one function at a time. There is a big emphasis on hunting and rising to the top of the power in order to reproduce.
That last sentence could explain social order with males involved because the society could echo the pattern of more hierarchy bread into males. Both in genes and memes. I am using the word meme loosely to refer to 'art is life and life is art' type of thing.
Which is not to say that there were never cultures with 'the sacred feminine' but just that the hierarchy of males breading from monkey times even would influence the cultural.
The shaky conclusion is that there could be a superstition of the power of males to touch God... going all down the line into the Buddhist culture.
In other words males might be more prone to satori? There are records of powerful female spiritualists in the Pali Canon though. I can't find this but I remember it from my Pali weekly aol meeting. I think that some had become arhats which is enlightened as I understand.
Does this make sense to anyone?
Ayya Khema, Pema Chodron, and my teacher Lama Shenpen, are some examples of modern powerful spiritual masters. Cheri Huber, Sharon Salzberg, many others.
But I hear some buddhist nun say that they need reborn has a male monk for get enlightenment.
But the Buddha never say something like that. Male and female are equal to follow the path to the ending of suffering.
Blessing.
Just off the top of my head: the whole trope of women being vain and so the Buddha or one of his disciples has to make them see the image of a woman rotting; the Buddha as Prince Siddhartha seeing the harem of women in his palace and becoming disgusted by them so he leaves to become a mendicant; the extra vinaya for nuns; the portrayal of women as an object to be disgusted by as they represent physical impurities (not just sexually, but also referring to menstruation); etc.
But the core of the teachings are not sexist, no.
Let this be a lesson to you though, @evolve, just because someone says they're a Buddhist and says one thing doesn't mean that all Buddhists believe the same, or that it's even a "Buddhist" thing.
thats all I have to say about it.
there are stories emanating particularly from Mahayana/Tibetan Buddhism, that relate to
Tara vowing to always be reborn in female form, and there are other writings which allege to be quoting the Buddha when he states that women being ordained and being permitted to enter the Sangha would shorten the existence of the Dhamma by half.... but many of these so-called quotations are thought to have been added later, and cannot definitively be attributed to the Buddha.
Many people including expert scholars of Buddhism, doubt their authenticity, as personally, do I.
The attainment of enlightenment is not dependent on gender, and neither is one gender more likely than the other to achieve it.
There is a Chinese saying that states that men are 99% secular and 1% spiritual, and that women are 1% secular and 99% spiritual, but that it is as hard for a woman to overcome that final single percentage of secularism, as it is for men to overcome their 99%....
Whatever the case, let us assure you now: you were misinformed; but kudos to you for carrying your investigations further, and seeking clarification and finding out more about it.
One of the first questions I asked my first teacher about was the gender issue
He told me that he believed any distinction was related to cultural understandings of gender roles. He also explained to me that the Buddha's only comments about practice and progress in relation to gender were about women ordaining, At the time when the Buddha was first asked about women ordaining it would have been very difficult due to the cultural norms and understandings in the community at that time.
Hi,
If I was going to pick a gender, I would pick male - but then maybe that is because I am female - lol.
On the topic of male/female differences and if there is inherent differences, possibly due to anatomical differences, have you had the experience online of interacting with someone and then later being told they were a different gender to what you thought??? I have been told untruths online about gender ( ie, that I am discussing with a male when they are female) - and when tested, my gut instinct has been right thus far - lol.
I find there is big differences in male and female in terms of communication - do not see how this would impact on practice and progress though.
the whole idea of if only the Buddha had been female, he would've realized enlightenment earlier, is just as discomforting
anyway-thanks for clarifications everyone