Zen Women - Preface and Chapter 1

[Shoka]

Having a tradition solely resting on a male lineage is, however, clearly unhealthy, regardless of whether the men were all manly or some were artistic and/or nurturing. Just as gender imbalance is unhealthy so, I believe, are gender norms. While we find some gentle and soft male Zen ancestors, I think that we will read in this book of many women who were strong and fearless, at odds with the usual stereotype of femininity.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

Deep bows Kokuu, so well said. I agree, for the most part I don’t feel the same as Schireson in that I find the stories I have heard of women ancestors to be very relatable. And I also find plenty of men who are down to earth and just guys without bluster.

Hi all,
I have noticed two references to this book/discussion not being for 'girls only.' I find it most interesting that when a topic is about women we must assure people that it is of interest to all. It is something one sees in our wider culture as well. The default is that books by and about men are of general interest and that books by and about women are of interest to women only. Curious, isn't it? Do you think the perception would be different if the title was different, say "History and Lives of Zen's Matriach's?" Maybe.

For my part I added that this isn’t a conversation just for the girls, because there are definitely times when you want to have a conversation about topics such as discrimination with just the group that is the minority or just the group that is causing the discrimination. Often you see groups being split for conversations surrounding gender discrimination.

With that in mind, I wanted to make it clear that this conversation was open to all. So no one felt like they shouldn’t speak out of respect for giving space to those who might feel more harm from this conversation.

As far as "Oneness" answering discrimination, I think it's a no and yes. On the relative level: no, but on the absolute level, yes. We are taught that the two can't really be separated, and neither are they the same, is that right? Since we must function in the relative world, address it we must. And if we were to deny there is discrimination based on "Oneness," then we must deny the experiences of many people in this world. I prefer to think of Oneness as a total symphony of many notes, all the notes, not just one-though it may sound like one note sometimes.

It would be lovely if we could all live in the absolute world, and didn’t need to address the issues that a relative world creates through divisions. But as you said we live in the relative world and so we must acknowledge it exists.

I would also like to say, in my opinion, Shakyamuni (Buddha) was just a person. One whom I feel indebted but a person none the less. Sometimes when I think of the precepts I realize how open ended they are. But they need to be open so they can handle new situations. They provide a continuity to our behavior but because they are open ended there will be things that might not be addressed. Usually stuff that we think to be normal or common sense. The idea that women shouldn't vote strikes me as ludicrous but it was the norm where I live about 100 years ago. So I'm all for praising the Buddha but I'm open to disagreeing with him.

Hoseki,

I agree, whenever I read really old texts which talk about rules or requirements, I take them as being written by someone for that time and culture. There is so much in Buddhism that is left open for us to decide how to do something. That when there are very specific things laid down as “rules”, I tend to allow for the fact that Shakyamuni was a person, living in a time, trying to do what was best for the people he encounter then.

I love reading the entire vinaya (rules for monks) because there are some really silly ones in there. Like don’t toss your food in the air and don’t play with your food. I often imagine Shakyamuni with a hundred people following him around and him getting so annoyed by their behavior that he added all these rules, because he couldn’t go into towns with that many people tossing food in the air and making a mess.

Within Buddhism in times past I'd suggest that oneness was used as an excuse for discrimination. Today I'm sure that this is still a factor because we can't ignore the fact that misogyny is a thing and that we live in patriarchal societies for the most part. In saying that I'm not suggesting all Buddhist male identifying folk are misogynists but it is fact that no one can leave all of the societal baggage they've accumulated or been taught at the Zendo door. So today I'd suggest that ignorance plays more of a part in discrimination than finding excuses within Buddhist doctrine and history.

So very true. My office is forming a committee to talk about equality, discrimination, etc. And I truly believe that they don't understand how much exists in our workplace because they just ignore it.

I think that the historical Buddha was a man of wealth and privilege who at an age well after years of social, moral, ethical and political indoctrination decided that he needed to find some life lessons for himself. Yes, he became pretty switched on. Yes, so much so that I decided to try to live according to the basic teachings he gave upon the Oprah lightbulb moment he had.

I like the phase “pretty switched on” is that the Australian version of “woke”.

I'm late to the party but am looking forward to reading this and thanks to Kokuu for the gentlest of pokes to get involved.

You are perfectly on time!


Thanks everyone for your contributions to this discussion.

Gassho,

Shoka

[Meitou]

I struggle constantly with the idea of 'oneness' in regard to the treatment of women in Buddhism, I wonder how many men do the same.

I'm not concerned with manly men per se, but I am concerned about how women are measured against any standard rather than their own merit.
These two ideas were the most thought provoking for me in this chapter.

Gassho
Meitou
Sattoday lah

[Seikan]

I struggle constantly with the idea of 'oneness' in regard to the treatment of women in Buddhism, I wonder how many men do the same.

I also struggle with this same issue, as I would (naively, I suppose) expect that through multiple experiences of "oneness', the equality of all beings would be seen as incontrovertible.

However, it appears that it is not that easy to erode our karmic tendencies that affect our decisions/behavior in the relative world.

I see this as evidence that we cannot expect to just have an earth-shattering enlightenment experience and all will be well; we also need to continue to work (perhaps even more so) on directly changing our relative-world views/thinking/biases.

Gassho,
Rob

-st-


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[Jakuden]

I also struggle with this same issue, as I would (naively, I suppose) expect that through multiple experiences of "oneness', the equality of all beings would be seen as incontrovertible.

However, it appears that it is not that easy to erode our karmic tendencies that affect our decisions/behavior in the relative world.

I see this as evidence that we cannot expect to just have an earth-shattering enlightenment experience and all will be well; we also need to continue to work (perhaps even more so) on directly changing our relative-world views/thinking/biases.

Gassho,
Rob

-st-


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I think this gets to the point. When we talk about climate change, we say "sit with the wholeness of the warming world, then get up and do something about it." When we talk about poverty, we say "sit with the completeness of all in poverty and difficult circumstances, then get up and do something about it." When we talk about suffering due to inequality, gender and race biases, we sit with the Oneness of all beings, but then we need to get up and deal with its very real effects in the relative world.

Gassho,
Jakuden
SatToday

[Risho]

Finally got my book!

Does “Oneness” answer the question of discrimination? Nope this involves listening and dialogue. There is a truth to oneness, but I feel too that this can and has been used as an escape from the deeper question and issue at hand.

Schireson talks about 4 ways to work through difficult passages of Buddhist canon, which do you apply or how do you work through portions of Buddhist scriptures which can be considered misogynistic?
If I had to choose, I think the 4th as Shireson says, but I think Shakyamuni Buddha was just a human with the same foibles as all of us, but he was exceptionally introspective. And although he was flawed, think about how far ahead of his time he was particularly with his attitude juxtaposed with the the caste system that was (and still is) a strong part of his culture. I think when it comes to anything in our history, it's important to put it into context and to use the wisdom to apply to our own lives.

In hearing stories of old Zen Masters, do you believe they are all “Manly Man” as Schireson describes them? I think that (and I'm going to try my best to paraphrase the excellent Joseph Campbell) that human beings communicate and build our own reality through stories. And an important psychological part of those stories is "the archetype". The Bodhisattva ideal is an archetype of sorts. It's not real, but it's an ideal that we try to bring into and live up to in our day to day reality. This is the same as Buddha; we are Buddha but only when we live that. I know I fail to live up to that every day.

That being said, these stories of Zen Masters are likely "hagiographies" (Jundo introduced me to that word). They are highlighting and making these masters look like super humans because I feel they are trying to inspire. I love having heroes to look up to. I think we also lose something with that too; we forget that we should not try to mimic but rather emulate those heroes.

Now that being said too, I think it's important that we all have heroes; so I look forward to this book and learning about the female ancestors and learning about my own blindspots and prejudice both of which I have many.

Gassho

Rish
-stlah

[Heiso]

Just catching up - on the issue of 'oneness'- this kind of reminded me of people saying that all lives matter in the face of the black lives matters movement. At first it sounded a bit of a cop-out but then I realised if it maintains the status quo then it's much worse than that.

On manly men - I have to admit, I'd never considered zen masters to be macho 'manly men'. I'm with Kokuu in taking inspiration from the gentle hermits but maybe, as RobD said, this is an opportunity to face myself in the mirror and recognise that even those characters are problematic if they are treating women as equals.

Gassho,

Heiso

StLah

[Seikan]

Just catching up - on the issue of 'oneness'- this kind of reminded me of people saying that all lives matter in the face of the black lives matters movement.

Heiso,

Great analogy!

While we can acknowledge the oneness/equality/equity of all beings on one level, that doesn't mean that everything is necessarily just fine as it is on the relative level.

Inequalities and injustices must be singled out in order to effect change.

Gassho,
Rob

-st-


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[Amelia]

Just catching up - on the issue of 'oneness'- this kind of reminded me of people saying that all lives matter in the face of the black lives matters movement.

I had thought the same thing!

Gassho
Sat today, lah

[Meian]

I haven't gotten far in the book, but i keep thinking of the practical question -- whether all the "women priests" had used the women's bathrooms during the retreat (paraphrasing). That summed up a lot for me. In lofty talk of oneness, metaphysics, and theory, there is the reality of overlooked voices and an entire population being excluded in the guise of "we are all women."

It reminded me of my autism assessment when the male doctor informed me that there was no difference between men's and women's psychology or neurology, therefore autism presents the same way in both genders. Um, nope and that's excluding many voices.

Gassho, meian, st lh

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[Cooperix]

Mein, Geike, RobD, Heiso,

YES! I didn't feel 'at one' with the boy who abused me.

gassho
A.

~lahst~