Women can be Buddha

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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Ana
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Women can be Buddha

Post by Ana »

There was a topic here somewhere about women being Buddhas or not.
Woman can be Buddha and if who you call "the buddha" has said that woman can not be buddha then he himself was not a buddha.

how can an enlightened spirit, man or woman, leave his wife and his son behind and still be considered a Buddha? :lol:
it is said that Gautama instructed his son but nowhere it is said that he also instructed his wife.
this is not a gentleman's attitude :rules: and much less an attitude of an enlightened spirit.

the thing is, just like the world and its creatures are evolving, so is Buddha-nature - an ongoing process, an ongoing nature, always evolving
and in this sense not all is known, not all is discovered
even Buddha nature goes on evolving, reaching new possibilities, new peaks

the times back then demanded the conditions and the circumstances but everything is changing (culturally/socially)
the so called Buddha said that he didn't see any woman in any of the aeons he visited, but this statement is highly material because it implies that what he saw were men, and well, in the spiritual world there are no genders so how come he saw penises? aren't penises part of the physical world and physical body?
as far as it makes sense the spiritual world of aeons is not about physical charateristics therefore what he saw were just beings of light, not man and not woman.

in the future there will be Buddha women
all it takes is the courage and the choice of that next enlightened being to come as a woman

this is it
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Ben
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Re: Women can be Buddha

Post by Ben »

Yanick wrote:this is it
But it is not Theravada and I doubt whether your ideas correspond to any doctrine within the major schools of Buddhism.

I recommend Yanick that you take the time here to learn about the Dhamma, rather than confusing your own ideas as Buddhism.
Kind regards

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

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Ana
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Re: Women can be Buddha

Post by Ana »

Ben wrote:
Yanick wrote:this is it
But it is not Theravada and I doubt whether your ideas correspond to any doctrine within the major schools of Buddhism.

I recommend Yanick that you take the time here to learn about the Dhamma, rather than confusing your own ideas as Buddhism.
Kind regards

Ben

Thank you dearly :P

I'm only the reincarnation of Jim Morrison
I'm still learning
thecap
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Re: Women can be Buddha

Post by thecap »

Hello friends
Ben wrote:But it is not Theravada and I doubt whether your ideas correspond to any doctrine within the major schools of Buddhism.
Welcome to the Dhammic free-for-all section, Ben. :mrgreen:
I recommend Yanick that you take the time here to learn about the Dhamma, rather than confusing your own ideas as Buddhism.
He didn't mention "Buddhism" at all. And institutional Theravada hasn't rented the process of awakening, nor the terms 'Buddha' or 'Dhamma', has it?

So with gratefulness and respect to the tradition and to Gautama Buddha - I recommend that rather than taking dogma verbatim, everyone start to think for themselves. While learning the Dhamma at hand, of course, as Ben said. Thank you.
:namaste:
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Prasadachitta
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Re: Women can be Buddha

Post by Prasadachitta »

As far as I know it is recognized within the Buddhist tradition as a whole that females can be fully enlightened. That is, they can realize the total elimination of greed, hatred, and delusion. It happens that the discoverer of the way to this realization on this planet was born into a male body. Whether or not what we think of as a female will discover the Dhamma in some future time seems like one of the most unimportant things I can imagine when it comes to things we can know regarding the Dhamma. Whatever the scriptures say about it I seriously doubt it came from the Buddha. How can it have any bearing on the causes and cessation of suffering? This is after all the only thing the Buddha taught.

Metta

Gabriel
"Beautifully taught is the Lord's Dhamma, immediately apparent, timeless, of the nature of a personal invitation, progressive, to be attained by the wise, each for himself." Anguttara Nikaya V.332
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Aloka
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Re: Women can be Buddha

Post by Aloka »

Yanick wrote: how can an enlightened spirit, man or woman, leave his wife and his son behind and still be considered a Buddha? :lol:
it is said that Gautama instructed his son but nowhere it is said that he also instructed his wife.
this is not a gentleman's attitude :rules: and much less an attitude of an enlightened spirit.

Buddha needed to find a way to overcome suffering and enable countless beings to benefit from his teachings, both in his lifetime ,and on into the future. His wife and son would have been very well cared for and later his family would have benefited from his knowledge.

.
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Ceisiwr
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Re: Women can be Buddha

Post by Ceisiwr »

how can an enlightened spirit, man or woman, leave his wife and his son behind and still be considered a Buddha?
it is said that Gautama instructed his son but nowhere it is said that he also instructed his wife.
this is not a gentleman's attitude and much less an attitude of an enlightened spirit.

Im confused, are you saying that Buddha Sakyamuni wasnt a Buddha or enlightened at all because he renounced his household life?
“The teacher willed that this world appear to me
as impermanent, unstable, insubstantial.
Mind, let me leap into the victor’s teaching,
carry me over the great flood, so hard to pass.”
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Jechbi
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Re: Women can be Buddha

Post by Jechbi »

Yanick wrote:I'm only the reincarnation of Jim Morrison
Jim Morrison wrote:"People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that's bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they're afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they're wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It's all in how you carry it. That's what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you're letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain."
Rain soddens what is kept wrapped up,
But never soddens what is open;
Uncover, then, what is concealed,
Lest it be soddened by the rain.
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cooran
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Re: Women can be Buddha

Post by cooran »

thecap wrote:Hello friends
Ben wrote:But it is not Theravada and I doubt whether your ideas correspond to any doctrine within the major schools of Buddhism.
Welcome to the Dhammic free-for-all section, Ben. :mrgreen:
I recommend Yanick that you take the time here to learn about the Dhamma, rather than confusing your own ideas as Buddhism.
He didn't mention "Buddhism" at all. And institutional Theravada hasn't rented the process of awakening, nor the terms 'Buddha' or 'Dhamma', has it?

So with gratefulness and respect to the tradition and to Gautama Buddha - I recommend that rather than taking dogma verbatim, everyone start to think for themselves. While learning the Dhamma at hand, of course, as Ben said. Thank you.
:namaste:
I disagree. This is a Theravada Dhamma-Free-For-All forum - meant to discuss Dhamma concepts ... not to Slander the Buddha - which is what the OP has done in his/her post.

metta
Chris
---The trouble is that you think you have time---
---Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe---
---It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---
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Ben
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Re: Women can be Buddha

Post by Ben »

Dear all

At this point I would like to remind everyone of the guidelines for the Free-for-all forum, specifically:

1. Be nice to each other

Basic interpersonal decency must be observed within this forum. Feel free to attack the ideas of others, but never attack them personally, either directly or by inference. This need for interpersonal decency extends also to those who may have originally conceived the ideas being debated (e.g. the Buddha, commentators, bhikkhus, scholars).
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
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Tex
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Re: Women can be Buddha

Post by Tex »

Yanick wrote:There was a topic here somewhere about women being Buddhas or not.
Woman can be Buddha and if who you call "the buddha" has said that woman can not be buddha then he himself was not a buddha.
This was addressed by Gabriel above. No one said women can't be Buddhas (fully enlightened arahant), it was said that only a man could be a Sammasambuddha (one who rediscovers the lost Dhamma on his own and reintroduces it into the world). And who cares? There are things that men are capable of that women are not, just as there are things that women are capable of that men are not. I am a man, therefore I can't give birth, and that is the way it is, whether I like it or think it's sexist or wish I could give birth doesn't change anything.
Yanick wrote:how can an enlightened spirit, man or woman, leave his wife and his son behind and still be considered a Buddha? :lol:
Gotama was not enlightened when he left his wife and son to pursue enlightenment.
Yanick wrote:it is said that Gautama instructed his son but nowhere it is said that he also instructed his wife.
Rahula ordained and his wife did not. This does not mean that his wife went to her grave without benefitting from his teachings.
Yanick wrote:this is not a gentleman's attitude :rules: and much less an attitude of an enlightened spirit.
The very notion of a "gentlemen's attitude" implies gender identification, i.e. self-identification, i.e. lack of understanding of anatta, i.e. I wouldn't expect an enlightened being to care much about a gentleman's attitude. And regarding the "attitude of an enlightened spirit", it sounds as if you're suggesting that the Buddha was not enlightened, which is fine, but it would beg the question of why you're here.
Yanick wrote:in the future there will be Buddha women
all it takes is the courage and the choice of that next enlightened being to come as a woman
I'm sure there will be women Buddhas in the future, as in arahants, but it sounds again as if you're talking about women Sammasambuddhas, and according to the only Sammasambuddha's teachings I can consult, there will not be any such thing, and I'm going to take his word over your speculation.

No offense, but I think you're confused about some of these things that you've formed opinions about.
"To reach beyond fear and danger we must sharpen and widen our vision. We have to pierce through the deceptions that lull us into a comfortable complacency, to take a straight look down into the depths of our existence, without turning away uneasily or running after distractions." -- Bhikkhu Bodhi

"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." -- Heraclitus
green
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Re: Women can be Buddha

Post by green »

Yanick wrote:There was a topic here somewhere about women being Buddhas or not.
Woman can be Buddha and if who you call "the buddha" has said that woman can not be buddha then he himself was not a buddha.

how can an enlightened spirit, man or woman, leave his wife and his son behind and still be considered a Buddha? :lol:
it is said that Gautama instructed his son but nowhere it is said that he also instructed his wife.
this is not a gentleman's attitude :rules: and much less an attitude of an enlightened spirit.

the thing is, just like the world and its creatures are evolving, so is Buddha-nature - an ongoing process, an ongoing nature, always evolving
and in this sense not all is known, not all is discovered
even Buddha nature goes on evolving, reaching new possibilities, new peaks

the times back then demanded the conditions and the circumstances but everything is changing (culturally/socially)
the so called Buddha said that he didn't see any woman in any of the aeons he visited, but this statement is highly material because it implies that what he saw were men, and well, in the spiritual world there are no genders so how come he saw penises? aren't penises part of the physical world and physical body?
as far as it makes sense the spiritual world of aeons is not about physical charateristics therefore what he saw were just beings of light, not man and not woman.

in the future there will be Buddha women
all it takes is the courage and the choice of that next enlightened being to come as a woman

this is it
First of all, Yashodhara, Buddha's wife is ordained a nun, alongside the women from the royal court of the Sakyas. She is mentioned:

The introductory comments in the Pali Jatakas give us very little on Rahulamata, wife of Gautama. She is ordained in Savatthi along with 500 other Shakya women, and they all become Saints.(53) As such she is known as Bimba or Bimbaderi.(54) Rahula, himself a monk, comes to visit her in her cell and twice procures her a medicine to relieve her of some ailment.

http://www.buddha-kyra.com/wife.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Buddha did more for his birth family (and those not of his physical family) than anyone else claiming to be "all knowing" :smile:

Second of all, Buddha has helped me in more ways than I can thank him -- the question can I become a sammasambuddha is mute to the amount he has helped me.

Thirdly, only in Buddhism can someone born in the physical station of a woman can reach priesthood - Arahanthood...not possible in any other tradition -- she can as a woman also aspire to sammasambuddhahood -- no one will stop her.


Upon Arahanthood, there is greater possibility because an Arahant is no longer bound by "not self" characteristics -- including the aggregates of femalehood.

To say that a physical being as a woman cannot become a sammasambuddha is quite easily understood -- it requires a very high degree of energy and physical strength. Of course there are some women who are stronger then some men, but overall men are still physically stronger, so that it is possible a man can become a sammasambuddha but not a woman -- and yes meditation does require physical strength -- if you don't know that, you haven't been meditating correctly.

Right effort is pure meditative wrestling and sometimes, I just don't have the strength to do it -- but with Buddha in one's heart it becomes possible even for the weak to triumph over many of these defilments -- enough to become an Arahant -- and who knows what possibilities are after that? Nibbana is just the beginning for many of the Arahants who obtained even higher attainments after arahanthood.

If a woman someday becomes the strongest person in the world that EVER was, then I will pass doubt on the transmission of texts [/u](not on Buddha) :smile: But so far the texts have been pretty well preserved by the Sangha, and in Buddha I trust! :anjali:
thornbush
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Re: Women can be Buddha

Post by thornbush »

My all time favourite :clap:
Then Mara the Evil One...approached her and addressed her in verse:
"That state so hard to achieve
Which is to be attained by the seers,
Can't be attained by a woman
With her two-fingered wisdom."
Then the Bhikkhuni Soma, having understood, "This is Mara the Evil One," replied to him in verses:
"What does womanhood matter at all
When the mind is concentrated well,
When knowledge flows on steadily
As one sees correctly into Dhamma.
One to whom it might occur,
'I'm a woman' or 'I'm a man'
Or 'I'm anything at all' —
Is fit for Mara to address."

Then Mara the Evil One, realizing, "The bhikkhuni Soma knows me," sad and disappointed, disappeared right there.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... bl143.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Namo Amitabha Buddha!
Element

Re: Women can be Buddha

Post by Element »

A Buddha is one who is self-enlightened, when there is no Buddhism, and then starts the Buddhist religion.

It is impossible for a woman to be a Buddha but it is possible for a woman to be a fully enlightened arahant.
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Ana
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Re: Women can be Buddha

Post by Ana »

Element wrote:It is impossible for a woman to be a Buddha but it is possible for a woman to be a fully enlightened arahant.
and why is it impossible?
give me a valid explanation.

I already gave mine but it was deleted. Besides, you all speak about non dualiasm but in this issue of being impossible for a woman to be Buddha all I find is dualism, or worse, sexism.

In the course of Human history the mind has always been associated to man and in man mind is said to reach its greatest potential. Idea, philosophy and mind have been divinized as supreme attributes of the masculine gender, they aren't private but man has taken them as his own. However, the mind is overrated and the heart condemned to an inferior level of relevance and importance. The whole comparison is ridiculous. - taken from my blog

You can't explain why, that is the truth. And if your explanation is what the Buddha said then forget it because you weren't there and you will sound like a puppet christian saying "it's what the bible says". All you know is what the men of politics didn't censor. Or do you think there was no censorship about things Buddha said? Aha! Of course there was. So I think it's better we wait for the next Buddha, or someone enlightened enough to clarify this issue for us.

I had posted something here trying to demonstrate why the spirit chooses a male incarnation to be a Buddha but apparently even my pro-male explanation wasn't welcome. I honestly don't know where you guys think you are going with this kind of attitude. You are all in the ego and worse: you are all in the body between your legs by saying that it is impossible - don't you think impossible is not the right word and a bit too strong?

you will ALL be women in the next reincarnation
so I don't really see the point in your defensive attitude


"women of the future hold great revelations" - U2 Get on your boots

these women Bono is talking about, it's himself and you

:lol:

and by the way
I think in this video "get on your boots" my deleted signature is there
go and check
Last edited by Ana on Tue Mar 03, 2009 5:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
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