Will wrote:Well, that settles it; guess there is nothing left to do but dump the Dharma and wait for the Divine Mother to appear.Ana 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?
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.
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
Jainism holds the view that birth as a man is required to become fully enlightened.
I thought Buddhism had a less male-obsessed and archaic attitude. If Buddhism is to have worth today it needs to have relevance to now, not teachings given to suit men 2,500 years ago.
The Dhamma is not sexist, yet there is always an element which espouses consistently fundamentalist and literalist views - no rebirth , no women Buddhas etc etc.
The story of Khema is interesting in this light:
''Decked out in royal splendor with silk and sandalwood, she went to the monastery. The Exalted One spoke to her and explained the law of impermanence of all conditioned beauty to her. She penetrated this sermon fully and still dressed in royal garments, she attained to enlightenment. Just like the monk, Mahakappina — a former king — she likewise became liberated through the power of the Buddha's words while still dressed in the garments of the laity. With her husband's permission she joined the Order of Nuns. Such an attainment, almost like lightning, is only possible however where the seed of wisdom has long been ripening and virtue is fully matured.
An ordinary person, hearing Khema's story, only sees the wonder of the present happening. A Buddha can see beyond this and knows that this woman did not come to full liberation accidentally. It came about like this: In former times when a Buddha appeared in the world, then Khema in those past lives also appeared near him, or so it has been recounted. Due to her inner attraction towards the highest Truth, she always came to birth wherever the bearer and proclaimer of such Truth lived. It is said that already innumerable ages ago she had sold her beautiful hair to give alms to the Buddha Padumuttara. During the time of the Buddha Vipassi, ninety-one eons ago, she had been a teacher of Dhamma. Further it is told, that during the three Buddhas of our happy eon, which were previous to our Buddha Gautama, she was a lay disciple and gained happiness through building monasteries for the Sangha.''
Another nun, Uttara II, reported how Patacara spoke to the group of nuns about conduct and discipline:
Having established mind,
One-pointed, well-developed,
Investigate formations
As other, not as self.
(Thig 177)
Uttara took Patacara's words to heart and said:
When I heard these words —
Patacara's advice,
After washing my feet —
I sat down alone.
(Thig 178)
Thereby this nun, too, was able to attain to the three "True Knowledges" (vijja) and final liberation.
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No such problem in the Mahayana - Kwan Yin, Tara etc. LOL
Hmmm.