The Teaching of Buddha

[ismnotwasm]

So I pulled out one of my old books, of that exact title above. Thought I'd share. Translation from Japanese.

Now, even though "There is no distinctions of sex on the path to Enlightenment"

THAT comes after this (I'm keeping it short---very)

"The Blessed one said, "Amrapali, the mind of a woman is easily disturbed and misled. She yields to her desires and surrenders to jealousy more easily than a man. Therefore it is more difficult for a woman to follow the Noble Path. This is especially true for a young and beautiful woman. You must step forth toward the Noble Path by overcoming lust and temptation"


Amrapali was a "wealthy and famous courtesan' and "kept many young and beautiful prostitutes with her".

Oh for fucks sake. Misogyny and patriarchy everywhere you look. The little woman gets 'special instructions' in just about every religious text you can find. Mankind, evidently, means just that.

[bliss_eternal]

1. so all religion...

...seems based in patriarchical horse shit. :eyes: lovely.

forgive me for not being surprised by this. i have a book on dream analysis. the definitions for male, female, yin and yang are based on buddhism it seems (or at least the rest of religious ideologies). it was all i could do to not throw the book across the room when i read the specific interpretations (i.e female, etc). pisses me off, but simultaneously amuses me. so many shunned freud's work as bs, yet they utilize similar sexist based analysis. :shrug:

[get the red out]

2. Formal belief systems are static

I just assume that formalized belief systems are misogynist until proven otherwise. That's just for my own personal use, I don't want to upset anyone. There is much to be admired in Buddhism but the threads of misogyny are there as well.

The problem, in my mind, is that "religions" or belief systems stagnate badly. People assume that all wisdom to be had was given to humanity in the far past, and that wisdom doesn't come to people in "modern times". And in the past women were possessions, not people. This attitude of all that is spiritual is in the past and must be obeyed as is, harms the status of women more than we can possibly imagine in our worst nightmares.

I have never in my life been willing to become part of a formal belief system because I don't want to be required to accept misogyny as a condition of spirituality. To me there are no conditions on spirituality. We all have a right to it.

[ismnotwasm]

4. That's a good way to describe it --"static"

Some Westerners seem to think following a Eastern religion gives them some sort of special insight, but to me, a real reading of most religious texts I find more similarities than differences. Some incredibly meaningful and beautiful, some horrifying and sad, all with what I call Cover Your Dogmatic Ass caveats regarding non-believers. (With varying degrees of threat)

All religions are equal in my mind. Like you, I mean no offense, really, but I've never found one to be 'better' than another. It's a very personal thing obviously, and practitioners can be very loving and spiritual beings with open minds, or quite the opposite.

What upsets me, *is* the unquestioned sexism, the unchallenged logic of any type of "enlightenment" or process of being "saved" that never addresses inherent distrust of women, the perceived 'role' of women, as well as the outright misogyny present though out written history. How, I think, can one be "Enlightened" to the point of some sort of Godhead, and not realize or address what has happened to women in history, what has happened TO women's history? How do you possibly justify that as loving and/or spiritually evolved when it's so incredibly and obviously incomplete?

Static. You are so right.

Maybe it just can't be challenged that way, because misogyny is so inherent in entire religious systems. Some authors do try, like Elaine Pagels, who simply gets her scholarship questioned for her pains.

[redqueen]

5. But there are also parts that aren't static.

There is the story of Lilith in the Hebrew religion... and the apocryphal Gospel of Mary in Christianity.

[ismnotwasm]

6. Lilith was a much maligned demon

Archetypically, probably represents the 'nature' of woman as much as anything else did back them. As much as I adore that story about her being Adam's first wife and telling him to fuck off, my understanding is that story didn't appear in the early texts. Still the fact that it appeared at all and has survived says something about the spirit of history.

The whole history of what went in and what was left out of the bible makes me sick.

Are you familiar with this site?
http://www.suppressedhistories.net/

I signed up for a webinar one time with the author, Max Dachu. She's an incredible scholar trying to publish a work of ancient history from an pro-woman anthropological point of view. I've been so busy lately I haven't done another one, but her work is very good. She finds female places of honor and power, as well as stories that we don't learn about in 'ancient history' The site is fascinating.

[redqueen]

7. No, I wasn't familiar with that site... thanks.

But yes, I know that the story of Lilith has changed... and yes, the new revised story is non-canonical... but it still seems like at least a small effort by some to try to address these obvious problems. It's sad that it's so little, and that it's taken so long... but when I think about the stuff that is said here, by supposedly enlightened liberals... it's not so surprising.

Like Frederick Douglass said...

[get the red out]

8. Thank you

I will certainly investigate this site and pass it along!

[bliss_eternal]

12. cool link...!

thank you...and thanks for this thread, good stuff all around. :thumbsup:

[ismnotwasm]

11. There was a Jesuit priest,

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. He had a strong Catholic faith, yet was also a scientist, a paleontologist. He developed a philosophy, which he got in trouble for, basically saying that as through evolution organisms evolve into higher complexities, so do humans evolve spiritually to a higher complexity, with the highest what he called "The Omega Point", where the earth, and all it's creatures become god, or God-like. A science approach to 'one with the universe' no less.

It's very interesting, and anything but static. He says that even our drive to "know" is part of this evolving, that the pathologies of society, are a kind of birth pains. What I like about him is that he's so damn hopeful. I'm thinking he never even considered gender roles however, just took 'em for granted.

I'm reading his "The Future of Man"-- here's a bit (1959)

"This idea of the planetary totalisation of human consciousness (with its unavoidable corollary, that whereever there are life-bearing planets in the Universe, they too will become encompassed, like the Earth, with some form of planetised spirit) may at first sight seem fantastic: but does it not exactly correspond to the facts, and does it not logically extend the cosmic curve of moleculisation? It may seen absurd, but in its very fantasy does it not heighten our vision of Life to the level of other and universally accepted fantasies, those of atomic physics and astronomy? However man it may seem, the fact remains that great modern biologists, such as Julian Huxley and J. Bl S. Haldane, are beginning to talk of Mankind and to predict its future as though they were dealing (all things being equal) with a brain of brains"


"The increasing degree, intangible, and too little noted, in which present-day thought and activity are influenced by the passion for discovery; the progressive replacement of the workshop by th laboratory, of production by research, of the desire for well-being by the desire for 'more'-being--what do these things betoken if not the growth in our souls of a great impulse toward super-evolution?
The profound cleavage in every kind of social group (families, countries, professions, creeds) which during the past century has become manifest in the form of two increasingly distinct and irreconcilable human types, those who believe in progress and those who do not--what does this portent except the separation and birth of a new stratum in the biosphere?

I tumbled to this guy years ago through a science fiction series by Julian May called "The Galatic Milieu.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_Milieu_Series

[redqueen]

3. I figured this is true of most religions.

I read up on Buddhism in my early 20's, saw the misogyny and just remembered the good parts to take with me as I left it behind. When even that religion turned out to have misogynist teachings, I figured they were most likely all the same.

A while later I read about wicca, and that seemed decent enough... at least I don't remember finding any misogyny in any of its teachings. I didn't stick with it though... just kept what I liked and moved on.

[get the red out]

9. Very good

I like to take the things I find useful from various brands of spiritual thought as well. I had someone tell me that it won't be helpful to me in times of trouble if i don't pick on and swallow it whole, but I am not willing to do that, and I disagree with him, LOL! The anger I get at feeling like I have to accept some angry woman hating God or system would drown out any good I would get from that belief system.

I take what I need and leave the rest.

I love this thread BTW. Good stuff.

[redqueen]

10. How can anyone know that though?

Whether it would be more or less helpful to you in part or in whole? That just seems impossible IMO. Also, I bristle at even the notion of swallowing anything whole.

[bliss_eternal]

13. i do, too...

(love this thread)!

thanks for all the great discussion! :hi:

[femrap]

14. Organized religions

hate women. That's why I have my own belief system. I should write it down, open a 'church' and become tax exempt.

The Woman's Church. Wonder how long it would take for it to be burned to the ground?

Guess I would have to give it a 'coded' name. How about 'Mary's Church?' Or would that piss off the catholics?

Which do you hate more: Organized religions or Greedy Corporations?

Maybe I'll do a poll