Contemporary Buddhism, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2003

Buddhism and the Feminine
Voice

Gay Watson

Sharpham College, Devon, UK

This paper discusses influences of feminism on an emergent Western
Buddhism. It looks at the presentation of the feminine throughout the three
turnings of the wheel of Dharma, and advocates reception of the feminine voice
rather than a gendered feminism concerned only with the advancement of
women.

Buddhism has faced a double challenge in each culture it has entered: to

remain true to the core of its teachings and to express these in a way that
responds to the needs of the new situation. Just as Tibetan Buddhism has a
different flavour from that of China and of Japan, so any emergent Western
form of Buddhism must inevitably change as it engages with the Western world.
Western science is one of the major new influences with which Buddhist beliefs
must contend and converse, and the Western emphasis on the individual brings
in another new dimension. An important third influence is, surely, feminism. A
recent plethora of books addressing a feminine approach to Buddhism would
seem to support this. Yet it is not exactly feminism that I want to address here,
more something I have begun to call the ‘feminine voice’, a voice that I believe
is as applicable to science and to Western individualism as it is to traditional
Buddhism. To listen to this voice may help move us towards the happiness that
is, as the Dalai Lama continually reminds us, what all humanity seeks.

What is the feminine voice? Immediately I fear myself entering the sinking

sands of feminist polemic, political correctness and patriarchal backlash. Many
distinctions have been suggested, and each appears to hold a specific agenda:
gender that is biological; feminist often political; and feminine a term of quality
or qualities, which brings into play the essentialist argument. Are such qualities
— indeed, is even gender — essential or constructed? From a Buddhist
perspective, obviously, I cannot espouse the essentialist argument; but I believe
that there are qualities that we may, in conventional understanding and speech,
correctly term ‘feminine’ in contradistinction to those termed ‘masculine’. I
believe that our reception of many of these ‘feminine’ qualities — indeed, our
labelling of them — have arisen from convention, society and expectation. Most
importantly, I believe they are not the exclusive property of women. Perhaps
one can envision a sliding spectrum of qualities — masculine one pole,
feminine the other — and each of us, man or woman, is placed, places
ourselves, somewhere on this scale. That these qualities are largely artificially
human-designated does not matter, that they are usually man-made and rarely
woman-made may do so. For they are the exclusive property neither of men nor
of women, but belong to both, and, I contend, need to be equally valued. That

ISSN 1463-9947 print; 1476-7953 online/03/010025-07

 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd

DOI: 10.1080/1463994032000140167

26

G. Watson

these so-called feminine qualities have been undervalued and that such values
have been used to define and to limit what is considered ‘womanly’ or ‘manly’
is the problem, not that they are designated as feminine. This has wounded
women obviously, and men less obviously but still profoundly. In a patriarchal
world we have had a hierarchy of values, through the greater valorisation of one
term — the masculine — at the expense of the other — the feminine. What we
all need and must, surely, seek now is a plurality of values, a revalorisation of
the feminine, a move to network models rather than hierarchical ones, a turn to
ways of connection and co-operation rather than competition.

So what are these ‘feminine’ qualities? I would say that they are best

described as the Yin qualities of the Taoist system, the necessary counter-
balance to Yang: receptivity as opposed to activity, listening as opposed to
discourse, being in contrast to doing, collaboration rather than competition,
connection and integration rather than analysis, and a greater attention to feeling
and intuition rather than dependence only on cognition and reason. As one
enumerates these qualities it is easy to see how devalued they have become;
how listening and reflection have been squeezed out in the emphasis on
discourse, on being heard. Contemporary life encourages us to be too concerned
with what we have to say to take the time to listen and reflect, on ourselves, our
bodies, and our feelings, to each other, to the non-human world. Similarly, we
are too busy doing to look around, to reflect, feel, and receive. To repeat the
words Dogen (1972, 133) said some seven hundred years ago:

To practice and confirm all things by conveying one’s self to them is
illusion, for all things to advance forward and practise and confirm the
self is enlightenment.

We are so concerned with the illusion, with impressing ourselves, our views and
actions onto the 10,000 things, that we cannot allow them to touch us, allow
ourselves to be enlightened. Cognitive reason rules, or attempts to rule, our
lives, accompanied by the inevitable periodic eruptions of repressed unreason,
as the ignored shadow bursts forth. Our emotions, sense of embodiment, our
intuition of our place in the environment, all are more or less ignored and
placed in thrall to our reason and our self-image. Everything else becomes their
possession, either potential or terror. From the centre of self-image and
possessed knowledge, the world is imagined. Alienated from participation,
walled in the separated and separative self, the world is out there as adversary
or theatre set.

In the battles against patriarchy, feminism has achieved so much for which

women can be grateful. My daughter undoubtedly lives in a world of less
restriction, social and legal, and greater possibility than the one I entered at
adulthood. Many battles have been won. Yet there is a paradox. That I use the
metaphor of war exposes the extent of the problem; that our very language,
which Heidegger called our house of being, is thoroughly saturated with
masculine bias. The depth of this problem is the source of the paradox.
Ironically, such gains for women have, at times, been won only through a loss
of the feminine voice, through winning by taking on the qualities of the opposed

Buddhism and the Feminine Voice

27

masculine. To become heard, the voice has had to become masculine —
sometimes strident, often combative — taking on those very patriarchal quali-
ties that have previously silenced its own. Just recently I attended an academic
conference on postmodern poetry. I expected that both poetry and the postmod-
ern would and should embrace plurality and the feminine voice, but I watched
as few women among many men in dark suits read quickly, dense intellectual
papers, with great intelligence but little warmth, no sense of embodiment nor
passion.

How does this speak to and within Buddhism? Buddhism can well converse

with postmodern theory and in some ways long foresaw it — in its concern with
difference, with inessentiality and interdependence. But how has it represented
and valued masculine and feminine qualities in its long history and its practice.
Some feminist scholars have addressed the problem; Ann Klein, Miranda Shaw
and Rita Gross have searched and researched, and written clearly and imagina-
tively in and about the feminine voice of Buddhism. Gross delineated most
clearly what she sees as disparity between theory and practice. Yet it may be
more complex. Comparative feminist reading of Buddhism reveals a hetero-
geneous picture. One recent commentator addressing the topic of Buddhist
attitudes towards women and the feminine names different approaches as
‘soteriological inclusiveness, institutional androcentrism, ascetic misogyny and
soteriological androgyny’.

1

If we can overlook the unsympathetic, and dare I

suggest very masculine, terminology, the matter is interesting. Another has
distinguished three different scholarly approaches; first, that of a gender-free
message perverted by later monastic and misogynistic practice; second, a
developmental model that shows greater openness to the feminine in the historic
progression from Early Buddhism through the Mahayana to Vajrayana; and
third, an essentialist interpretation seeing an essential core of teaching un-
touched by later accretion or distortion of practice and interpretation.

2

I believe

we may find some truth in each, but absolute truth in none of these approaches.
Which is perhaps how it should be, for surely from a truly feminine perspective
we should not be seeking for a position, but for the ability to acknowledge and
stay afloat in the flow of relationship.

Most useful is the suggestion that rather than tracking what actually happened

in the past, one may seek in Buddhism for resources for a contemporary
androgynous reading in a feminine voice, which is what Rita Gross (1993) set
forth in her study Buddhism After Patriarchy. So let us take a brief glance at
the wounds and the resources for the feminine voice that we may find in
Buddhism throughout the development of the teachings, which are called the
three turnings of the wheel of dharma. Gross’ own definition of feminism in
Buddhist terms, which I deeply support, is that it ‘involves the radical practice
of the co-humanity of women and men’ (1993, 127).

Buddhism, in its fundamental four truths, is concerned with suffering, its

cause and its ending, and the path to such liberation, for all humanity. Yet in
practice and in some texts we find hideously misogynistic strands. Is this a
fundamental message, or merely a result of context? A postmodern approach
should warn us against the very idea or possibility of taking anything out of its

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G. Watson

context, and a comparative approach will also keep us alive to the remembrance
that we bring to our study awareness not only of what we find in the past, but
also an inevitable filter of our contemporary context and values. Attempting to
remember this, what do we find? We certainly find women seen as temptation;
as indeed they would be from the point of view of a monastic group of men.
For much of Buddhist scriptures are not so much the revelation and narrative
of a god, but arise from the actual working of a community, and were set out
as rules for conduct under specific circumstances. Even granting this, however,
it is difficult for women to feel part of co-humanity knowing that the most
senior nun must be subject to the newest monk, that nuns may never teach
monks, and that the foundation of the order of nuns apparently caused the
Buddha to halve his expectation of the valid life of the dharma.

In terms of the teaching of early Buddhism, however, we may also find

resource for an androgynous reading: as mentioned, the four truths are in no
way gender specific, and in the Samyutta Nikaya we find a statement that
‘whether a woman or a man’, one can reach nirvana. Within the canon we find
the Therigatha, the songs of the Elder Women, alongside the Theragatha, the
songs of the Elder Men. The doctrines of dependent origination, a description
of a dynamic network process rather than a static hierarchic model, are more
compatible in terms of the qualities earlier defined as feminine than with those
of a patriarchal interpretation. Just the other day I was talking to a group of
students about dependent origination and emptiness. One man in the group
asked whether I thought these were perhaps concepts that were easier for
women to understand. It was a very good question and I think he may be right.
It probably is easier for women, following a more feminine logic. Rita Gross
also has carried out an interesting, and I find convincing, argument for looking
at gender as a manifestation of ego, and thus to be dissolved according to early
Buddhist emphasis on selflessness (1993, 158).

With the Mahayana the general trend of doctrine is away from situated deeds

of the historical Buddha toward a more mythological and cosmic interpretation.
Here, the doctrines are not only gender free, but imbued with a strong feminine.
Emptiness is beyond all definition in ultimate non-duality; thus, gender differ-
ence becomes part of conventional relative truth while ultimate or absolute truth
is the truth of emptiness of any kind of essence, and thus of difference. The
logic of this non-duality may even be considered as a qualitatively feminine
logic; in contradistinction to a rational hierarchical masculine logic of ex-
clusion, being connective rather than competitive, concerned with relationship
and a middle way between extremes of exclusion.

The twin and equally valued pillars on which the philosophy of the

Mahayana rests are those of wisdom and compassion, often presented as
wisdom and skilful or appropriate action. Imaginatively, Prajnaparamita, the
personification of the perfect wisdom of emptiness, is female. According to
Gross this arises from the feminine gender of the Sanskrit term prajna, and
because wisdom is the source, the mother of all Buddhas and Buddhaing.
However, another Buddhist scholar, Jose Cabezon, warns us to beware even
here of jumping to feminist-pleasing conclusions, suggesting that the patriarchy

Buddhism and the Feminine Voice

29

bearing female symbols are even more dangerous than Greeks bearing gifts. He
states that while wisdom is indeed associated with the female, this is not helpful
to the status of women, as the pre-occupation of the Mahayana centres upon
emotional state of bodhicitta as the distinguishing characteristic of the tradition.
As the ethnicity of a child follows that of her father, so the distinguishing
characteristic of the Mahayana — its ethnicity you might say — follows upon
the characteristic of the masculine.

3

Yet whatever the origin of the tradition, I

believe it may be a potential resource.

In the Mahayana literature there is a changed presence of women, perhaps

due to the greater emphasis upon the lay population away from an exclusive
monastic setting. However, here too we find contradictions: while women may
attain enlightenment, mostly it is stated that they may not become Buddhas in
a female body. In the Lotus Sutra and the Bodhisattvabhumi we clearly find that
a woman must be reborn as a man before reaching Buddhahood, and the same
story is continued in the Pure Land of Amitabha. However, in the Vimalakir-
tinirdesa Sutra, we are presented with a goddess who, having caused Sariputra
to appear in her form and transformed herself into the male form of Sariputra,
denies the real existence of the characteristics of gender, whereupon the Buddha
says ‘In all things, there is neither male nor female’.

The most feminine-friendly aspect of Buddhism is found in the third turning

of the wheel and in the Vajrayana. Here the very language embodies the
feminine perspective. What is usually translated as Buddha nature is, in its
Sanskrit original, Tathagatagarbha, the womb or embryo of the Thus Gone,
which is a title for Buddha. One of the first and most important instances of this
doctrine of the Tathagatagarbha is found in the Sutra of a woman, Queen
Srimaladevi. The importance of the feminine is further carried imaginatively by
its importance in the symbolism and ritual of this branch of Buddhism. Female
protectors, deities and dakinis are central to the Vajrayana mythology and
sadhana. I would mention quickly here the important position occupied by Tara
and, in Japanese Buddhism, Kuan Yin, whose transformation from the male
form of Avalokitesvara is in itself most interesting.

In more abstract form, the two pillars of wisdom and compassion from the

Mahayana becomes a dyad of space and activity — the activity is the resonance
of compassion, which becomes translated as skill in means arising from the
wisdom of emptiness. In all gendered symbolism, which is carried through a
number of pairs, bell and vajra, vowels and consonants, left and right, the
emphasis is on non-hierarchical co-operation and complementarity, the joint
manifestation of the whole.

Yet to emphasise the complexity of discussing Buddhism in feminist terms,

while womanhood in Tibetan Buddhist belief tends to hold an important place,
the very word for woman in the Tibetan language means low born; and the full
ordination for Tibetan nuns either never existed or soon fell into disuse. Again,
on the other hand, to disparage women is the last of the fourteen root downfalls
to be avoided in the Tantric initiation vows, where women are ‘the symbols of
wisdom and sunyata’.

Thus, while both androcentric and mysogynistic strands can be found

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G. Watson

throughout all the turnings of the wheel of dharma, their practical expression
following cultural direction has been too invariably patriarchal. However,
within all three turnings we find also resources for an androgynous approach to
Buddhism that respects the co-humanity of man and woman, male and female.
This, we must be able to instantiate today in practice, daily and ordinarily, as
the expression both of masculine and feminine voices.

4

If feminine values or

even androgynous philosophy to be heard must be uttered in patriarchal tones,
they no longer embody those very values they seek to espouse. But there is in
Buddhism great resource for the feminine voice. In philosophy and practice,
Buddhism speaks with a voice partaking of both masculine and feminine. In its
concern with change, with interdependence and with feelings equal to cognition,
it engages with the feminine. The central philosophy of dependent origination
is a dynamic process philosophy of relationship and connection. Arising from
this the doctrine of emptiness goes beyond the dichotomy of all difference,
including both gender and emptiness itself, in a logic of non-duality far
removed from the conventional, rational, exclusive logic.

In practice, the central way of Buddhist meditation can surely support the

feminine voice. With its exercises of deep listening and receptive mindfulness
it embodies such theory. Indeed, mindfulness and meditation support a different
way of knowing; a way of knowing that is more natural to the feminine voice.
Rather than sustaining a totality of knowledge, it is concerned with a quality of
attention: rather than supporting singleness of concentration, it is concerned
with an equable and widespread attention to whatever arises.

5

This is a kind of

receptive attention that we all, men and women, need now. It was this kind of
attention that Freud called for in psychoanalysis, an ‘evenly hovering attention’,
that is receptive to free association, to embodiment, to the non-conscious. It is
as important for our external interaction with world as it is for our intrapersonal
affairs. Ecology has long, and ever more urgently, called for a kind of humility,
a listening to the ways of the world, rather than an imposition of technologies
that are alien and unsustainable.

If, in patriarchal cultures, Buddhism has sometimes interpreted this potential

in an androcentric manner rather than an androgynous manner, yet the models
are there for a new interpretation: Prajnaparamita, the perfection of Wisdom, is
female, as is Tara the Protector, and the bringers of wisdom, the sky-walkers,
the Dakinis. In their own right, rather than as mothers or consorts, these
feminine icons reflect a feminine face for Buddhism, which expresses the
feminine voice in all its range, not merely passive, but active, wrathful and
powerful. The West also has historically been a patriarchal culture — even if
hopefully this is now changing. Maybe Western feminism may help us to
re-interpret Buddhism in this feminine-friendly manner. And perhaps these
Buddhist images may imaginatively inspire the feminine voice in the West; may
inspire a way of being that not only understands dependent origination and
emptiness, but embodies it in a specifically feminine way; not through force of
intellect and control, but by opening up to the web of relationship within which
we are embedded. It will be a practice close to the body, but embedded in the
world; a practice of permeable boundary, touching and being touched, reaching

Buddhism and the Feminine Voice

31

for the stars, yet rooted in earth. It will be a practice of heart open to play and
be played upon, in body, speech and mind, a practice of active passivity, the
opening to the world of which Dogen speaks. In the words of a contemporary
feminist writer, Helene Cixous:

A practice of the greatest passivity. At once a vocation and a technique.
This mode of passivity is our way — really an active way — of getting
to know things by letting ourselves be known by them. You don’t seek to
master. To demonstrate, explain, grasp. And then to lock away in a
strongbox. To pocket a part of the riches of the world. But rather to
transmit: to make things loved by making them known. (1991, 57)

Such a way would be of great benefit to Buddhism and to life in general. It would
accept and honour the essential deconstruction of Buddhism and the postmodern,
and support an embodied reconstruction, aware of its impermanence, its relativity
but celebrating its plurality and its becoming.

Such a voice could provide an antidote in Western discourse to the technologi-

cal thinking at the foundation of so much of recent history. For it is a discourse
strong on listening, on receptivity as response. In contrast to voice that is
masterly, hierarchic and logical, concerned with identity, separation and indepen-
dence, such a feminine voice is more aware of and concerned with difference
and interdependence, response and relationship, community and complementar-
ity. To bring these two voices, statement and response, speaking and listening,
into dialogue and to give equal valuation to each could surely be both
individually enriching and a strong foundation for a Western Buddhism that
respected both the heart of the tradition and the needs of its contemporary setting.

Notes

1

A. Sponberg, ‘Attitudes towards women and the feminine in early Buddhism’
(Cabezon 1992), p. 8.

2

A. Ahmed, unpublished paper.

3

J. Cabezon, ‘Mother wisdom, father love: gender-based imagery in Mahayana
Buddhist thought’ (Cabezon 1992), p. 189.

4

Some sanghas have changed traditional ways, and have taken steps to include female
images on altars, and include female teachers within their recited lineages.

5

The advantages of such a different way of knowing and organising are explored and
celebrated particularly in the writings of Mary Catherine Bateson, such as Composing
a Life (Bateson 2001) and Peripheral Vision (Bateson 1994).

References

Bateson, M.C. 1994. Peripheral Visions, New York: Harper Collins.
Bateson, M.C. 2001. Conposing A Life (re-issue), New York: Grove Press.
Cabezon, J. 1992. Buddhism, Sexuality and Gender, Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Cixous, H. 1991. Coming to Writing, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Dogen, 1972. Genjokoan trs. Abe, M. & Waddell, N. in Eastern Buddhist, Vol. 15, No.

2, p. 133.

Gross, R. 1993. Buddhism After Patriarchy, Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Klein, A. 1995. Meeting the Great Bliss Queen, Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Shaw, M. 1994. Passionate Enlightenment, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Correspondence address: Gay Watson, Coombery, Tuckenhay, Totnes, Devon TQ9 7EP,

UK. E-mail: [e-mail]