NAMO TASSA
BHAGAVATO ARAHATO SAMMA SAMBUDDHASSA

'THE BUDDHIST HOUR'

RADIO BROADCAST

KNOX FM 87.6 & 88.0

Sundays 11:00am to 12:00pm

Knox FM Radio Broadcast for 22 October 2000

Today’s Program is called: Some differences between the kamma of women and men.

A decade ago it was fashionable in some circles to talk about glass ceilings on women’s promotion.

Average students should think carefully about the studies they choose to undertake. It is wrong for an average overall student to think they would obtain a good average in specialist mathematics. They tend to forget that they are competing against the very best maths students whom mostly take specialist maths. Professor Timothy Brown, a member of the Board of Studies assessment committee, has discredited the claim that Science and Maths studies are favoured over the humanities when it comes to entry of Tertiary Study.

Since approximately the 1970’s, a scaling system was introduced to differentiate subjects, but the scaling does not provide incentives to do one subject over another. Many Tertiary courses use interviews and other assessments as additional methods to final score marks.

Human life is short compared to the life of devas and devatas.

If we study two or three courses because they interest us, not because they are relevant to the present or future job market, we have only ourselves to blame if we are told we are not suitably qualified for a position we might aspire to.

What type of subjects are women taught to seek in Australia? Unfortunately, the model used tends to follow the American model of what are appropriate studies for women.

For example, engineering has generally been considered unsuitable work for women in America. In Russia, 50% of the engineers are women. Our Teacher remembers many years ago when a woman who had graduated in chemistry applied to study Chemical Engineering at an institute in Melbourne. They had never had a woman chemical engineer, and tried to talk her out of it. She persisted, was accepted, and graduated. Subsequently, she worked as a chemical engineer in a large organisation, married the chief chemist, had three children, and never worked again. She is quite happy and satisfied with her life. If a man followed a career path of chemistry and then chemical engineering and married a rich woman and stayed at home to look after the children while his wife worked, what and how would you feel?

When we surveyed this question, one respondent termed him a parasite. Why doesn’t this perception apply to the first situation? Because we are very heavily conditioned into gender roles. In many Asian countries, the chief executives of organisations are older women, who also coach and train their male and female grandchildren to assume an executive role in the family business.

This is normal in Asia. In general, Asian women do not feel oppressed, even though their lifestyles involve long work hours and, as a general rule, do not get involved in military or political business to the same extent as men. Women professors are more common in Korea, China, Thailand and other countries that have a long Buddhist history than in western countries that have a long Christian history.

Is there something in Christianity that does not encourage women to excel in business and education at an executive level? Since Federation in Australia, how many women have held the position in Cabinet dealing with education and business? What is the future outcome?

Many countries have had female heads of state, such as England, Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh and Turkey, over the last century. There are a few cases in history where women have been in charge of forces, such as Joan of Arc and Boadicea. These are notable by their rarity. Does this mean that if a woman aspires to a military career or a business career in the western world, she should apply herself to take male birth in her next life to fulfill her aspiration? There is nothing wrong with that in the medium term. It would be interesting to know how many lives had passed since men Generals had been women.

You can imagine if a woman had a life where she strongly wished to obtain control over men, and made much merit as a woman, such as by building hospitals for wounded soldiers, it is possible that she could be born a man in her next life and achieve the object to which she had dedicated her merit, namely that of control over men. Such control could come in the form of a position as a Captain in an army, or as a rank-holder in a police force.

There is no escape from our inclinations of what we wish to work at. Many persons come to birth knowing they must be this or that in terms of occupation - the kammic resultant of past aspirations with strong volition.

To sum up our position, we are not sexist, because there can be a determination to be born female or male at a volitional level rather than just leaving it to chance. Is it better for women to plan to be men, or men to plan to be women in terms of practice?

These are worldly aspirations in a search for power and hence, it is unlikely that dedicating merit in this way can be considered to be practice. In some cases, we know of women who have decided that they wish to be men in their next life to become Monks, but they are somewhat suspect in their motives because they have no intention of becoming Nuns in this life. Practice has to start now, or it never starts. If we have noble aspirations, we had better start to concretize them now or they will never have any substance.

Some critics of Buddha Dhamma allege that Buddhism is not a religion, and therefore they do not have to keep religious Precepts as lay persons, apart from the Five Precepts as recommended by Buddha. The Buddha had the laity in mind when he preached the Five Precepts. He also taught the Paramitas (the Ten Perfections) and made it quite clear that it was the laity who are likely to transgress the Perfections because of their work life, love life, home life, and amusement life, rather than the Monk or Nun who had entered the Sangha and left home and were not engaged in the life of the lay person. It is clear that the Buddha spent much time preaching his Dhamma to lay persons, both men and women, and he knew they were not going to become Monks or Nuns.

For the Monks, he taught them to see their alms rounds for food, their accommodation in a monastery cell, and their washing, just as means of practice, and nothing more. If they did this, they would be as unstained as a lotus leaf upon which no drop of water rests.

For the laypersons, he taught the following, as outlined in the Dhamma of the Bhikkhu and the Dhamma of the Upasaka.

Do not slay or doom to death, nor sanction slaughter. Do no violence to any living beings, strong or weak. Love all living beings.

No lay person should consciously steal or order theft, but should accept what others give.

Shun incontinence as if it were a pit of fire, on failing continence, debauch no wedded wife.

Do not prompt or sanction lies, renounce untruth.

Shun drink, make no man drink, sanction no drinking. Mark how drink leads to madness.

Through drink, fools sin. So flee this maddening vice, that is a folly, and the bliss of fools.

Do not kill, steal or lie. Keep away from strong drink and lechery.

Take these vows each week, and keep with a pious heart.

After taking these vows in the morning with a pious and thankful heart, give alms men food and drink in a way that is wise and within your means.

Cherish your parents, follow a righteous trade.

This is the way for the lay person to reach the realms of light above.

The Dhamma is the same for both Bhikku and lay person.

A Bikkhu must take five vows - not to kill, take of what is not freely given, never to tell a lie, to refrain from sexual misconduct, and never to drink any intoxicating drink.

These rules are also binding upon the lay person.

The difference is that with the Bhikkhu they are vows which are not to be transgressed, with the lay person they are moral obligations to be voluntarily honoured.

Dhamma, however, is the same for both. (Ambedkar 1997)

Supposing you decide to stay a lay person to help others in human birth. The first thing you must decide is whether you are going to be born human or heavenly.

The most obvious one-to-one relationship that can appear as an interaction of our minds with others is most likely human-to-human interaction.

Out of this appears a few possibilities: male-to-male, or male-to-female, or female-to-female. The Buddha was born male, and his Teachings are Sattadevamanussanam, which means “Teacher of gods and men”, or to make it more politically correct, “Teachers of gods and men and women”. In fact, we have not done an analysis of texts, but get the impression that he spent more time teaching men than women. This is understandable when you realize that his Sangha in the early years comprised men only as Monks.

Heavenly beings of certain orders do have male or female form, and since the texts do not make it clear what “retinue” means, we assume a normal distribution of male-to-female forms. Since the heavenly assemblies run into billions of beings, and the human assembly during Buddha’s time was probably less than a million and a half; numerically the Buddha’s Teaching appears to be strongly biased towards heavenly beings, who are willing to act as Protectors for Buddha, his Sangha of men and women, and for laypersons who are men and women.

The Buddha’s skill with words meant he could teach women with a sense of ‘verbal closeness’ that ordinary men could not give their partners. We should not overlook the fact that the Buddha’s dazzling physical beauty, which is well documented in the texts, acted as a sexual attractant for certain types of women. From a male’s point of view, the Buddha’s dazzling physical beauty suggested what we would term in the old days ‘a man’s man’. There is no moral issue in the admiration of the physical form of the body of Buddha with his black ringlet locks of hair that existed before he shaved his head, and his blue eyes as deep as an ocean of compassion.

Because he was fully awake, and had overcome all sexuality, the Buddha was not attracted to the sexual beauty of women, or for that matter, he was not vain about the beauty of his own body. He did not want to “star” in his sermons as a volitional act, because he had no volition due to his attainment. His vow to teach appeared to help him find teachable persons, and it is said that when he rested in the afternoon, he surveyed the area for teachable persons, so that the next day he could arrange to meet them. He knew when persons were ripe to respond to his Teaching. He did not teach persons who were untamable, as we know from his commentaries on who he teaches.

One comparison he made about teachable beings was comparing it to taming a wild horse. Some are easy to tame, some are moderately easy to tame, others are difficult to tame, and the fourth type is untrainable. Buddha does not teach the fourth type of person.

In a logical manner, we can say “not all women are teachable” in Buddha Dhamma, and therefore we do not attempt to teach all women, because to do so would be a waste of resources. It is not very popular today to tell the truth about persons, and point out that some persons do not benefit from education in schools or universities, that some persons are unsuitable for re-training in industry when cultural change is needed.

The question of giving persons opportunities needs more analysis when it comes to women’s issues. Women have natural power in their ability to seduce men, and surveys tend to show that women, when asked to describe the kind of person they would most like to be, are more likely to describe themselves as loving, affectionate, impulsive, sympathetic and generous, rather than practical, shrewd, assertive, dominating, competitive, critical and self-controlled. (Moir & Jessel p 134)

Since we live in a technological world, and the last two hundred years of industrialized society are still so new to us, it can be seen that the promiscuity encoded into the male genes by an evolutionary pedigree will be well recognized within the next few decades, and start to alter the expectations of women for monogamy in marriage. (M & J p133)

Those men and women who hold that monogamy is the correct order of things come to suffer greatly when they have to deal with realities of the way the two sexes really behave. Buddha Dhamma has no marriage ceremony; it is simply a phenomenon without any divine meaning.

Most marriages are not made in heaven under the guidance of gods. They are merely the result of the cause and effect of wanting to be with someone many times in past lives. The kammic stream appears and brings us together and then its risings and fallings separate us before very long. It is not surprising that the probability of long-term marriage is likely to become weaker and weaker as time goes by, because persons do not hold the precepts of no sexual misconduct. This involves twenty rules.

A letter dated October 12, 1983, from the late Sangharaja (chief monk) of Burma sets out these rules.

Such details are seldom given in the Text, but in the Atthakathas. As Theravadin Buddhist must give weight to what Atthakathas say, we are to remember that Aries (at least a Sotapanna) along do not break any of the 5 precepts. Puthujanas (common worldlings) are capable of breaking any. According to the late Sangharaja, his Teacher used to tell him that “we must guard against breaking any of the 5 precepts, like we guard our lower garments; we must retie the lower garment whenever we find it loose”. Most Puthujanas inadvertently break musavada (telling a lie) or panatipana (taking the life of a being) in everyday modern life. We must not try to do it again, as soon as we recollect it. That is what a puthujana must do.

The enumeration of Wife or Woman with whom one is prohibited to have sex relations (committing kamesumicchacara) is as follows:-

1. a wife who is being purchased

2. a wife who is being cohabitting with her consent

3. a wife who is being given money

4. a wife who is being given clothing

5. a wife who is by immersing her hand together with that of the bridegroom (truly wedded wife)

6. a wife who is setting aside a head pad (obhatasumhata)

7. a wife who is being a slave as well

8. a wife who is being a maid servant

9. a wife who is being a prisoner of war (dajahata)

10. a wife who is being temporary

11. a woman who is being looked after by the mother

12. a woman who is being looked after by the father

13. a woman who is being looked after by both parents

14. a woman who is being looked after by a brother

15. a woman who is being looked after by a sister

16. a woman who is being looked after by a relative

17. a woman who is being looked after by the clan

18. a women who is being looked after by a (Dhamma) companion

19. a woman who is being looked after by a guardian

20. a woman who is being under punishment

These rules are not well known outside Buddhist circles. What is not known is unlikely to be observed.

It is said, rather wittingly, that if men observed the twenty rules of sexual misconduct, women would not have to.

It is irrelevant who takes the lead in these things. If women want a better life, they should take the lead. If men want a better life, they should take the lead. So one sex can hardly protect the other if they both have the same incorrect agenda.

Kisagotami, the mother with the dead child

“There lived in Savaithi a girl called Gotami, in poor circumstances, belonging to the lowest cast. Because she was very thin and haggard, a real bean-pole, everyone called her the haggard (kisa) Gotami. When one saw her walking around, tall and thin, one could not fathom her inner riches.”

“. . . one day it suddenly happened that a rich merchant who appreciated her inner wealth and considered that more important than her outer appearance, married her. However, the husband’s family despised her because of her caste, her poverty and her looks . . . But when Kisagotami gave birth to a baby boy, the husband’s whole clan finally accepted her as the mother of the son and heir. Her relief about this changed attitude was immense and a great burden was taken from her. Now she was totally happy and contented . . . However, one day her happiness showed itself to be based on an illusion. Her little son died suddenly.”

“His death made her fear that her husband’s family would despise her again, and that they would blame her, saying she was karmically unable to have a son . . . She simply refused to accept the fact that the child was dead, and became obsessed with the fantasy that her child was only sick and that she had to get medicine for him.”

“With the dead child in her arms, she ran away from her home and went from house to house asking for medicine for her little son. At every door she begged for medicine, but the people replied that medicine would not help any more, the child was dead. But she did not understand what they were saying to her, because in her mind she had resolved that the child was not dead.”

“Then she met a wise and kind person who advised her to visit the best physician, namely the Buddha of the ten powers, who would know the right remedy.”

Asking the Awakened one for medicine for her son, the Buddha replied that she need only bring a very small quantity from any house where no one had died. But she could not find one house where no one had died.

Towards evening she finally realised that not only was she stricken by the death of a loved one, but this was the common human fate. Going from door to door, her own experience, had made this clear to her. She understood the law of existence, the being fettered to the always re-occurring death. In this way, the Buddha was able to heal her obsession and bring her to an acceptance of reality. Kisagotami understood that death is the destiny of all beings.

The compassion of the Buddha, the most noble friend of all, had saved her from all suffering experienced in this and former lives. She used as her model, the heartrending example of the nun Patacara who had also been afflicted with temporary insanity after the death of not only husband and two sons, but also parents and brothers. Because women’s longing for men is so deeply ingrained, the Buddha said, “For a man does the woman strive.” (A VI. 52) From this attachment is born the torture of jealousy, the lack of self-reliance, and the despair of loneliness.

Only when one penetrates a women’s suffering in this way can one realize the full impact of Kisagotami’s gratitude towards the Buddha who showed her the way.

So she says:

‘Woman’s state is painful,’

declares the Trainer of tamable men.

‘A wife with others is painful

and once having borne a child

some even cut their throats;

others of delicate constitution

poison take, then pain again;

and then there’s the baby obstructing the birth,

killing the mother too.’

Mara came to tempt her, as she was now a nun, to distract her from meditation, and asked her whether she was lusting for a man now that her child was dead. She immediately replied, discerning the ruse:

“Passed is the time of my child’s death

and I have fully done with men;

I do not grieve, nor do I weep,

and I’m not afraid of you, friend.

Sensual delight in every way is dead,

for the mass of darkness is destroyed.

Defeating the soldiery of death,

I live free from every taint.”

Mara disappeared just as before when he had tried in vain to fetter other nuns to the realm of birth and death.

The nun Kisagotami, rising to holiness from lowliest birth, was praised by the Buddha as amongst the seventy-five greatest nuns. (Hecker 1982)

So what have we learnt today?

The first thing we ought have learnt is that few men nor women at the present time have sorted out the wisdom of how to conduct themselves one to the other. This applies in work, pleasure, marriage, and general social relationships. The reason for this self-defeating behaviour is that they do not understand the potency of their mutual sexual attractiveness towards one another, and play on any immediate edge they have in luring the opposite sex.

If the luring were to stop at a volitional level, things would be much better, and nature would continue to draw persons together in its haphazard way. The kamma is not linear. If an opportunity arises to be kind to another person of the opposite sex, without tagging some sexuality demands as a reward or punishment, then the individual outcomes would be many thousands of times better than what they are at the moment.

We want to live like human beings, not as animals. What is the point of getting human birth and then choosing to live like animals? We do not have to take every opportunity we have to lure men if we are women. This is worth women repeating one hundred times each day, and worth men repeating 50 times a day. Why? Because men are the object of the luring, rather than the subject.

Men feel very uncertain about themselves in their capacity to attract women, but women know without doubt that they have the capacity to lure men. It is this difference that alters the kammic outcome of what men do to attract women, compared to the kammic outcome of what women do to attract men.

Do not become enmeshed with persons who do not keep precepts because while you are with them, you have no time to meet people who do keep precepts.

Stop wasting your precious, valuable, hard-to-obtain human life.

Whether you are male or female is not the issue - the issue is what have you done in the last 24 hours to change the persons you associate with who do not keep many precepts. If you tell a person something seven times, and they do not change, stop telling them, because there is no point in losing a friendship by nagging. Women tend to nag more than men. However, nagging is merely the repetition of unpalatable truths. So to talk to some person who does not listen to you is about as valid as administering medicine to a dead person. Do not waste your breath. It will pass away soon enough and you will be leaving this birth for your next birth.

Wasted homilies are preaching, not teaching. In Buddha Dhamma, there is only Teaching, not nagging.

There is a way out of the troubles once you stop following artificially contrived role models that hinder rather than help the horizons of female aspiration. Any artificially contrived quota system in education involves so much inefficiency and waste of money that they are not worth pursuing.

Some persons are paid quite high salaries but it does not follow that they are superior to others unless they have extra precepts. There is no need to try to be excellent in every aspect of life. And a balanced view of the likelihood of failure is needed by both men and women who refuse to alter the artificial equality that is commonly promoted about their life chances.

As the Buddha said, some women are superior to some men, and the goal is to try and make yourself superior in four major areas, namely your psychological cognition ability, your social aptitude ability, gaining educational differences in work-related subjects, and the ability to manage the clinical symptoms of menstruation without violent mood swings, such as evening primrose oil, which is now the recommended treatment by general practitioners.

And finally, there is very little that can be done about sex differences that arise from bio-psychosocial processes. You must be ready to accept that the genetic factors are kammically induced, and whatever you have, you must accept, until your female body time and your social time become less dependent on the menstrual cycle.

Very high cognitive orders can remove any tendency towards depression, and loving relationships can be maintained between persons holding many precepts, but for persons who do not hold precepts, the future of their relationship is bleak.

May you be well and happy, and overcome sexual discrimination, occupational status discrimination, and achievement discrimination as best you can, to preserve your own happiness with what you have.

This script was written and edited by John D. Hughes, Leanne Eames, Lisa Nelson, Pennie White and Lainie Smallwood.

Print based References

1. Hecker, H. ed., Buddhist Women at Time of the Buddha, The Wheel Publication No. 292/293, Buddhist Publication Society, Sri Lanka, 1982 (pp 32-39)

2. Ambedkar, Dr. B. R., The Buddha and his Dhamma, Buddha Bhoomi Publication, Taiwan, 1997 (pp 454 - 455)

3. Moir, A., & Jessel, D., Brainsex - the Real Difference Between Men and Women, Arrow, London, 1989 (pp 133 - 134)

4. Private letter (in B.D.C.(U) Ltd. archives) from U Chan Htoon, late Sangharaja of Burma, dated October 12, 1983 (20 rules)

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