Rita M. Gross

Buddhism and Gender

Buddhism is historically a male-dominated religion and scholarship on Buddhism has been androcentric. Nevertheless, a growing body of literature discusses Buddhism and gender from other points of view. Due in large part to the energy of Western feminism, Buddhist scholars and thinkers worldwide have begun to look critically at historical perspectives on Buddhism and gender, and have begun to suggest ways in which Buddhist history and Buddhist practice might be more equitable in matters concerning gender. They have discovered that historically, Buddhism promotes mutually exclusive views of gender. Most have also concluded that Buddhist doctrines are gender-inclusive and gender-neutral, though Buddhist instititions and Buddhist practice usully fail to live up to this ideal. To resolve this contraction, many innovations have been suggested, the most central of which is that there should be more Buddhist teachers at the highest teaching ranks who are women.

Buddhist Ultimates? A Difficult Question

If there are “ultimates” in Buddhism, they are not some separate sphere or entity, but rather the depth dimension of this very life. Nor are they conceptual for Buddhists; the words are merely the inadequate results of trying to verbalize profound experiences. The two leading candidates for Buddhist ultimates are “interdependence” or “conditioned genesis,” and “emptiness.” Though these two are often presented separately, they are, in fact, much the same thing. Conditioned genesis shows how all phenomena arise dependent on their causal matrix and cease when that matrix changes. Because the matrix changes moment by moment, phenomena are very short-lived. But because phenomena are dependent on their causal nexus, they are “empty” of inherent existence. Thus phenomena are not real in the way we usually assume they are. Therefore, they are not worth the emotional charge they usually carry, which imprisons us in painful habitual patterns. To complete the cast of characters of Buddhist ultimates, we need only point to widespread teachings that everyone has the capacity to realize interdependence and emptiness, and thus free themselves from entanglement in self-perpetuating pain.

Historical consciousness and traditional Buddhist narratives

In this paper, I intend to explore some of the issues that come up when I tried to teach academically grounded, accurate, non-sectarian history of Buddhism at Buddhist dharma centers. First among these issues is that Western Buddhists can be quite fundamentalist in their approach to Buddhism and take many narratives literally. Chief among these, especially for Mahāyāna Buddhists, is the Heart Sūtra, which they believe was actually given by the historical Buddha during his lifetime because of the setting in which this narrative is placed. To explain why Mahāyāna teachings did not take hold for about four hundred years, they add the belief that the historical Buddha realized that people were not ready for those teachings, so he had them concealed among the nāgas, from where Nāgārjuna retrieved them. Historians obviously do not take this story seriously as history and seek for historical causes and conditions that led to the development of Mahāyāna ideas some four hundred years after the death of the Buddha. I will argue, first, that key Buddhist teachings, especially teachings on all-pervasive impermanence and on interdependent origination, can be used to verify historical accounts of the origins of Mahāyāna Buddhism. In other words, to accept the more sensible and reasonable account given by modern historians is not to abandon traditional Buddhist beliefs and teachings. It is rather to appeal to traditional Buddhist teachings that provide more adequate explanations of the origins of Mahāyāna Buddhism that the traditional mythic narrative. Second, I will discuss how the mythic account can be interpreted symbolically and will argue that symbols should not be considered as less important or real than facts. Only those who buy completely into the model of scientific materialism provided by the European enlightenment would not understand that in religions, symbols are as meaningful as facts.

Review Essay: Buddhists Talk about Jesus, Christians Talk about the Buddha

Buddhists have been talking about Jesus and Christians have been talking about the Buddha from the earliest times of Buddhist-Christian encounter in the first century.1 My educated guess is that until 1980, most of the talk was monological rather than dialogical for cultural and historical reasons peculiar to both traditions. But after the first “East-West Religions in Encounter” meeting, organized by David Chappell in the summer of 1980 at the University of Hawai‘i, the nature of Buddhist-Christian conversation changed from a monologue to a systematic twenty-year dialogue. The initial “East-West Religions in Encounter” conference has now evolved into the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies. The publication in the society’s journal, BuddhistChristian Studies, of a series of essays and responses edited by the journal’s coeditors, Rita M. Gross and Terry C. Muck, entitled “Jesus Christ Through Buddhist Eyes and Gautama the Buddha Through Christian Eyes” is evidence of just how far BuddhistChristian dialogue has evolved since 1980.2 These same essays were republished by Continuum Publications under the title, Buddhists Talk About Jesus, Christians Talk About the Buddha.3 The selection of the contributors was guided by a common editorial conviction. In Gross’s words:

This Buddhist's View of Jesus

The topicl of developing a Buddhist view of Jesus is challenging to me on many levels, for many reasons. Not the least of them involves my own unhappy childhood and young adulthood being trained as a member of a version of Christianity that expressed an extremely exclusivist position regarding religious pluralism. Nevertheless, I have long practiced Buddhist-Christian dialogue as a Buddhist, in part as an antidote to that unhappy past, as a deliberate attempt to heal the wounds inflicted on me by an exclusivist and doctrinaire version of Christianity. So why does this task of developing a Buddhist view of Jesus remain difficult? In part this task is difficult because it is unfamiliar. In my world religions classes, I routinely present Jewish views of Jesus, but there is little reason to discuss Jesus in the perspectives of other major religions and I have almost never broached the topic. In my feminist theology classes, I again discuss feminist reactions to Jesus, but there is little reason to present a feminist Buddhist perspective on Jesus. Little Buddhist literature about Buddhist reactions to Jesus and few Buddhist assessments of Christianity exist, though the reverse is not true,2 which perhaps indicates that fellow Buddhists have also felt little need to develop a reaction to or a position about Jesus. But it is also difficult because in Buddhist-Christian dialogue, we often discuss more abstract and less troublesome topics than the traditional Christian evaluation of Jesus, with its undeniably exclusivistic and universal truth claims. Thus, in many ways, I have been able to keep a distance between my own experiences of Christianity and my own experiences of Buddhism. Encountering Christians in BuddhistChristian dialogue and teaching Christian feminist theology are really much simpler than trying to untangle my own Buddhist reactions to central Christian claims, including especially claims about the ultimate and universal significance of Jesus. Nevertheless, it is clear that my task in this essay is to react to Jesus as a Buddhist, something I have not done formally in any other context. Therefore, I have proceeded with the assumption that my task is to find the relevant Buddhist categories for interpreting Jesus in Buddhist terms, to delineate them briefly to non-Buddhists, and then to apply them to Jesus or to Christian claims about Jesus. This assignment is not as innocent or as easy as it seems at first reading. The first difficulty is determining who or what one is reacting to in the exercise of developing a Buddhist view of Jesus. Depending on who or what one understands Jesus to be, or depending on which Christian claims about Jesus one comments upon, a Buddhist could have radically different views about Jesus. So clearly, the first task in developing a Buddhist view of Jesus is to determine which Jesus will be discussed. Then, secondly, it is difficult but important to maintain the primary focus as a Buddhist focus, using Buddhist rather than Christian categories to control the discourse. I say this because

The Suffering of Sexism: Buddhist Perspectives and Experiences

Having been assigned the topic of suffering and sexism for this conference and celebration of Paul Knitter’s career and work, I feel qualified to address that topic. I have suffered a lot because of the work I have done on sexism, including a very diminished career. After nearly fifty years of demonstrating the presence of sexism in religious studies and in Buddhism, and taking a lot of flak and criticism for bringing to light many things that many people simply don’t want to know, I would be delighted if such discussions were no longer needed. That, however, is not the case. So bringing together these two s-words—suffering and sexism—is very potent. The only effect of sexism is suffering. Forming identities and organizing society on the basis of male dominance have no redeeming benefits that offset the suffering. However, it is critical that we understand what is the real issue as we begin these reflections on suffering and sexism. I have long contended that, rather than trying to reform gender roles or discern what an ideal set of gender roles might be, the fundamental problem is the very existence of gender roles—any set of gender roles whatsoever. Does the shape of our genitals really predetermine our hearts, minds, longings, and abilities? Does it have anything to do with one’s ability to think theologically or to excel at spiritual disciplines? Gender roles severely and arbitrarily constrain people. That is the real suffering of sexism, and that, rather than male dominance, is the true problem. Male dominance is only one of the more unfortunate results of the constraint of arbitrary and binding gender roles. Thus, the suffering of sexism needs to give way to freedom from the prison of gender roles.

Bringing Zen Home: The Healing Art of Japanese Women's Rituals by Paula Arai (review)

1. Despite explicit attempts not to generalize and simplify complex and diverse systems of thought, the author consistently utilizes essentialist terms such as “Asian religious traditions,” “Asian religions,” “Asian religious thinkers,” “traditional Asian religio-philosophical thought,” “Asian perspectives,” and “Asian world views” in his comparisons. 2. Bernard McGinn, The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart (New York: Crossroad, 2003), 8.

Eminent Nuns: Women Chan Masters of Seventeenth-Century China (review)

commitment is not to either of these figures per se, but to transcendent reality through one or both of them” (Drew, p. 107). Goosen’s position is premised on the polyvalence of symbolic language and the possibility of its reappropriation by those who are not its primary users: “all our religious language is made up of religious symbols” and is therefore paradoxical and dialectic, “[y]et a sense of symbolism is basic to all religions” (Goosen, pp. 95–96, 99). Each throws down the gauntlet to those who would keep religious traditions hermetically sealed off from one another. In their view, dual belongers are “microcosms of the dialogue” (Drew, p. 227) and pioneers of a future global theology that would not be an artificial synthesis but a “celebration of differences and the richness of diversity” (Drew, p. 228) as each religion’s distinctive theology becomes global. Both books are highly recommended to their respective readerships, which in the case of scholar practitioners will overlap.

Studying Personal Transformation: Questions and Suggestions

My comments on Frederick Strengs paper will reflect my perspectives as a scholar trained in the history of religions and as a practicing Buddhist. (I am not a Buddhalogist.) Both perspectives, I feel, have something to contribute to interreligious dialogue and to the cross-cultural comparative study of religion; neither one is as strong when it is used alone. The way in which these perspectives are interwoven will be clear in my comments. I will comment on three sections of Professor Strengs paper. First, I will make a number of comments on the introductory section concerning methodology. Second, I will comment on Professor Strengs discussion of Mahayana Buddhism and the Perfection of Wisdom. Finally, I comment briefly on Professor Strengs conclusions and comparisons. I have nothing to say about his discussion of Luther, not having significant academic or practicing credentials to say anything on that topic.