The Way of Jodo Shinshu

Jodo Wasan 60

Deep is Amida's Great Compassion!
By manifesting the inconceivable Buddha-Wisdom,
He made the Vow of Transforming [a female] into a Male,
Promising that women can become Buddhas.

The Absolute Equality of Women and Men

As Shinran Shonin notes in the margin, this verse commemorates the thirty-fifth vow of Amida Buddha, making it clear that the true meaning of the vow is the ultimate and absolute equality of women.

When I attain Buddhahood, the women throughout the countless and inconceivable, Buddha-worlds in the ten quarters, having heard my name, will rejoice in entrusting heart, awaken the mind aspiring for enlightenment, and wish to renounce the state of being women. If, after the end of their lives, they should be reborn as women, may I not attain the perfect enlightenment.¹

As an Indian religion, the Buddha dharma developed in a social context dominated by local mores. Manu was the Indian hero who survived the Great Primordial Flood to reveal a code of law which included special regulations for women. It is the timeworn Aryan misogyny and patriarchial triumphalism of the sky-god that we see in our own European tribal story: gaining prominence in epics like the Iliad, in which the old matriarchal tradition sinks into oblivion with the ravaging and fall of Troy, a city of the goddess.

In keeping with Mahayana sensibility, the code of Manu is challenged in the Larger Sutra, which reveals this vow, over-riding the convention that women were eternally subject to 'three reliances'. As children, they rely on their fathers, as young adults upon their husbands and, as widows, upon their sons.

Under the three reliances it was impossible for a woman to practice religion according to her own needs. Her salvation depended on that of her male governor. Buddha dharma emerged at a time in which patriarchy had become the norm. This attitude to women is utterly repugnant to those of us who live in liberal societies where women are at least theoretically able to rule us. Most of us work as equals with female colleagues and report to female superiors. I am sure all of us are glad that our society is organized in this way.

The thirty-fifth vow of Amida Buddha seems itself rather demeaning of women but it is in fact revolutionary because it offers women the same outcome as men upon realizing the entrusting heart of Amida Buddha. A mark of the underlying egalitarian sensibilities of the Mahayana is the Pure Land teaching - especially that of Honen and his successors like Shinran -, which gave practical expression to gender equality - at least in the world of spiritual teaching and endevour.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that even though the Pure Land tradition has had an open and respectful attitude to women - because of Amida Buddha's thirty-fifth vow - any practical realization of this truth has continued to be overwhelmed by the social context, which like the code of Manu has also been patriarchal.

I am told that about a third of all priests ordained by the Hongwanji (which also ordained me) are women, and that is good. Some of these go on to higher orders but few, if any, attain the role of temple master because of a tradition of patrimony. Nevertheless, it should be said that the Hongwanji does have a quite significant record in actively asserting the absolute equality of women, and it is nice to be associated with it.

- May 18, 2010.

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1: PLS II, p. 27.

Strelitzia