Why, if it is so absurd to regard egolessness as gendered and if clinging to gender identity indeed subverts enlightenment, does the prison of gender roles remain so strong? In Buddhist terms, such errors of judgment usually result from insufficient analysis and contemplation, and will persist so long as serious analysis and contemplation are lacking. And no one, least of all the Buddha, ever said it would be easy or quick to do the analyses and contemplations required to fully realize the relative character of all our relative, samsaric, worldly identities, to stop expecting more of them than they can possibly deliver. Nevertheless, that transforming and transcending change of expectations, no matter how difficult it may be, is what we need to accomplish if we want to be free. I once heard a wise Buddhist teacher say that if we could realize what the Buddha had understood in an hour or two, even a year or two, or possibly even a decade or two, it probably wouldn’t be worth much. But no one who has ever experienced some taste of freedom from the conventional, including freedom from the prison of gender roles, has ever said that it was not worth the requisite time and discipline.
The Dharmic Response to Gender
Buddhist disciplines need to include contemplation of these truths and the development of greater awareness of them. Yet mere mention of feminism, gender, women’s equality, or related topics brings giggles, hostility, and an assumption that such discussions could be of interest only to women and need not concern men, even though men are as fully gendered as women. These common ways of rejecting those who bring up topics pertaining to gender give the impression that the proper dharmic response to questions about gender is to ignore and suppress them. Especially when teachers are answering questions from timid (usually female) students about gender and Buddhism, a usual response is to strongly suggest that only people who are not sufficiently dedicated to Buddhadharma would ever think of raising questions about traditional Buddhist ways of dealing with gender—that good practitioners would not raise such issues.
Countless times I have heard revered teachers reply, somewhat angrily, to questioners, “Aren’t you over that yet!” or “Don’t you know that enlightened mind is beyond gender, neither male nor female, so, therefore, concerns about gender are unnecessary and irrelevant?” The Asian teacher newly arrived in the West says in a shocked voice, “But in Asia, we really revere our mothers.” Or the quintessential answer of the inexperienced teacher, “Just practice more. Sitting on the cushion solves everything. Eventually you won’t mind gender discrimination if you just practice enough.” No other dharmic question generates the answer that it would be more dharmic to just ignore what gives rise to the question!
The deep pain buried in these questions about gender deserves better answers than telling students that they should have already transcended that pain when they have only begun to have a little awareness of the peace that transcending conventional, samsaric ego can bring. And the teachers need to explore far more deeply how much the suffering of the samsaric ego is intertwined with the gendered ego—for both women and men. In fact, we should equate all three terms and use them interchangeably—“conventional,” “samsaric,” and “gendered” ego.