They Don't Think Like Us

[Cicero]

I was involved with a Japanese Buddhist sect and a friend explained some of the social differences. She had married into a Japanese family and was noteably different from her mother-in-law for those reasons amongst others. The community of women had very strong voices and had earned the right to push people around (like me) physically. It's actually kind of funny when they push you out of their way at the "temple" with a cane or something. But those very same women are still traditionalists who still believe that women are not human and not only that....do not have a chance of being enlightened because of that. Therefore, second class, and some have submitted to this idea entirely throughout their long years. They have learned that there is great honor in taking their punishment from their husband- whatever it may be. I don't see things that way. Which is probably why I don't study buddhism with other buddhists. It's actually right inside the books that they teach and learn from. The duties of women have been taught to generations of them and they are not changing anytime soon. And I'm not going to ask them to.

I don't think I can explain it in terms of "rationale" sorry. I think it's anything but.

I was having a great time chanting and meditating when stupid me, I started to read the literature that told me I had no chance at obtaining enlightenment because of an innate evil nature that I possess as a woman. Started to sound just like christianity....but the traditions and culture had changed even less. Too severe for me.

Well- I guess it's just another thing where people trusted me to follow their traditions and be respectful of all of it and they were trying to honor me by inviting me in. It just didn't take. Still being defined as a woman by your amount of servitude, submission, and a graceful sub-sub human I just can't do. I suppose they are hoping that they can come back as a man next time. Might have a chance at enlightenment. Seeing being born a woman as Karmic retribution (like being born a goat with 3 hooves) and chanting your ass off is not the way I think I want to conduct myself.

Sometimes other cultures think that being born a woman is a divine punishment when they are sure that women are less than human. But those traditionalists are getting older and for the most part, from what I've seen just inside that group, the younger ones are not adopting those ideas. Now the younger ones will have to figure out how they are even a service there without complete submission.

[orthodoc]

Originally Posted by Cicero

The community of women had very strong voices and had earned the right to push people around (like me) physically.

Is that a cultural phenomenon or was it just in the temple? I'm thinking of an experience one of my sons had (as an adult-sized teen). He was in a museum and was physically pushed aside by the leader of a Japanese group that came into the room. There was plenty of space in the room; the leader just wanted to be where he was. He didn't know what to make of it. Is it a hierarchical thing? I suspect non-Japanese would be at the bottom of that hierarchy.

Originally Posted by Cicero

I don't think I can explain it in terms of "rationale" sorry. I think it's anything but.

Sorry. Bad choice of words. I can't imagine a rationale either, I just wondered how it was viewed or explained.

Originally Posted by Cicero

I was having a great time chanting and meditating when stupid me, I started to read the literature that told me I had no chance at obtaining enlightenment because of an innate evil nature that I possess as a woman. Started to sound just like christianity....but the traditions and culture had changed even less. Too severe for me.

I'm sorry you've encountered that in Christianity. I'm aware of RC writers who have advanced those ideas, but that isn't universal.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Sometimes the system is oppressive and forces people into a marriage they don't want. But sometimes the system is better than ours.

Maybe for the cosmopolitans, but not the girl that never has, and probably never will, travel outside her parents village. When she can be stoned to death for talking to a non-relative male, the "no" option probably doesn't exist.