Gender Metaphysics in Buddhist Doctrines and Narratives

In contemporary discussions of Buddhist feminism, scholars tend to prioritize sameness in their approaches that are premised on the following thesis: gender differences are illusory as conventional reality, and ultimately, all sentient beings are the same due to their inherent potential for realizing emptiness and becoming awake. Upon deeming gender differences to be illusory, this thesis risks explaining gender away and envisioning gender as non-existent. Such a move of doing away with gender does not provide people, especially Buddhist practitioners, with a language to address their concerns about gender, sexuality, and queer corporeality. Indeed, practitioners navigate their life through a gendered canon where Buddhist texts describe female foulness and Buddhist precepts (vinaya) prescribe gender-based rules. Moreover, they also live through concrete gendered questions about community building. In order to make a new imagination of Buddhist feminism possible, the panelists contend that a methodological intervention on the unquestioned primacy of sameness, is inevitable. Such an intervention calls for a re-examination of conventional reality, such as gender/sex, through rediscovering previously marginalized resources and recovering overlooked voices.

Instead of trying to locate the authentic understanding of doctrinal ideas, the panelists join the initiative of re-reading the canon. They approach Buddhism as a living tradition and acknowledge the Buddhist canon as an open system that allows for re-reading. Therefore, the purpose of the panel is twofold. Critically, it problematizes the approaches to doctrinal philosophy that de-gender Buddhist thought, dismiss differences in the lived experiences of sentient beings, and disassociate philosophy from other disciplines in Buddhist studies such as literature, anthropology, and social history. Constructively, it proposes to cross disciplinary boundaries in appreciating narratives as resources for re-gendering the Buddhist discourses of consciousness, body, karma, and cosmos.

As such, the panelists strive to expand the shared horizons of Buddhist philosophy, literature, feminism, and queer studies. Panelist 1 revisits the common assumption that Abhidharma Buddhists hold the same essentialist view of gender because these Ābhidharmikas share a belief in the existence of material sex indriyas that are powerful over the arising of sex characteristics and gendered behaviour. This presenter demonstrates that this is not the case based on the passages in Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośabhāṣya. While Vasubandhu agrees with his Vaibhāṣika interlocutors that the sex indriyas are material in nature, he draws on Sautrāntika and Vijñānavādin arguments to provide several objections to the Vaibhāṣika account. He proceeds to redefine the sex indriyas and reduce the scope and nature of their causal powers, resulting in a deflationary account of sex and gender.

Shifting the focus to the Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma understanding of the third gender and queerness, panelist 2 zooms in on the portrayal of queer corporality as that which stays outside the framework of male- and female- indriya. Approaching the Sarvāstivāda theory of dharma as a gendered version of metaphysical realism, this presenter contends that since the disposition (āśaya) of queer individuals is pre-determined by their physical base (āśraya), queer corporeality is rendered as lacking the steadfast will and mental sharpness for obtaining awakening. The investigation of the Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma approach to queer corporeality sheds light on the challenges faced by the early Buddhist Sangha in community building. The presenter further questions whether and how it is possible to rethink the Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma approach in the contemporary context for fostering a more inclusive community.

While it remains popular to think about the body in terms of material corporality, the Yogācāra school recommends approaching the body as a lived reality mediated by consciousness. Turning to the writings of Xuanzang and his disciple Kuiji, panelist 3 argues for delineating gender as an embodied performance that sentient beings can enact in different ways. While regular sentient beings have been conditioned to enact gender/sex in an essentialist manner, they can also collaborate to re-enact illusory gender for combating exclusion and promoting inclusion. As such, the Yogācāra theory of consciousness-only can be re-read as a gendered account of non-duality that informs a critical and constructive reconceptualization of gender/sex.

The combat against exclusion and dominance remains a crucial theme in Buddhist literature as well. Expanding the scope from doctrinal philosophy to narrative studies, the last presenter examines the ways in which stories about semi-divine pretas operate within several tensions between Brahmanical gender norms, the patriarchal householder society, the ideals of the celibate sangha, and the everyday gendered realities of men and women. In particular, the presenter centers on tales in which semi-divine pretas engage in sexual relationships with human partners. Following Amy Langenberg’s suggestion that scholars employ a feminist hermeneutic that attends to alternate viewpoints of female sexuality, the panelist pushes beyond a conclusion that preta narratives attempt to relegate gender transgression to the realm of the non-human by comparing the preta to female domesticity and beauty. While these narratives attempt to regulate women’s sexual capacity, the preta world itself, as a realm of distinctly unregulated female sexuality, operates in tension with the text’s own normative frameworks. As such, these tales open possibilities for a transformative space that contests the patriarchal heteronormative imperatives of the marriage economy.

Together, the panelists aspire to scrutinize the unexamined bifurcations that have been glossed over by scholars who prioritize sameness. These bifurcations include the heterosexual distinction between men and women, the duality between biologically determined sex and the culturally constructed gender, as well as the anthropocentric dichotomy between humans and non-humans. Through the critique of these dualities, the panelists invite the audience to deliberate on how to further the larger discussion on social justice. Envisioned in this manner, social justice entails more than a quest for fair redistribution.

The panel embodies the inclusive, feminist ethos of fostering interdisciplinary conversations among graduate students, junior scholars, and established researchers. For the presenters and the presider, their work covers a wide range of Buddhist traditions with their respective focus on different historical periods from antiquity to modernity. As a collaborative effort, the panelists are committed to increasing the visibility of underrepresented group members in the field, especially women of color and graduate students, for the purpose of striking a balance of voices.