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Gender Metaphysics in Buddhist Doctrines and Narratives

Submitted to Program Units
1: Buddhist Critical-Constructive Reflection Unit and Buddhist Philosophy Unit

Barbra R. Clayton, Mount Allison University, Presiding

Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)

The panel explores how to make sense of gender and sexuality that does not explain gender away but envisions gender as a crucial category in Buddhist doctrines and narratives. Coming from religious studies, philosophy and literature, scholars in this panel re-read the canon from diverse perspectives for a new imagination of gender and sexuality that can contribute to discussions on social justice for combating dominance and promoting inclusion. As such, these panelists initiate a critical-constructive reflection: critically, they provide a methodological intervention on approaches that de-gender doctrinal philosophy, dismiss differences in sentient beings’ lived experiences, and disassociate philosophy from other disciplines in Buddhist studies (e.g., literature, anthropology, and social history); and constructively, they propose to cross disciplinary boundaries in cherishing narratives as resources for re-gendering the Buddhist discourses of consciousness, body, karma, and cosmos. Together, these scholars strive to expand the shared horizons of philosophy, literature, feminism, and queer studies.

Papers

  • Sherice Ngaserin, Yale-NUS College

    Trying to eat the air: Vasubandhu’s Objections to Vaibhāṣika Gender Metaphysics

    Abstract

    It is often assumed that Abhidharma Buddhists hold the same essentialist view of gender due to their shared belief in the existence of material sex indriyas that are powerful over the arising of sex characteristics and gendered behaviour. In my paper, I demonstrate based on passages in Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośabhāṣya that this is not the case. 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.

  • Lu Huang, Temple University

    Metaphysical Realism and Queerness in Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma

    Abstract

    This discussion will explore how the metaphysical realism of the Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma affects their understanding of the third gender and contributes to the perception of queerness as a vitiated form of incarnation. The dualistic and hierarchical concept of gender, which is solely defined through corporeal traits that are considered in the context of metaphysical realism, influences how queerness is perceived. Within this context, gender faculties (puruṣendriya and strīndriya) are examined on an atomic level and considered to be independent of the mind. The disposition (āśaya) of queer individuals is pre-determined by their physical base (āśraya). Queer corporeality is considered to lack the steadfast will and mental sharpness that are necessary to obtain enlightenment. Exploring the role of metaphysical realism in the formation of the heteronormative and condescending attitude toward queerness within Sarvāstivāda can help us to better appreciate later Mahāyāna developments such as Yogācāra.

  • Jingjing Li, Leiden University

    Eroding Sexism with the Yogācāra Dialectics of Gender

    Abstract

    In this presentation, I explore how we can expand contemporary gender metaphysics by drawing on Yogācāra philosophy. With a focus on the writings of Xuanzang (c. 602–664) and his disciple Kuiji (632–682), I investigate how the Yogācāra theory of consciousness-only can be read as a gendered account of non-duality that informs a critical and constructive reconceptualization of what gender/sex is. As I will argue, Yogācārins like Xuanzang and his disciples present gender/sex as an embodied performance that sentient beings can enact in different ways. While regular sentient beings have been conditioned to enact their gender/sex in an essentialist manner, they can also collaborate to re-enact their illusory gender for problematizing dominance. I refer to such a gender metaphysics as the Yogācāra dialectics of gender that does not explain gender away but rather furnishes sentient beings, especially the practitioners, a set of vocabularies in disposal for promoting social justices.

  • Adeana McNicholl, Vanderbilt University

    Gender and Sexuality in this World and the Next: Human/Non-Human Relationships in Preta Narratives

    Abstract

    This paper examines the ways that 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. It focuses 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, this paper 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.

Audiovisual Requirements

Resources

LCD Projector and Screen

Full Papers Available

No
Program Unit Options

Session Length

2 Hours
Schedule Info

Sunday, 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM

Session Identifier

A24-109