Regarding #1, my understanding is that until Honen, previous teachers of Buddhism to women seemed to teach that Enlightenment, or even rebirth in the Pure Land, was limited to men. Women were taught Buddhism, but usually had to just build up good karma and be reborn as a man. If you do have any help excerpts you can post here, I will gladly update the blog. I definitely appreciate the references nevertheless, particularly Genshin, who I have a great interest in.

For #2, good point about the Buddha’s stepmother. The key though in what I wrote wasn’t whether were allowed or not, but the question of direct enlightenment. From some Pure Land source I read (Traversing the Pure Land path I think), it had said that in Japanese Buddhism at least, they had no problem with nuns, but for various reasons thought they couldn’t reach enlightenment in this life or rebirth in the next. But that clearly contradicts what’s found in the Therigata in that once the Buddha did let nuns ordain, they seemed to hold their own just fine.

As for the Lotus Sutra, yeah, I think you brought a good topic right there. The Lotus Sutra, being the “definitive” Mahayana text, clearly tries to overturn old stigma against women, but later followers seem to forget this at times, and even in the Lotus Sutra, sometimes it contradicts itself by speaking of pure lands where there are no women (somewhere in the last few chapters, maybe the Bodhisattva Medicine King chapter… I forget). Oh well.

Anyways, I definitely love the input, so keep it up and nice meeting you.

1. You write that Honen was the first to teach to women a path to which attain enlightenmet. I think you would be wise to reconsider this statement. First of all there is evidence that Genshin included women in his various Pure Land circles (there is a great essay about this by Sarah Horton in “Death and the Afterlife in Japanese Buddhism,” University of Hawaii Press, 2008). Plus Hank Glassman, among others, have shown that there is evidence of monks teaching women in the Nara Period. Richard Bowring may also have done some work in this area that would be worth checking out.

2. For information on the historical Buddha’s views on women there is a wealth of information on Pajapati Gotami, the first women to be admitted into the early Buddhist Sangha. Gotami the Buddha’s aunt needed Ananda to mediate with the historical Buddha so that women could be allowed into the sangha. There has been a lot of academic and non-academic discussion regarding why this was. In short there are a lot of different takes on women attaining enlightenment. There is also some interesting stuff in the Lotus sutra regarding the enlightenment of women.

There is some great stuff in Japanese about all of these issues as well, academic reading but worth checking out none-the-less.

I’ve enjoyed my time here as a lurker for sometime. Thought it was time to contribute to the discussion on a subject that I have long been interested in. Keep up the good work.

eLd