In all things, there is neither male nor female.
The Buddha, the Vimalakirti Sutra
On July 12, 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope began sending extraordinary pictures of the oldest galaxies in our universe. One thing, to my untrained eye, is clear: Everything is dancing. From the Cartwheel Galaxy and its neighbours to gelatinous jellyfish in the sea, it is all in the dance.
The universal dance began a little less than 14 billion years ago. Sex has been around about 2 of those 14 billion years. The first life appeared on our planet about 4 billion years ago. So, for about 2 billion years, life happily danced without sex.
Sex was invented by single-celled protists because the environment was changing and diversity is always the most efficient way to deal with change. Exchange of genes through sexual reproduction leads to genetic diversity. Single cells copying themselves do not.
Today, plenty of creatures dance on the earth, in the seas, and in our guts, who manage fine without sex. Sex is an invention, a fairly recent, very enjoyable invention. The fun, unfortunately for the protists, came later. It took another 1.3 billion years for neurons capable of detecting pleasure to develop. Imagine, 1.3 billion years of gittin’ it on without fun. Protists are still around, doing fine. Protists are in our guts, too, but research into their function, friend or foe, has barely begun.
Sex in humans is dependent on a number of factors including hormones, genetics, anatomy; usually male or female but with some variance. Roughly 2-3% of humans have characteristics of both sexes. So, sex is a biological and evolutionary construct.
Gender is identity. How one sees oneself. Gender is a social construct.
The Buddhist dharma (sometimes referred to in these writings as the mystic, or wonderous law) is concerned with fundamental universal principles. These principles are co-existent with the universe and with life. Nobody created them and nobody can break them. Our dear Kisa Gotami said:
No village law is this, no city law,
No law for this clan, or for that alone;
For the whole world — ay, and the gods in heav'n —
This is the Law: All is impermanent.
One of these universal principles is non-duality. Non-duality means that two things that appear to be separate are actually part of the same system. Bees and flowers are examples. Subject and object are examples. Two sides of very thin sheets of paper.
The mystic law predates sex, predates all constructs. The dharma does not care about sex or gender, just as Newton’s laws of gravity don’t care about your hat size. That is the conclusion: the mystic law doesn’t care how you identify or with whom you like to dance.
Vimalakirti teaches non-duality
One important scripture, the Vimalakirti Sutra, tells of a great lay practitioner, Vimalakirti. The Vimalakirti Sutra is very interesting, provocative, and worth much more of an examination than I can provide here. But here I share my interpretation of an incident in the sutra.
Vimalakirti’s practice, devotion, and concern for others was unsurpassed, stronger it seemed than even the monks who directly followed the Buddha. His strong practice made his wisdom deep. He understood the profound principles of non-dualism. To demonstrate this principle to the Buddha’s clerical disciples, Vimalakirti invited the monks over for a chat. He was wealthy and a major contributor to the care of the Buddha and his disciples. He also used his wealth to support the poor and infirm. He lived in a simple house with a lovely garden filled with mango trees.
The goddess
A large group of monks arrived at his house. They were surprised to find a single plain room with only one chair. In the chair sat the most beautiful woman any of them had seen, a goddess descended from heaven. One of the monks asked, “where do we sit? Where is Vimalakirti?”
The goddess spoke, “Do you seek liberation, or furniture? The holy liberation is the equality of all things.”
The monks were, to put it mildly, confused. They could not understand how the dharma could be presented by one in a female form.
Then the goddess changed herself into a male form. It was Vimalakirti, himself. He engaged in a dialogue with the monks, trying to teach them the profound principles of non-duality. He continued to change his form from male to female, and then, wait for it: The goddess changed into the form of the principle monk and changed that monk into the form of the goddess.
Vimalakirti changed the sex of the Buddha’s disciples. This was no parlour trick. He was physically demonstrating that a person’s inherent worth, their humanity, was not determined by anatomy, eyebrows, clothes or culture.
The Buddha’s top disciples were uncomfortable and confused. They shouldn’t have been. They freaked. They wouldn’t have, had they grasped non-duality. Vimalakirti changed them back and they ran back to their ashram at Jeta’s Grove and their comfortable ways of thinking.
Vimalakirti was a bit of a prankster. His intent was not to humiliate the disciples but to show how liberation exists in ordinary life and not to be tricked by our preconceptions of others and of ourselves. Demonstrating non-duality in gender was one example of non-duality in all things — desire and enlightenment, matter and spirit, mortality and nirvana.
The monks didn’t learn the lesson. And they were the ones to codify and spread the dharma after the Buddha’s passing. So, for around 25 centuries Buddhist priests have talked about non-duality, while engaged in dualistic behaviours and enforcing dualistic structures. Funny that.
Buddhist principles, in other words, are not concerned with sex, gender, or any of the many issues humans create around sex and gender. Unfortunately, Buddhist communities, over the centuries, like other human communities, have made them into issues. In Buddhist countries throughout Asia and over the centuries, women and those with non conventional identities have not generally fared well. It is my hope that as Buddhism moves from West to East, that will change.
All of which is to say, these writings are not concerned with sexual or gender identity. I am, however, deeply concerned with human identity, specifically mine, and the issues I have had with my identity. What does Buddhism say about human identity? That we are each noble, incomparable beings whose highest identity is expressed as wisdom, compassion, and life-force. All of us are smart, kind, and strong. Including me. I’m gonna go with that.
