Kritik am Buch „The Shadow Of The Dalai Lama ... - Neues von Shi De

y the dark power and appeal of woman. The literature of this period is filled with countless tales of
seductions in which the monks either bravely withstood sexual temptations or suffered terribly for
their errant behavior, and the victory of chastity over sexuality became a permanent topic of religious
discussion. “Meditational formulae for alleviating lustful thoughts were prescribed”, writes Diana
Paul, the American religious scholar, “The cathartic release of meditative ecstasy rivaled that of an
orgasm [...] The image of woman had gradually developed as the antithesis antithesis of religion and
morality.” (D. Paul, 1985, p. 8) The Buddha had already said of the “archetypal” holy man of this
period, the ascetic Arhat, that “sexual passion can no more cling to an Arhat than water to a lotus
leaf” (quoted by Stevens, 1990, p. 46).
In early Buddhism, as in medieval Christian culture, the human body as such, but in particular the
female body, was despised as a dirty and inferior thing, as something highly imperfect, that was only
superficially beautiful and attractive. In order to meditate upon the transience of all being, the monks,
in a widespread exercise, imagined a naked woman. This so-called “analytic meditation” began with a
“perfect” and beautiful body, and transformed this step by step into an old, diseased, and dying one, to
end the exercise by picturing a rotting and stinking corpse. The female body, as the absolute Other,
was meditatively murdered and dismembered as a symbol of the despised world of the senses. Sexual
fascination and the irritations of murderous violence are produced by such monastic practices. We
return later to historical examples in which monks carried out the dismemberment of women’s bodies
in reality.
There are startling examples in the literature which show how women self-destructively internalized
this denigration of their own bodies. “The female novice should hate her impure body like a jail in
which she is imprisoned, like a cesspool into which she has fallen”, demands an abbess of young
nuns. (Faure, 1994, p. 29) Only in as far as they rendered their body and sexuality despicable, and
openly professed their inferiority, could women gain a position within the early Buddhist community
at all.
In the Vinaya Pitaka, the great book of rules of the order, which is valid for all the phases of
Buddhism, we find eight special regulations for nuns. One of these prescribes that they have to bow
before even the lowliest and youngest of monks. This applies even to the honorable and aged head of
a respected convent. Only with the greatest difficulty could the Buddha be persuaded to ordinate
women. He was convinced that this would cause his doctrine irreparable damage and that it would
thus disappear from India 500 years earlier than planned. Only after the most urgent pleas from all
sides, but primarily due to the flattering words of his favorite disciple, Ananda, did he finally concede.
But even after granting his approval the Buddha remained skeptical: “To go forth from home under
the rule of the Dharma as announced by me is not suitable by women. There should be no ordination
or nunhood. And why? I women go forth from the Household life, then the rule of Dharma will not be
maintaned over a long period.” (quoted by D. Paul, 1985, p. 78). This reproach, that a nun would
neglect her family life, appears downright absurd within the Buddhist value system, since for a man it
was precisely his highest duty to leave his family, house and home for religious reasons.
Because of the countless religious and social prejudices, the orders of nuns were never able to fully
flourish in Buddhist culture, remained few in number, and to the present day play a completely
subordinate role within the power structures of the androcentric monastic orders (sangha) of all
schools.