I found it interesting to start with having to rearrange the flowers to keep them from burning. I hope the back of it will be all right. It's not touching the lamp. I guess most religious rituals still, we want to preserve life before we make the ritual perfect. In the tradition that I come from, One of the things that people say a lot is, which basically means how good it is for brothers to sit here together. The assumption is that brothers include women.

[01:07]

And I feel very fortunate to be sitting here with sisters. Usually when I wait, somehow things fall in place, and the important things that I want to talk about come together with one thing. And usually even if that doesn't happen, intellectually, usually through sitting zazen, or in my sleep the night before, all of a sudden there's this coming together. But last night was an unusual night for me. And I'll tell you about that as I go on. But I'm going to start by talking about some of the women of the Terregata, and one in particular

[02:22]

Pajapati, who later became known as Maha Pajapati. And Pajapati, which was her given name, meant leader of the great assembly. And she was basically the founder of the first order of nuns, the Theragata or Theragata, depending on how you pronounce it. Kara means women who became wise with age and gata are poems or verses or sayings. I feel, first of all, that this book is misnamed because it's really about the first group of nuns and their stories mostly and how they came about. But before there were nuns, There were lay women.

[03:27]

The first group of people Buddha ordained were five fellow renunciants who were looking for the truth. And then when he became enlightened, he ordained these five men. And after that, there were lay men and lay women before there were nuns. Anyway, One strain I'd like to talk about are the stories of some of these women. At least one was a heroine for me. Now I'll tell a story that most of you know, but perhaps from a little different standpoint. And then I'd like to bring it up through one of the issues of today, and that's how we deal with unborn children. and how we've begun to honor unborn children in our lives and how that happens in other traditions.

[04:36]

Well, the woman I want to talk about is Maha Pashupati, as I said, and I guess almost everybody here probably knows the story of the Buddha and his birth and his family and how his I mean, we say, legend says he was a prince, but his father was a chieftain, quite well off. And he was able to take more than one wife, as many men did in that time. And a harem would often be composed not just of wives, but of slaves, of servants, of concubines, and really all the women of a household. But apparently, a very popular kind of thing from a woman's point of view, but it happened a lot. I guess before I go on, I want to say a little more about what a woman's life was like at that time.

[05:41]

And in a way, when I talk about it and I read about it, sometimes it seems almost like you're apologizing for the sexism of Buddhism at that time because you're trying to see it in the context of what happens. But instead, I'd like to think of it as a background for the heroism of these women and for the strength of their faith and their need You know, Buddhism was part... there were two supposedly heretical sects, anti- the major Brahmin invaded religion of the times. One was the Jain and one was Buddhism. But a lot of what was said was said basically by the Brahmin ideal. And that came from the idea that basically that no one was complete

[06:50]

that originally there was one, and then that was separated to man and woman, and that neither was complete without the other. And then, so marriage was really the only accepted way. But within that, there was a lot of equality for the woman, at least in religious terms, and a lot of honoring of the woman until things changed over a period when the Brahmins came into, oh, this is probably getting too academic, but they came into the Indus Valley and the men began to intermarry with local women who were considered untouchables. They would intermarry and take them as concubines also. And so what happened instead of those women becoming part of the dominant invading culture, and I guess invading may be too strong of a word, but maybe we should use colonial, maybe it's politer.

[08:05]

Anyway, they, instead, the level of women, of all women went down, and the outlook of women was, the way the society looked at women, was someplace between basically goods and humans, basically human men. And the main form of possessions or property, of course, were cattle. So that's where women fit in that society, sort of in between there. I'm even going to give you a few details. There were four... It was really impossible for a woman to survive in that society, basically, without a primary male to take care of her.

[09:14]

And I want to tell you a little bit about the four classes of wives that were considered, and you have to remember that being a wife was the thing in the society. Anyway, there were four classes under Brahman law, and the first four were considered honorable, and the second four were dishonorable. And the first one, which was all right, was an arranged marriage, arranged by the father, where the wife would take a dowry with her. That was the first one. The second one was where a woman would be given to a Brahmin priest by her father. The third one was almost the same as the first one, but that's where she would be given by her guardian, if there was no father, and take a dowry with her. The fourth one was to be bought.

[10:20]

where the father would get maybe two cows and return to the daughter. And that was still within the range of being acceptable. The first of the non-acceptable or dishonorable ones was marriage by love. And I'm going to have to... Maybe I shouldn't go through all of these. And the last one was The eighth was to be taken in war. And the one before that was to be taken through drugs and being stolen. So I'm leaving only one out. But all of them do not relate to who the wife was or the woman was in any way, but only to the way she was exchanged from one group of male hands to another.

[11:23]

So that's just a little bit about where the story starts. So anyway, there was this chieftain named Sudarana, and he married two women. One was Maya, and one was Pajapati, and these were sisters. And they came from a neighboring tribe of the Shakyas called Koliya, and you have to excuse me if my pronunciation of these words aren't right, the Koliya, and he married them. And Maya became pregnant first, and in the process, she did what women at that time did. She started out with her retinue to return to her family in this neighboring tribe to give birth there. And this is where the story takes on my, I'm going to have my personal bit in here, because we do things a little differently in my family.

[12:28]

And last night, my daughter was ready to give birth, and I had to get up with my husband at six o'clock, take my books, my notes, my clothes, my toothbrush, my rocks, my nori-yoki, and go and babysit. for her son while she and her husband went off to the hospital in the middle of the night. Then we had to get up and babysit for my other grandson while my daughter, who was the backup labor coach, went off. So all night, usually I can go to sleep like that all night. The moment there was any sound, whether it was the guinea pig making a noise the train going by or anything, I was sure it was the phone ringing. And at about a quarter to eight this morning we got the news that a baby boy had been born. So somehow these stories about going off and having a baby have a very personal connection, an intimate connection for me this morning.

[13:39]

So anyway, Maya went off and had this baby on the way in the garden of Lubini. She never got as far as her parents' home. The baby who was born, of course, was later to become the Buddha. And she gave birth, and within seven days, and neither legend nor historical record tells why, she died. And the baby then was raised by Pachapati. Now, no one ever says anything about this. I mean, we know about this father who was really worried that he would become a recluse, that he would become a renunciant instead of a great sheik who tried to shelter him always from the terrible things, from the death and things that were going on. And supposedly, here's this man who was raised in this perfect womb of riches and happiness.

[14:46]

And it isn't until he goes out at the age of 29 that suddenly he sees that there is misery in the world. And if you really can believe in, totally in nature over nurture, you can believe that this happened. But I cannot believe that Pajapati didn't have a lot to do, this woman who raised Buddha, with what happened to him later and how, when he first saw those people in suffering, he didn't turn away, but he went out to see how he could solve it. So anyway, The whole story goes on, and we know what happens to Buddha. And after a while, he comes back, and Pajapati welcomes him.

[15:48]

At first, there's a lot of restraint, but Pajapati welcomes him. And eventually, Pajapati, Ananda, her son, her daughter, Rahula, his son, His wife, whose name I always forget. Maylene, do you remember his wife's name? I can't look for it in my notes, but I always forget her name. Anyway, Yasadar. They all want to follow his teaching, and he goes off with the male. In the meantime, there are a lot of things happening. The Shakyas and the Kolyas, the family of Pajapati and Maya, are having fights. And people are being killed.

[16:49]

And there are more and more women who no longer, there are more women, basically, than men. And they are more and more dependent. And where do they start turning? They turn to Pajapati, who, in the terms of the story, has soon has 500 followers. And I guess 500 is a number that meant an awful lot, sort of countless and it's used often. And so then she wants to be ordained. And what we usually hear about and we think about is in this case where Buddha doesn't quite live up to our ideals and she as women, and she goes to him and asks three times, will you please ordain us? Will you please ordain me and the nuns? And he refuses.

[17:51]

And then usually the next thing we hear about, or I've heard about in the past, is how Ananda intervened. And it was Ananda's intervention that made his favorite disciple, that made him change his mind. But the thing that doesn't seem to be told so often is that she and all her women followers, without anybody's permission, shaved their heads, donned their robes, saffron robes, which only monks were supposed to wear, and for 150 miles walk barefoot to where the Buddha is preaching and ask to be ordained. And again, he refuses. And I'll read that section.

[19:08]

Now, at one time, the Buddha was staying among the Sakyans at Kapilavatthu in the Banyan Monastery. Mahapajapati Gautami went to the place where the Buddha was, approached and greeted him, and standing at a respectful distance, spoke to him. It would be good, Lord, if women could be allowed to renounce their homes and enter into the homeless state under the dharma and the discipline of the Tathagata. Enough, Gautami. Don't set your heart on women being allowed to do this. Well, the second and third time Pachapati made the same request. Then the blessed one set out for Visali. Pachapati cut off her hair, put on saffron-colored robes, and headed for Visali with a number of Sakhitan women. She arrived at Kutagara Hall, and the great grove was swollen feet and covered with dust. Weeping, she stood there outside the hall. Seeing her standing there, the venerable Ananda asked, why are you crying? Because Ananda, the blessed one, does not permit women to renounce their homes and enter into the homeless state under the dharma and discipline proclaimed by the Tathagata.

[20:14]

Then the venerable Ananda went to the Buddha, bowed before him, and took his seat to one side, and he said, Pasha Patti is standing outside under the entrance porch with swollen feet covered with dust and crying because you do not permit women to renounce their homes and enter into the homeless state. It would be good, Lord, if women were to have permission to do this. Enough, Ananda. Don't set your heart on women being allowed to do this. A second and third time, Ananda made the same request in the same words and received the same reply. Then Ananda thought, The blessed one does not give his permission. Let me try asking on other grounds. Are women able, Lord, when they have entered into homelessness, to realize the fruits of stream entry, once returning, non-returning, in our hot ship? Yes, Ananda, they are able. Well, if women are able to realize perfection, and since Pajapati was of great service to you, she was your aunt, nurse, foster mother.

[21:18]

When your mother died, she even suckled you at her own breast. It would be good if women could be allowed to enter into homelessness. Well, if then Ananda Pajapati accepts the eight special rules, let that be reckoned as her ordination. Well, I won't go into all of the eight special rules, but the first one that she really worked to have turned away was that every nun, no matter what her age and seniority and her knowledge, had to rise in respect to any monk, no matter how low in his status. And we know that she asked for this rule to be changed, and it was the one she tried to have changed.

[22:19]

never until the very end did it get changed. And as she was dying, supposedly at the age of 120, she asked for the Buddha to come to her. And he did. And that was the historical breaking of that rule, which changed the precedent that he came to her at her death. And the legend says that at her death, there were great miracles only surpassed by the death of the Buddha himself. Anyway, that's one of my heroes or heroines, as the case may be. It was after she had been practicing as a nun for some time that she received, that she attained enlightenment.

[23:29]

And this is her poem. Homage to you, Buddha, best of all creatures, who set me and many others free from pain. All pain is understood. The cause, the craving is dried up. The noble eightfold way unfolds. I have reached the state where everything stops. I have been mother, son, father, brother, grandmother. Knowing nothing of the truth, I journeyed on. But I have seen the blessed one. This is my last body, and I will not go from birth to birth again. Look at the disciples all together, their energy, their sincere effort. This is homage to the Buddhas. Maya gave birth to Gautama for the sake of Saul. She has driven back the pain of the sick and the dying. I've been thinking a lot about the precept of not taking life and thinking about the extensions of life and where life stops and where life begins and about where not taking life borders and balances between

[25:18]

not taking life and preserving life and moving to preserve life. That is, in a way, my link to this woman. Sometimes it's so hard to see from outside what others have to do. And I remember feeling very superior and very horrified when I first heard about infanticide. I mean, it seemed like the lowest kind of life of action to me. Unbelievable. And then there was a priest here. He was one of the three Japanese priests who were teachers who came to study under Suzuki Roshi, his name was Yoshimura Sensei.

[26:26]

And he once spoke about infanticide, especially in connection with Jizo Bodhisattva and the horror of famine and people who, in order to maintain the life of their existing child, knew that if they kept the baby, the infant, that both children would die because there would not be enough to feed them. I'm sorry, I get teary when I think about it. That there would not be enough to sustain the lives of both children and how Buddhism through Jizo Bodhisattva tried to take care of the feelings that went with this.

[27:28]

And I mean, one of the things that Jizo can do is to go down into hell and help bring people out, the damned. But he's also, especially, the bodhisattva of children, of lost children. There are many, many statues in Japan, often wearing bibs or having baby bottles and different toys offered to him in memory of children that are lost. either through accident or early death or through infanticide or miscarriage. One of the things that has been a practice in Japan for a long time and still is, that whether a baby dies unborn of miscarriage or in childbirth or from abortion or from infanticide,

[28:49]

That child is given a name and is buried as any living child. The life of that child is honored as a life. And it seems to fit with that whole Buddhist idea of life that whole range of life down to the smallest things. Not just to the smallest sentient beings, but the life of our own sentience. And I thought about this recently, too, in connection with all the things that have been happening around the pro-life thing, pro-life issues, how life has been taken.

[29:53]

in many ways recently. And I think one of the things that is sometimes hurtful for us in our efforts to protect the right of choice and the privacy of women of not being able to know their own suffering their own needs, that we've gone, and this is my own feeling, this is not the Dharma according to anybody, that we have gone overboard in denying the fact that there is life there, and that one of the things that seems to me to be important is that there are priests, and mostly as far as I know, women priests, who have been creating, oh, ceremonies and rituals to honor the feelings and the love and the life of unborn children.

[31:06]

And however one feels about this, it seems to me an important thing that's happening. It's a funny note to end on when... But I guess we're... It isn't really, because it's the other side of the life that I'm celebrating today. The personal intimate life of our family. My fourth grandson. or comments? Yes. I just want to comment on genocide, because I read a recent article in India Currents, published in this country, that it's still going on in India.

[32:10]

And the significant thing to me is, and it was written in the article, is that these are always female infants. 55% male, which is not what it is usually. And so there's a tremendous concern in what they're doing in a rural community, which has had a great deal of advance. The article goes on to explain that even today, those ancient traditions still exist, where the problem for a family is that you have a female child and you need a dowry so she can be married.

[33:33]

And she goes to live with the husband's family. It's still a very big, big article. And so it's very costly. has been a big problem in a lot of places in the world. In Israel, for a long period, both in the Arab and Jewish population, one of the major forms of birth control was abortion. There was universal medical coverage, but not preventive medicine. So abortion was covered under krupach bolin, under the socialized medicine, but no kind of birth, except in the kibbutzim, no kind of birth control other than that was available.

[34:34]

And one of the things they had to do was when amniocenthesis and all these new things came for a long period, It was illegal to let the parents know the sex of the unborn child because the desire among certain parts of the population was so great to have male children. Well, I'm thinking about how these themes are impacting us and me there. all the women came.

[36:07]

And it may be that a couple So it's so much a woman's position that she bears wounds from the society and also wounds. It's just in a position where both. It's a place of very...

[37:25]

We can. I would like to say one thing, that before, we have to get an image on the author today and that is an image that Blanche once gave long ago to Mel, and we are still looking for the image can find the information you want to. It may never be in the end yet, but in the meantime we have to get to more and more information. Thank you.

[38:51]

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