[Buddha-l] Joanna Kirk <jkirk@spro.net>

[Piya Tan]

Joanna,

Ethnographers generally like to use somewhat water-tight categories of
"kammic," "nibbanic," "apotropaic" etc. But we generally know that the
real situation is much more complicated, and can be very personal. At
best we can only speak of trends.

Monks, for examples, join my Sutta classes and use the Sutta Discovery
notes for their classes (in Malaysia, Australia and the US). And I'm
happily working on stream-winning instead of accumulating merits,
while the monks here are lustily toning their muscles in their private
gyms. There are also many serious lay meditators (teacher and
practirioners) here while a certain Sri Lankan mahanayaka is pushing
home his new TV in a shopping cart with a "nun" in a shopping mall.

A large sector of traditional Buddhists (unlike the convert Buddhists
in westernized societies today), we still find many who actually see
the Buddha as a sort of deity and ad sanctos stupas, very similar to
the theistic religions or animistic religions.

This understandably reflects immediate human needs esp of those who
either do not have access to the deeper teachings (namely, meditation)
or by circumstance are preoccupied with personal life pursuits.

Buddhism works for such people almost as a sort of panacea, but
without the costs of a theocentric or theistic system. Recently I
counselled a member of charismatic church, a successful executive, who
thought he was troubled by "demons" (which his church often speaks
of). He found meditation helpful. He is fortunate in keeping an open
mind to meditation.

Barbara E Reed has written "The gender symbolism of Kuan-yin
Bodhisattva," in JI Cabezon (ed), //Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender//
1992:159-180 (ch 7). It has come interesting insights into the
position on women in traditional China.

Piya Tan





On 2/25/07, jkirk <jkirk at spro.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> So I wonder and ask if, in the texts somewhere, the Buddha is said to be
> like a mother. When I was in Thailand in 1985, I was told that brief
> inscriptions under folk art paintings of the Buddha on truck headboards
> addressed him (calling on him for protection) as Mother.  A Thai person told
> me this, but as I don't read Thai I could not confirm it myself. If the
> Buddha was considered then, as ordinary Indians today consider and address
> powerful patrons/saviors/helpers--as "Maa-Baap", Mother-Father--perhaps this
> usage is as ancient as the texts. If it had been common in those days, it
> would serve to solve the householder/monk ethical conflicts just noted, by
> transcending the householder
> ethics level in favor of the sangha vows level, by turning the Buddha into a
> parent --as Catholics do when they address a priest as Father.
>
> I do not know of any maternal reference to the Buddha in the Pali Canon.
> However, the Pajaapatii Gotamii Apadaana has an interesting passage which
> may throw some light on the concept of a greater "spiritual family" as
> against a "biological" one.
>
> 31. O Well-gone One, I am your mother; | and you, O Wise Hero, are my
> father:
>      O giver of happiness of the True Teaching, | O refuge, I was given
> birth by you, O Gotama!
>
> (For Walters' tr, see Buddhism In Practice (ed DS Lopez, Jr, 1995:121)
>
> Here we clearly see worldly language used by Gotamii in pada a, and Dharma
> language
> in pada b. Gotamii is "mother" because she suckled Siddhattha as a baby
> (could she
> have been the Bodhisattva's real mother?) But she declares the Buddha to be
> her "spiritual
> father", since she benefitted from his teaching.
>
> What we have here is a good example of a "debiologization" of the family,
> expanding
> it (or breaking the barriers) to include all beings (like Indra's net of
> jewels), recognizing
> that all beings (not just humans) are really one cosmic family. However, in
> the early
> Buddhist context I think this refers simply to a common human family (cf
> Vaase.t.tha
> Sutta, where the Buddha speaks of a common species, Sn 600-611). I don't
> think
> any religion has so successfully developed such an idea and actually applied
> it as a
> social reality (the Buddhist monastic system).
>
> We do however have an interesting case of a monk, namely, Saariputta, who is
> compared
> to a mother, in the Sacca Vibha"nga Sutta (M 141):
>
> "Cultivate the friendship of Saariputta and Moggallaana,bhikshus. Associate
> with Saariputta
> and Moggallaana. They are wise and helpful to their companions in the holy
> life. Saariputta
> is like a mother; Moggallaana is like a nurse. Saariputta trains others for
> the fruit of
> stream-entry; Moggallaana for the supreme goal. Saariputta, monks, is able
> to declare,
> teach, describe, establish, reveal, expound and ex­hibit the four noble
> truths." (M 3:248)
> ============================
> Really interesting, Piya..........thanks for finding a sutta example of what
> I asked about,  when Sariputta is compared to a mother (and Mogallana to a
> father.) I see this as a variation of the contemporary folk practice I
> referred to earlier.  The Thai folk practice I came across--addressing a
> painted Buddha image as mother--doesn't exactly correspond to the
> differences found in these suttas. The latter referred to living people, the
> folk idea to an image. But the folk also have been described as acting as if
> the Buddha was like a god who is present, and so asking him for maternal
> protection, the mother being the dominant symbol of such protection.
> In other cultures, truck slogans address only Mother, asking for
> protection...it might be the Virgin Mary, the driver's own mother, or a
> goddess.
>
> And yes, I see the point on Gotami's use of two different metaphors of
> address, one alluding to her early role as second mother to the bodhisattva
> as infant, and the other wittily warping the familial term father into
> evoking the ancient simile of spiritual rebirth, when she says the Buddha is
> father, and also/thereby gave birth to her (merging the two parental
> functions).
>
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