The 10 Bulls meet 10 Goddesses

My sitting group is exploring the Zen teachings of the 10 bulls. For those of you unfamiliar with this series, they are a set of 10 Chinese Chan poems and pictures depicting 10 stages of awakening. In this series the wild bull sits in for our true nature. The bull tamer sits in for our seeking mind. I’ve been inspired by the 10 bulls for decades. These delightfully visual wisdom packed teachings ring true to my experience of meditation. Yet, as so aptly pointed out by one of the people I sit with, the imagery of whipping and taming a bull is quite masculine, as is much of Buddhism which has been handed down to us, mostly by male monks. The feminine voice has been neglected at best and deleted or devalued at worst. I longed for a more feminine approach to the dharma. Still, the Buddhist wisdom and practices are so luminous I have been willing to overlook the patriarchal element and stay with traditional Theravadin then Zen Buddhism for decades.

 Masculine or feminine, the 10 bulls brilliantly illuminate the experience of awakening. The series starts with a state of not-knowing. At this stage everything we counted on as our identity has been stripped away. We are Alice falling down the rabbit hole. This can happen through illness, deep betrayals, psychedelic drugs, sudden awareness that what we thought was true turns out to be false and many other shocks to our identity. The first in the 10 bulls series, the search for the bull, goes:

 In the pasture of this world, I endlessly push aside the tall grasses in search of the bull. Following unnamed rivers, lost upon the interpenetrating paths of distant mountains, my strength failing and my vitality exhausted, I cannot find the bull. I only hear the locusts chirring through the forest at night.

This reminds me of what St. John of the cross called the dark night of the soul:

In an obscure night
Fevered with love's anxiety
(O hapless, happy plight!)
I went, none seeing me
Forth from my house, where all things quiet be.

If we don’t have someone around who understands that this loss of identity is an opportunity for a bigger life, not the end of joy, we may enter a dark state and stay in it for a long time. Depression can arise during this stage of awakening. With no one to explain to us that what we are experiencing is a normal stage of awakening we might be inclined to freak out and quickly create a new false self. That’s one reason a trusted teacher who has walked the path before us is so important. It takes commitment and courage to embody our true nature. The ego cleverly and tirelessly fights being seen as insubstantial. It is fighting for its life. Overcoming the delusion of separation requires an effort that is equal to the effort of an ego that is struggling to remain relevant.

In the second, third and fourth stages we glimpse our true nature, follow it, catch it and tame it. Initially our true nature, symbolized by the bull, appears separate from the seeker, something mercurial we struggle to tame. But eventually, with continued effort, the bull disappears revealing that the separate self has never truly been separate from what it seeks. Once we pop out from the other side of feeling separate we begin to embody the fullness and emptiness of our true nature. Both bull and seeker disappear. The existential illusion of separation dissolves and we experience our interconnectedness with all things. The series goes on to describe what it looks like to live in a state of connectedness and presence. The last poem has us returning to the world, walking in the world but not of it. We return to our ordinary life a new person, living our daily life from our true nature rather than our ego. We enjoy a vast, boundless perspective even in the midst of challenges. One foot in the vastness and one foot in everyday earthly life.

The metaphor of a bull and whip is decidedly masculine, even militaristic. It is a metaphor about a struggle to control our experience- a hero’s plight. This is one way to go, might there be other ways? How might awakening be depicted using more feminine metaphors? Is a feminine path of awakening fundamentally different than a masculine path, and if so, what does it look like? Feminine or masculine, awakening requires rigor and solid, consistent effort as in the taming metaphor. But maybe struggling with the ego need not always be central to the process of awakening, struggling being the operative word.

At the core of a feminine approach to awakening might be letting, rather than making. The feminine principle is a container, an opening. It is receptive. It grows, unfolds and blooms. By its nature it is less attached to ego than the masculine principle. What might an unfolding, growing metaphor for awakening look like? The process still involves commitment and grit, but perhaps awakening can happen through us rather than by us.  A seed breaks through the hard ground, meets the sun, turns the sun’s energy into life, creates a bud and the bud naturally unfolds, attracts pollination and then the petals fall to the earth, dissolve, become one with and nourish the soil. Rather than whipping a bull to keep it in line might the meditator create a container around the plant to protect it and keep it strait until it can stand upright on its own.

 Or perhaps a metaphor about birthing. I got this one from Joan Sutherland:

 When Qiyuan Xinggang had a profound opening, her teacher asked,

“What was it like when you were gestating the spiritual embryo?”

She replied, “It solidified, deep and solitary.”

“When you gave birth, what was that like?”

“Being completely stripped bare.”

“What about when you met the Ancestor?”

“I met the Ancestor face to face.”
 

Birthing is a function of nature. It involves pain and struggle, as with the taming of a bull, but the challenge is to open and surrender into the experience rather than master it. Birthing brings us to our edge and beyond. I bow before every woman who has ever given birth. It requires commitment to stay aware as intense birthing sensations arise and fall. In some cultures a woman who dies in child birth is honored as a warrior. Giving birth may also involve a community of women supporting the birthing process. Maybe awakening can be experienced as a communal activity rather than a heroic individual struggle.

 It is the feminine way to nurture the next generation, to regenerate the species. If women didn’t offer up their bodies for this regeneration there would be no future bodies to reincarnate into, no monks, no nuns, and no one to uphold the dharma. Creating beautiful teachings that speak in her voice honors this generosity. Those who are awakening amidst children and work need support for their unfolding that is relevant to their experience as they make a living, see to the needs of their families and are surrounded by myriad temptations. It takes as much grit as the heroic path but may require different practices and support systems. In Women Living Zen Paula Arai writes:

 “practice is acting, being, sitting, sleeping. It is when these daily activities are done in accord with the Buddhist teachings that mundane actions become practice. Displaying awareness of the reality of life, one nun said, practice is ‘daily cleaning.’”

 Caregiving is another rich, ground for feminine awakening metaphors. Parents tend to their children’s well- being, sometimes even at the expense of their own. Some travel to foreign countries in order to create more opportunity for their children, even if they will never experience that same opportunity for themselves. No statues or history books are written about these parents. They don’t make interesting copy for the newspapers or climb up the ranks of any religious order. Yet this generosity, especially when informed by the dharma, sands away at a sense of solid self.  These path walkers are not scholars or monastics or viewed as extraordinary in any way. Their great spiritual effort goes largely unacknowledged, or even seen. They are simple men and women in touch with their natural nurturant instincts. Extraordinary in their ordinariness.

 Stories about awakening are found in every culture and religion around the world. Besides the many stories passed down through the ages, how many thousands of people have been awakening without having their stories recorded? We read about the dramatic experiences and detailed renderings of the clergy in formal practices, but we seldom hear about the quiet openings of the selfless person who just backed into insight or came by insight through deep, quiet commitment. Some people are content to walk through life in a new way without broadcasting it. And some don’t have the language to call what they are experiencing an awakening. In Blood Brother Susan Keller, at a turning point in her treatment for stage 4 cancer, writes:

 Everything is alive, but alive in the way that I am in this moment. Madly conscious, blood buzzes in my veins; I am not sick but ruthlessly okay. Another deep breath. I smile. What has changed in the world? Did grace, biology, or an alignment of the planets produce this momentary perfection, loss of ego, merging of the self with all that lives outside the body? Is this vision a suit of armor against the terror of cancer, or is it a glimpse into the foyer of death? Or heaven? In any case, it’s okay. I am safe I close my eyes and feel life pulse through my body.

 Awakening is a verb, not a destination. Although it has been mostly defined as a rare exotic event experienced by only a select few, awakening is ubiquitous. It is like gravity or the law of cause and effect, or impermanence. It knows no boundaries, no class, no sexual orientation or view point.  It is not the exclusive domain of scholars or clergy or any religion or practice and does not require a cave or monastery.

 The struggle to be included, honored and respected by the Buddhist hierarchical structure is part of the feminine masculine rebalancing process. The work of excavating ancient women’s voices and remembering their contribution to Buddhist history is an important part of that scholarship. At the same time we can envision a broader more inclusive expression of the dharma by simply removing limiting blinders. There are many artful ways to reintroduce the feminine into our understanding of awakening, old ways to be excavated and new ways to be imagined. Staying true to the core Buddhist teachings and practices, we notice when the teachings are delivered in a feminine voice. We imagine blooming into our awakening, trusting our instincts and expressing our dharma with feminine delight.