The Buddhist sutra Flower Garland Sutra is a very expansive work that is almost like a compendium of multiple stories that simultaneously happen in a moment of Buddha’s unconscious. After studying the Diamond Sutra and the Heart Sutra, I thought I would take an attempt at reading the Flower Garland Sutra and quickly found myself very overwhelmed. After many attempts I sat down to give it a more serious read, and there was one part of it that caught my attention.
There is a story of a courtesan named Vasumitra who helps her patrons escape suffering through spending a night with her. This is a part of a longer story about an aspiring monk seeking fifty something different teachers to arrive at enlightenment, and the courtesan is one of the teachers. Although Buddhism is a belief system that renounces all inherent concepts such as good and bad, seeing a sutra portray a courtesan as a leader to enlightenment was a bit confusing to me.
Why is it especially confusing to me? One reason was since there are other sutras that tell the story of Buddha leading a courtesan named Ambapali to renounce her ways. So if in one instance Buddha is teaching to renounce sexual misconduct, how can another teaching say it can be the gateway to awakening?
Another reason: engaging in sexual misconduct is one of the five big Buddhist no-nos. Another big no-no is killing another life, and there is a story of Angulimala, a serial killer, finding enlightenment through Buddha so this part makes sense. But there isn’t an instance in the sutras where a killer is saying they are helping their victims to get to awakening by killing them. Then how come sexual misconduct can be a gateway?
One more reason: if the courtesan can be a teacher into insight, then why can’t a patron of multiple prostitutes be the teacher that leads all the different women to insight?
This turned out to be a great meditative guide for me, because the entire point of Seon meditation is to have the answer first and arrive at the understanding of the answer. The answer I am supposed to arrive at is, “all of these stories are simultaneously true to the Buddha’s teachings, no matter how contradictory they seem to be”. I engaged in the quest to arrive at the understanding and after some time I think I arrived at the answer (aside from the fact that the Flower Garland Sutra is a mahayana sutra, and therefore is more liberal with the interpretation of the Buddha’s teachings).
The Buddha’s teachings have a balancing effect. To the powerful and insolent, it has a punishing quality that leads them to humility. To the weak and distressed, it is a warm embrace that leads them to personal power. For a courtesan to know that they have an inner power to lead others to awakening, that is an encouraging idea to someone who is on the weaker side of society (especially since the concept of body positivity and ideas like legalization of sex work wasn’t around when the sutras were being written, although pimps were).
If the roles were reversed and the patrons of prostitution could be interpreted as guides to awakening, this would be further empowering people already in power. Males can physically and financially dominate women at the time, and should the sutra suggest that high-status men can bring their victims of war, theft, lies, and sexual assault to awakening – that would further tip them to their drunken frenzy of power.
Buddha accepted Ambapali’s alms without prejudice and she saw the light of the dharma. Vasumitra is a bodhisattva extinguishing the fire of desire from her patrons, leading them to the light of the dharma. Both stories involve women and men, and end up with a conclusion that empowers women.
Earlier this year I read the book A Cave In the Snow in Korean and there was a mention of a Tibetan guru asking the female monk for intercourse as a means of tantric teaching. In Vajrayana Buddhism it is an important cultural practice, and I while I respect that it’s important to stay true to the Buddha’s original teachings on how to be free of suffering: understanding the dependent arising and the practice of the middle way.
To arrive in a world where sexual violence, sexual misconduct, sexual suffering is ceased, what kind of sexual practices should we engage in while keeping in mind the dharma? In a world where most Buddhist countries don’t acknowledge female monks, how can the future of Buddhism stay truer to the dharma that all sentient beings are equal? This was my meditation into that topic, led by Vasumitra and Ambapali.