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The Dalai Lama, Buddhism and Women
vendredi 7 novembre 2025, par
The Dalai Lama, Buddhism and Women
The Dalai Lama in his book "Like Light with Flame" :
"Attraction to a woman comes mainly
From the thought that his body is pure
But there is nothing pure
In a woman’s body
Just like a decorated vase filled with garbage
May appeal to idiots
Likewise the ignorant, the foolish
And the worldly desire women
The abject city of the body
With its holes excreting the elements,
Is called by the stupid
An object of pleasure."
When Tenzin Palmo found herself in northern India among Tibetan refugees in the 1980s, she recounts : "One of the main prayers of Tibetan women is about being reborn in a man’s body. They are totally despised. It’s so unfair. One day, I went to a convent where the nuns were returning from a teaching given by a great lama. He had told them that women were impure and that their bodies were ’inferior’ to men’s. How can you build an authentic spiritual practice when everyone tells you that you have no value ?"
“One day I asked a high lama if he thought women could attain Buddhahood. He told me they could almost attain that state, but at the last stage they had to take a male form to do so. I then retorted, ‘Why is a penis so essential for attaining enlightenment ? What’s so extraordinary about a man’s body ?’ Then I asked him if there was any advantage to having a woman’s body. He told me he would think about it. The next day he came back and said, ‘I’ve thought about your question, and the answer is, “No, there is no benefit of any kind to being endowed with a woman’s body.” To myself, I thought, ‘One of the advantages is not having a male ego.’”
One of the fundamental texts of Buddhism, the Pali canon, also expresses this misogyny unambiguously (quoted in Le bouddha, Henri Arvon, PUF, 1972) :
"So the Buddha never ceases to warn his disciples against the insidious seduction exercised by women : ’We must be wary of women,’ he recommends to them. ’For one who is wise, there are more than a thousand who are foolish and wicked. Woman is more secretive than the path through the water where a fish passes. She is ferocious like a brigand and cunning like him. She rarely tells the truth : for her, truth is like a lie, a lie like the truth. I have often advised disciples to avoid women.’"
Buddhism did not particularly oppress women, but it remained marked by its time. Religious conservatism thus froze ancient relationships. In ancient India, at the time of the birth of Buddhism, during the Vedic era, the status of women was as low as that of slaves. The birth of a daughter was considered bad luck. She was merely an object of exchange between families, which were patrilineal. The birth of a son was a religious obligation since only a son could perform the rites necessary for the deceased father.
"Women can destroy the pure precepts
They deviate from the accomplishment of merits and honors
By preventing others from being reborn in paradise
They are the source of hell" (T. 11, p.543)
In these sutras, women are relegated to the lowest levels of spiritual categories
If a woman’s virtue, merit, and wisdom are extraordinary, she may, through a change of sex, become a bodhisattva or Buddha in her present or future life. The change of sex symbolizes a transition from the imperfect condition of the human being, represented by the female body, to the mental perfection of a bodhisattva and Buddha, represented by the male body.
Raoûl Vaneigem says, in his book "On the Inhumanity of Religion" :
"Finally, for those who would see in Buddhism a religion less brutal and more open to the feeling of emancipation, it is not useless to recall some precepts of the Precious Garland of Advice to the King, which the Dalai Lama does not disdain to quote and approve in his work, Like Light with the Flame :
"Attraction to a woman comes mostly from the thought that her body is pure. But there is nothing pure about a woman’s body.
Just as a decorated vase filled with filth may please fools, so the ignorant, the foolish, and the worldly desire women. The abject city of the body with its holes excreting the elements is called by the stupid an object of pleasure."
The Pali Canon, a pillar text of Buddhism, is also openly misogynistic :
"So the Buddha never ceases to warn his disciples against the insidious seduction exercised by women : "One must be wary of women, for for one who is wise, there are more than a thousand who are foolish and wicked. Woman is more secretive than the path through the water where a fish passes. She is ferocious like a brigand and cunning like him. She rarely tells the truth : for her, truth is like a lie, a lie like the truth. I have often advised disciples to avoid women."
Defenders of Tibetan Lamaism describe this religion as being at the very heart of the country’s culture. In fact, Buddhism was introduced to Tibet at the same time as feudalism.
Around the year 650, the first Tibetan king, Srong-btsan-sgam-po, was married to princesses from both Tibet and China. They introduced Buddhist beliefs, which blended with old animist beliefs to create a new religion : Lamaism.
Over the next century, this religion was imposed on the people by force. To achieve this, King Trisong Detsen decreed that :
Anyone who pointed at a monk had to have their finger cut off,
anyone who spoke ill of monks or Lamaism had their lips cut off,
anyone who looked askance at a monk had their eyes removed.
Hello non-violence !
Then, from 1400 to 1600, monasteries were built on Tibetan territory and consolidated their power. Professor Michael Parenti recalls : "It was also at the beginning of the 1400s that the Emperor of China sent his army to Tibet to support the Grand Lama, an ambitious 25-year-old man, who gave himself the title of Dalai (Ocean) Lama, master of all Tibet. It is therefore quite ironic to note that the first Dalai Lama was installed by the Chinese army." [1]
Then, because this system could not follow a hereditary line, monks not being allowed to have sexual relations with a woman, the lamas created a new doctrine for their religion : when a Dalai Lama died, it was possible to detect his reincarnation in a newborn. As an adult, this child could once again rule Tibet. However, in reality, only 3 of the 14 Dalai Lamas were actually able to rule. Indeed, children rarely reached adulthood, their entourage preferring to assassinate them in order to retain real power.
Monastery Wealth and Serfdom
Modestly dressed monks gathering to pray for nirvana—this is the image we are often presented with of Tibet before China took power. This image, however, is very incomplete. In reality, monasteries were places of power and wealth, based on the exploitation of the masses. Someone had to work to provide for the monks. This someone was the serf.
Thus, “the Drepung Monastery was one of the largest landowners on the planet with 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 grazing grounds, and 16,000 herdsmen.” [2]
The majority of the population was subjected to exploitation by the religious aristocracy.
In 1953, just six years before the current Dalai Lama’s exile, >>> serfs, about 700,000 people out of an estimated total population of 1,250,000, formed the majority of the population. These (56% of the population) were considered inferior beings. Simply touching a master could mean the whipping of the offending serf.
The masters were so distant from the serfs that, over most of Tibetan territory, these two social classes spoke a different language !
Some people even belonged to a social class lower than serfs. Slaves made up 5% of the population. Moreover, a large number of monks were, in fact, robed slaves (10% of the population).
And all this was nothing compared to the fate reserved for women. The word woman, in Tibetan (kiemen), literally means lower birth. Women were forbidden to raise their gaze higher than the knees of a man facing them, as a sign of submission !
Before the Dalai Lama’s exile, 626 people owned 93% of the land and wealth and 70% of the yaks (Tibet’s cattle). Of these 626 people, 333 were heads of monasteries. To enrich this small percentage of the population, the serfs had to work 16 to 18 hours a day !
The current Dalai Lama, for his part, is presented as a holy man for whom material wealth is of no importance. Yet, legally, he owned the entire country, including its population. Before his exile, his family directly controlled 27 manors, 36 pastures, 6,170 serfs, and 102 slaves. He moved around on a throne pulled by dozens of slaves, while his bodyguards beat people with sticks to clear his way !
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