The Parable of the Skillful Physician and His Sick Children is about an excellent physician who has quite a few sons, up to 100 to be exact. It might seem strange to us today that of the 100 children they were all sons and not a one is mentioned as being a daughter. We have to remember this was written in a time when women were really not considered much when teaching was done. We do have in the Lotus Sutra some of the most dramatic and historically noteworthy breaking of conventions regarding women and Buddhism; still the sutra is not perfect in every way.

There are some who argue the sutra should be rewritten to be more gender equitable or neutral. I am opposed to this for the simple reason that the harsh truth is the sutra was not in fact written with a modern equality sensibility.