In [Chapter 8: The Assurance of Future Buddhahood of the Five Hundred Disciples], as in others, when the Buddha describes the future buddha land of Purna after he has become the buddha named Dharma Radiance, he says that his land will be without women, that men will have no sexual desire, and that they will be born without having mothers. Historically, such a misanthropic attitude toward women probably reflects the experience of celibate monks living in India twenty centuries ago. Sexuality and gender has been an ongoing problem for Buddhism. This is in large part because sexual desire in men can be seen as the prime embodiment of desire and greed – everything that Buddhism, especially traditional Indian Buddhism, opposed and sought to abolish. Women were seen as the cause of men’s sexual desires, and thus as embodiments of evil.

With respect to attitudes toward women, Buddhism was something of an improvement over Hinduism. Women were, for example, admitted into the community as ordained nuns, as was true in Jainism. But nuns were radically subordinated to monks and it was believed that only through rebirth as a man could a woman have any possibility of awakening fully.

The Dharma Flower Sutra often reflects such attitudes, as appears to be the case in this chapter. But, as we will see later, it sometimes takes a more generous view of women and of their potential to be Dharma teachers and become buddhas in the future. Thus the Sutra is consistent in teaching that every living being has the potential to become a buddha in this world. In doing this, in maintaining the consistent teaching of universal buddha-nature, the Sutra takes an important step toward teaching the equality of men and women.

Yet while the Dharma Flower Sutra does take a step forward with respect to equality, going beyond Hinduism, beyond traditional Buddhism, and even beyond many Mahayana sutras, it only takes a step, and not a very large one at that, falling far short of today’s standards. We can, I believe, love the Dharma Flower Sutra and seek to follow its important teachings while still recognizing that, like everything else, it has limitations. We should not forget that the Sutra itself teaches that all Buddhist teachings are skillful means, relative to their time and circumstance, including the details of the Dharma Flower Sutra. In this sense, though ahead of its time in most ways, in some other ways the Lotus Sutra reflects the limitations of the culture and time in which it arose.