metonymy4u

For some time now it has seemed to me likely that the writings we attribute to the historical buddha were probably authored in part, if not in whole, by a woman. They are often just not aggressive enough to have been the product of a man among men, as far as I can tell. Take the parable of the arrow for example. A man is shot with an arrow and while waiting to have it removed, seeks to gather information about the shooter, his family, his appearance, his weapons, his whereabouts, his clan, etc. All of these questions are preparations for war, for vengeance, for retaliation. The buddha responds with some practical advice: “turn towards your practice. Remove the poison. Restore your health. Live your life.” The message of conciliation and of sati (awareness) in the midst of suffering, is not a message that I associate with male aggression, rather with female communitarianism. I suspect that at some point after the words had been spoken by the historical buddha, someone attached them to Prince Siddhartha Gautama for political reasons. To make them more acceptable in a patriarchal, aristocratic culture. For all we know, it was the buddha herself who suggested such a strategy.