hokusai goddess en

Essenceless

In this excerpt from the Vimalakīrti Sutra, Sariputra, a disciple of the Buddha, converses with a goddess. The latter’s divinity should be seen only as one condition of existence among others, notably that of being human or animal, whose illusory nature the practice of zazen reveals.

Śāriputra:
Why don’t you change out of this female body?
The goddess:
I have been here twelve years and have looked for the innate characteristics of the female sex and haven’t been able to find them. What is there to change? If a sorcerer were to conjure up a phantom woman and then someone asked her why she didn’t change out of her female body, would that be any kind of reasonable question?
Śāriputra:
No. Phantoms have no fixed form, so what would there be to change?
The goddess:
All things are just the same — they have no fixed form. So why ask why I don’t change out of my female form?

At that time the goddess employed her supernatural powers to change Śāriputra into a goddess like herself, while she took on Śāriputra’s form.

The goddess:
Why don’t you change out of this female body?
Śāriputra:
I don’t know why I have suddenly changed and taken on a female body!
The goddess:
Śāriputra, if you can change into a female form, then all women can also change. Śāriputra, who is not a woman, appears in a woman’s body. And the same is true of all women—though they appear in women’s bodies, they are not women. Therefore, the Buddha teaches that all phenomena are neither male nor female.

Then the goddess, by her supernatural power, changed Śāriputra back into his own form.

The goddess:
Where are the female form and innate characteristics now?
Śāriputra:
The female form and innate characteristics neither exist nor do not exist.

Vimalakīrti Sutra – From a translation by Burton Watson and Women in Buddhism by Diana Y. Paul