Originally posted by Beyond Religion:
I also noticed that a lot of Buddha/ Bodhisattva images appear to
be androgynous. Perhaps this is an indication that the enlightened
ones do not place any importance on distinction between genders.
[/b]
we can go thru 'Vimalakirti sutra, The Goddess' on this:
http://www.imeditate.com/vimalakirti/vimalakirti07.html
Sariputra: Goddess, what prevents
you from transforming yourself out of your female state?
Goddess: Although I have sought my "female state" for these twelve
years, I have not yet found it. Reverend Sariputra, if a magician
were to incarnate a woman by magic, would you ask her, "What
prevents you from transforming yourself out of your female
state?"
Sariputra: No! Such a woman would not really exist, so what would
there be to transform?
Goddess: Just so, reverend Sariputra, all things do not really
exist. Now, would you think, "What prevents one whose nature is
that of a magical incarnation from transforming herself out of her
female state?"
Thereupon, the goddess employed her magical power to cause the
elder Sariputra to appear in her form and to cause herself to
appear in his form. Then the goddess, transformed into Sariputra,
said to Sariputra, transformed into a goddess, "Reverend Sariputra,
what prevents you from transforming yourself out of your female
state?"
And Sariputra, transformed into the goddess, replied, "I no longer
appear in the form of a male! My body has changed into the body of
a woman! I do not know what to transform!"
The goddess continued, "If the elder could again change out of the
female state, then all women could also change out of their female
states. All women appear in the form of women in just the same way
as the elder appears in the form of a woman. While they are not
women in reality, they appear in the form of women. With this in
mind, the Buddha said, 'In all things, there is neither male nor
female.'"
Then, the goddess released her magical power and each returned to
his ordinary form. She then said to him,
"Reverend Sariputra, what have you done with your female
form?"
Sariputra: I neither made it nor did I change it.
Goddess: Just so, all things are neither made nor changed, and that
they are not made and not changed, that is the teaching of the
Buddha.
Sariputra: Goddess, where will you be born when you transmigrate
after death?
Goddess: I will be born where all the magical incarnations of the
Tathagata are born.
/\
