by Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo Quoted in Cave in the Snow by Vick Mackenzie (pp. 133-36) To me the special female quality (which of course many men have as well) is first of all a sharpness, a clarity. It cuts through—especially intellectual ossification. It's very sharp and gets to the point. To me the Dakini principle stands for the intuitive force. Women get it in a flash—they're not interested in intellectual discussion which they normally find dry and cold with minimum appeal. To women that's the long way of going about it. They go through the back door! This reveals itself as women being more practical in their approach, less abstract and idealistic than men. They want to know, "What can we do?" They're not entranced by theories and ideas—they want to be able to crunch it between their teeth. Of course, Prajnaparamita [personification of unconditional space, often referred to as the Mother of all the Buddhas] is female. She's the Perfection of Wisdom which cuts away all our concepts and desires to make something very stable and settled. We build up our ideas. We try to make them concrete. She cuts away, cutting, cutting, cutting. She cuts things back to the bare essential. At the same time women have a nurturing, a softness, a gentleness. Women tend to be more into feeling than men, which makes it easier to develop Bodhicitta. Loving-kindness is innate in women, because of the mothering factor. A mother is prepared to die for her child. That impulse can be developed towards all beings. Again it's a matter of feeling, not intellect. These are not just useful qualities—they're essential. [to continue, click "read more," below right] Female spiritual energy is also very quick. Like Tara. You don't have to be a great yogi to communicate with Tara. She's there! Like a mother she has to be very quick because she can't wait until her child has reached a certain level before she gives it her attention and compassion. She has to be right there with it, from the moment it's born, a little wriggling worm. Whether it's a good child or a bad child she's there to help.
And then women can often attain the experience of tummo [inner heat developed through yogic meditation] more swiftly than men. It's something to do with our physiology. Milarepa had a lot of trouble getting heat and bliss whereas his woman disciple Rechungma got all the experience in three days. So many lamas have said that women are especially good at tummo. Not only can they generate the bliss, they're able to handle it better as well. For myself, however, I cannot claim to be a tummo yogini. It wasn't my main practice. [Re women's hormonal cycles as an obstacle on the path:] Hormones were no obstacle to me! Personally I've never been affected by my periods and I think that all this talk about menopause and PMS is just making an issue of it. Besides, I've noticed that men are often more moody than women. All humans fluctuate in their moods; that doesn't mean you have to cling to it. One lama did tell me, however, that women's main problem is that they have a volatile mind. It swings up and down, which makes it more difficult to attain steadiness in meditation. But he also added that when a woman learns to check that energy she can go very fast in her practice—much quicker than men because there's this fund of energy which has not been dissipated. In fact many, many lamas have said that once women get going on meditation their experiences are much more rapid and higher than most men's. But again, because women weren't into writing books or publicizing it you don't hear about them. As to the continuing controversy [in traditional Tibetan Buddhism] about whether women can get enlightened, most of that is only due to cultural discrimination and ongoing male chauvinism. Personally I have no doubts. And the benefits of having women up there among the men are obvious. For one thing women are half of the human race. So women who have got a lot of genuine practice and understanding are necessarily going to raise the level of humanity because there are so many of them.
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