All women, like all men, are human beings — in this sense, they have absolutely equal opportunities for spiritual growth. That is what the Buddha said.
“You may recall that one of the classic Buddhist treatises also says: at the stage when a human being is ready to achieve enlightenment, he incarnates in the body of a man. I think this is due to the fact that detachment is easier to practice… as a man. Indeed, in women, the state of attachment is due to the birth of children and the emergence of a family, the need (and natural need) to take care of their loved ones. However, this is precisely where a certain advantage lies, the strength of a woman is in her ability to sympathize.
If we look back at human history, we find that in the past, leadership was based on physical strength, because it was strength that contributed to survival. So in our society, the dominance of men, the masculine principle, has developed. Now that knowledge and education have become more important for survival than physical strength, the positions of men and women are approximately equal.
From my point of view, our society is approaching the moment when the ability to empathize will become the main spiritual and social value. And scientists have already begun to realize the importance of this spiritual quality: for example, they appreciated the role of not intellectual, but emotional coefficient in the success of social communication. In my opinion, it is women, by virtue of their biology, that are much more developed in this respect than men. This is easy to see in the context of history: wars, torture, other types of violence have always come from men and were carried out by them; women were related to such things in rather rare cases. Or at the household level: butchers are usually men, and nurses, nurses are almost always women.
The ability to sympathize, empathy has deep biological roots. It is formed in the first days of life, when a living being is still completely dependent on the mother and in his emotions is inseparable from her. This is given to us by nature: to feel what another person feels — as if you yourself feel it.
As we separate from the mother, this ability gradually weakens. We begin to separate ourselves from the environment, we realize our separateness from the world and imbued with the idea that the suffering of our neighbor may not concern us. But in the modern world, where the interconnection and interdependence of people and phenomena, of everything that exists and everything that happens, are becoming more and more clear and closer, our idea of separateness, personal independence is increasingly demonstrating its illusory nature.
Probably — I feel that way — in the near future, women will play a more active role precisely because of their developed sensitivity, the ability to empathize, to share the feelings of others. However, for us men, nothing is lost: our ability to empathize can be trained. Buddhism has a special meditation on this topic: since all living beings come from a mother, and Buddhism accepts the idea of reincarnation, then any living being in one of its incarnations could (or can) be our mother. With the right motivation, by practicing empathy, we men can equal women in our ability to hear and feel the whole world with our hearts.
When people ask me if I want to incarnate in the body of a woman in my next life, I answer: “Yes, of course.” The body of a woman is more perfect and much thinner than a man’s, and this has been scientifically proven. And if so, why not?
But if I am destined to be reborn in the body of a woman, then let it be very attractive, I say. After all, having an attractive appearance, it is much easier to attract people’s attention to issues of peace, justice and goodness.