[Buddha-l] Gender on Buddha-l

[StormyTet at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/9/2005 8:19:44 P.M. Central Daylight Time,  
mike at lamrim.org.uk writes:

What is  of interest to me is whether such categorisations help or hinder 
us when  trying to help others.  On one hand, one might seek to formulate  
one's responses to others for the best results from a statistical basis.  
On the other hand, one would only be addressing the probable needs of an  
imaginary, non-existent generic being. The question I ask myself is: how  
would a Bodhisattva do it?  As much as I enjoy analysis, I  instinctively 
feel that the categorisations would have to  go.



Mike, 
 
Recently in an urban anthropology course I came across the idea of  
"Signifying' -- as it was explained, signifying is where a group of black males  in 
urban enviornments, egged on by black females, have rhyming wars. These kids  
literally try to aggravate their opponents into either hitting them or giving  
up. One of the main focuses for rhyming  is the sexually perverse  behavior of 
the opponents mother. 
 
My initial reaction to this was to see it as a pathology of the urban  
environment. And at a certain level it may very well be. The book I read,  "Cool 
Pose," argued that this may be more properly viewed as an  initiatory rite of 
these youths. In other words, if you can deal with someone  talking about your 
mother in sexually deragotory ways you can deal with anything  society will 
throw at you.
 
In my white, non-urban upbringing, my initial response to this was to see  
only pathology.The analysis, for me, was valuable in that I will respond  out of 
a shared humanity instead of a reaction to a seeming anomaly. I can  
understand rites of passage. It took the analysis for me to understand the  value of 
these particular rites. My point being that a Bodhisattva may  need 
clarifications in order to understand how to respond appropriately to  a significantly 
foreign cultural cue. 
 
 
Stormy  
 
 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/private/buddha-l/attachments/20051009/dc2faeec/attachment.html