Can Women Attain Enlightenment? Buddhism, Patriarchy & Awakening

Have you ever wondered whether women can truly attain enlightenment in Buddhism — or felt subtle doubt about your own capacity for awakening?

In this deeply personal episode of The Practitioner’s Heart, Poh explores the enduring question: “Can women awaken?”

Drawing from her Asian upbringing and early encounters with patriarchal conditioning, Poh examines how cultural narratives have shaped spiritual identity — and how the Dharma itself points beyond gender entirely.

This episode reclaims the powerful legacy of awakened women in Buddhist history and reminds therapists, healthcare professionals, and spiritual practitioners that Buddha nature is not male or female.

Enlightenment is not reserved for one body, one culture, or one gender.

It is the awakening from conditioning itself.

In this episode, you’ll explore:
• Poh’s personal journey with early conditioning
• Why the question still persists historically and culturally
• Enlightenment as “waking up” from conditioning
• Transforming self-doubt and societal pressure into practice
• Stories of awakened women across Buddhist history
• Trusting your innate capacity for awakening 

Episode Highlights:
* [00:02:25] Poh’s childhood story and early conditioning
* [00:07:30] The core question: Can women awaken?
* [00:10:20] What enlightenment really means
* [00:13:25] Dharma vs. patriarchy
* [00:17:10] “Mud for the lotus” insight
* [00:20:15] Mahapajapati Gotami’s story
* [00:22:10] Chiyono’s awakening
* [00:26:20] Moshan Liao Ran’s teaching
* [00:29:35] Dragon Girl & Tara stories
* [00:34:15] Buddha nature beyond gender
* [00:35:55] Closing reflection

Key Figures & Concepts Mentioned:

1. Female Practitioners: Mahapajapati Gotami, Mugai Nyodai (Chiyono), Moshan Liao Ran
2. Bodhisattvas & Deities: The Dragon Girl (Lotus Sutra), Tara (Tibetan Buddhism)
3. Core Concepts: Enlightenment, Awakening, Liberation, Buddha Nature, Bodhisattva Path, Patriarchy, Conditioning, Zen, Mahayana Buddhism.

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Disclaimer:

The content discussed in this podcast is for inspiration and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for therapy or clinical supervision, and our time together does not constitute a therapeutic relationship. Please seek professional support if you are in need.

Bodhi Inner Path Circle is a contemplative membership community for therapists who long for a regular, supportive, spiritually grounded place to practise meditation, learn Buddha‑Dharma in reflective practice, and connect with dharma friends. It is currently open for enrolment! You're warmly invited to join us to start your cultivation and practice today! 

Transcript

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Speaker 0:11

[00:00:00] Hey, welcome to the practitioner's heart offering practical Buddhist wisdom for therapists and healthcare workers. If you are keen to deepen your practice beyond the theoretical understanding of Buddhism, if you are finding it hard to calm your little active mind after therapy work, I welcome you to join me to dive a little deeper. Each episode I'll be sharing some common issues that therapists may face when integrating and practicing awareness, compassion within themselves, and also supporting clients. I'll be sprinkling some pearls of wisdom that I've learned from my master and teachers that will be helpful as internal resources. I'll also be [00:01:00] interviewing other therapists who are on these spiritual paths together to share their experiences of how they practice wisdom and compassion in their daily lives. I want to let you know that you're not alone. You are part of a bigger community who aspire for greater soul alignment, growth and awakening that we can strike a balance of juggling our busy modern life as therapists with a clear mind and an open heart. I hope to inspire more practitioners to explore deeper spiritual meaning and purpose on our path to enlightenment. I'm your host Poh Gan, a psychologist, a Buddhist practitioner, a parent of two children, a fellow human being with a busy mind but with a great inspired vision for collective awakening. [00:02:00] Let's begin. Hi, welcome back to the Practitioner's Heart. I'm so glad that you're here, settling into this shared space that we have and where we discuss psychology, contemplative Buddhist wisdom, and lived experience together. Today's episode is particularly close to my heart. It's my personal inner journey of breaking free from the mould and the conditioning of the patriarchy, in terms of some of the beliefs that held me back and the practical and psychological constraints that I've placed myself in the past. Coming from an Asian [00:03:00] background, some of these entrenched patriarchal beliefs are deeply rooted. It was not until further tertiary education that has allowed me to, question some of my beliefs As I'm reflecting this, one of the early memories pop up in my mind was when I was, younger. So I am one of the seventh, in the family, and I'm the sixth, among my siblings. After my five older brothers, my parents were very happy that they finally had a daughter. They have been wanting to have a daughter. In fact, I think, the second, child that passed away was a daughter, and so they have suffered the grief and loss of losing a child. So they have been wanting to have a daughter. So after a few attempts, and they had [00:04:00] me, so they were very happy to have a girl. And so that's why my Chinese name was Precious Jade. My academic results were really good in, primary school. So I remember one day my mum had this remark to say that, "Oh, if only you were a boy, it's such a waste that you are a girl. But this unintentional remark, it's probably very, very common back in the eighties and nineties of a traditional Chinese family. Um. Perhaps my mom was expecting that perhaps when I grew up, women would be working more like nurses or teachers or an accountant and then got married and then became housewives being able to study or, being intelligent is not something, that would do you any good, back in the days.[00:05:00] And I guess that that has something to do with, the way that, how my mum was being brought out from a poor family that held the belief that daughters need not to study so much because they will just be one of the helpers to help earn a living for the family and like doing house work and, help with the plantation or whatever, and at home. so anyway, I digressed to tell little stories. From the beginning of learning Buddhism, I was deeply inspired by the Bodhisattva path and the way to enlightenment and liberation. So in my own personal practice from time to time, there are, perhaps some inner obstacles that I've experienced. perhaps, feeling like I was too soft or I feel a lot um, uh, strong emotional entanglement [00:06:00] or being a highly sensitive person who picks up others emotions very easily, Or my obligation of. being socialized as a woman sometimes might have tied me down to some of the social norms that require me to be more of taking more of a caretaking role in, our family and thus have less time to cultivate and practice and this underlying self-sacrificing, schema sometimes get in the way of me, advocating for my time and energy to invest in the things that I wanted to do. Through a later time as my understanding about what is enlightenment, what is awakening [00:07:00] and learning, trying to emulate, walking the Bodhisattva path, I realized thatmy heart says that this is an important and meaningful thing for me, and I want to continue to spend time and doing this meaningful work whether it is at the Temple or at the Blossoming therapists work, there's always this inner struggle of, the invisible load of being a woman and a mum, and my attachment towards my role to take care of other people and to like how a mum should be, sometimes creates tension within me. And I remember asking my Dharma teachers, is it possible for women to attend awakening or enlightenment? Is it possible for women to actually walk the Bodhisattva paths, so [00:08:00] this is personally relevant to my journey of, choosing what is important to me as I'm walking the path. So hopefully by discussing this topic, it helps you, the person listening. The listeners might resonate with this topic and helps to speak to those of you who are females or females assigned at birth, which in the therapist and helping professions, majority of us are female practitioners, social workers, psychologists, counselors, and even doctors and nurses. Our fields are overwhelmingly women led and women sustained. I guess these are the things that I have been contemplating and [00:09:00] reflecting on. So today I guess it is more about reminding each other that we too have this potential and the legacy of female practitioners, and it is possible to be awakened. I wanted to share some of the stories, in the Zen Masters history and other interesting stories about female practitioners because the truth is, enlightenment has no gender. And if we as modern practitioners are going to care for others, lead communities, and walk our paths of healing and awakening, we need to [00:10:00] see that it is possible and we can see the modeling of all those women who have walked before us. So if you have ever wondered this question and doubt your capacity to awakening, please listen along. So before we go any further, let's pause on that word, enlightenment. It is a big word and often misunderstood, and sometimes it can feel very distant and or even mythological. But in the context of the Buddhist tradition, enlightenment is not about becoming a perfect floating emotionless scent. It's not about like gaining superpowers. It is something far more intimate and human. It is about waking up. [00:11:00] Waking up from the trance of our conditioning, waking up from the painful illusion that we are a small, separate, fragile self, constantly under threat. Enlightenment is a direct lived realization of our true nature. Our Buddha nature is already whole, spacious, vast and interconnected with all of life. It is the end of our deepest self-inflicted suffering, and the natural blossoming of our Buddha nature, the boundless compassion that's complete within us. It is said that once you have [00:12:00] gained complete enlightenment and have direct experience of oneness, that you'll be able to leap out of the cycle of birth and death. But many enlightened masters will choose to return back to this Saha world because they can't bear to see other sentient beings who are still in pain and suffering, that they have these compassionate vows to return to guide sentient beings to liberation and awakening. I guess I have not gained enlightenment yet, so I can only speak for the theoretical understanding of what it might be. Perhaps if I have gained enlightenment, then I'll be able to explain to you a little bit more. but due to the nature of this podcast, I'll not discuss further about what is enlightenment, but I [00:13:00] want to say that, I have complete faith in everyone's capacity to be awakened. Yeah. Yes, so there's fundamental capacity for waking up. Is not a question, has not never been in question. From the doctrine's perspective, right from the very, very beginning of the earliest Buddha's teachings all the way to, every different, schools of thoughts and traditions, none of them, there have never been a claim that women cannot achieve enlightenment. So Buddha ordained women and he named fully awakened female Arahats as well. Mahayana Sutras also celebrate female,Bodhisatvas but why do we still ask this [00:14:00] question? I think part of the issues is because of our patriarchy, society, the society that we live in whether it is in the Buddhist time or now, patriarchy still very much deeply rooted in our culture, in our social norms. It is not the Buddha's teachings that obscure the stories. It is the patriarchy. In fact, I think, when I did my research and then I realized that "hey, actually there are, really, popular Zen masters that are females, but they're not being placed in the mainstream, teachings. And you kind of have to dig a little bit deeper. There are examples of women [00:15:00] practitioners awakened and they taught and they led the community. But perhaps, the names were more likely to be forgotten or less likely to be mentioned. This episode is an act of reclamation to retell the story and a reminder for every practitioner listening that you are not an exception. You too can practice becoming Buddhas and become enlightened. So at the same time, I wanted to acknowledge, even though enlightenment is equally accessible. But the conditions that women practice within are undeniably different from the male counterparts, male [00:16:00] practitioners. Female practitioners often carry emotional labor at home and at work. we have more fear of being too much because of the patriarchy society that we are in The differential treatment that we were being brought up and being conditioned we're more likely to have ongoing self-doubt and invisible pressure of holding everything together. This is particularly true for women of color, queer women, migrant women, and neurodivergent women. There are additional layers of complexity and expectation, but enlightenment itself has no gender. Everyone has Buddha nature, and everyone can attain enlightenment and liberation. But the practice, itself often carries the [00:17:00] social injustice. This is why, feminist Buddhist wisdom help us to see clearly that women do not lack the capacity for awakening. Women sometimes lack the conditions that make awakening accessible and easier for them. But Buddha also taught us that all the challenges that we face are not barriers. They are the path. So my master says that if we recognize our habitual tendencies and practice awareness, going against the habitual tendencies, so if you're clinging, then you can practice non clinging. We can turn our habitual tendencies into capacity for enlightenment when we have awareness. So every struggle becomes opportunities [00:18:00] for realizing our Buddha nature. And with each realization, we then gain practical wisdom on how to unhook from our entanglement, our stories, the feelings that comes with that, and perhaps in a deeper embodied way. So every moment of rising again with awareness is actually accumulating experiences for our awakening. When we are practicing, we are not saying that we are practicing in spite of you being born as a woman. you're actually practicing through this journey in this lifetime of being assigned at birth as female. Um, yes. Maybe we may have more challenges. We have menstruation, we have cycles and there's societal expectations and [00:19:00] we have to go through labor and motherhood. There are a lot more significant challenges that we, have to go through compared to our male counterparts. But you know what, these challenges are actually like mud for the lotus. They are the fertile ground to help lotus to grow and blossom into fragrant lotus flowers. So I have done some research, as I said about the female practitioners in the history and wanted to share some of the stories with you. They are less well known, but their wisdom and their experience are something that we can I guess motivate and, um, inspire to become one of them in the future, [00:20:00] and that give us confidence and faith that we too can practice towards awakening. Let's start with Buddha's aunt, Buddha's stepmother, maha Paja Patti Gotami. So after Buddha's enlightenment,Mahapajapati Gotami, she led 500 women in a request to form an order of nuns. So the Buddha refused three times reflecting the cultural norms at that time because at the time in India there were, significant class system, cast system, and men and women, there're this inherent patriarchy social structure at the time. So in an [00:21:00] act of incredible determination, Mahapajapati and her followers actually shaved their heads, donned the robes and walked 150 miles barefoot to find the Buddha again. Upon seeing the unwavering commitment, then the Buddha relented and, Mahapajapati practitioner didn't just ask for a place on the path. She walked, she bled and she createdthe path for millions of women to come in the future, it is because the monastic community now open to females that it allows opportunity for female practitioners to join the monastic community and actually practice as one. So this is a very significant history in the [00:22:00] Buddha time. Another story that I wanted to share is this practitioner in Japan. her name was Mugai Myodai, or another name called Chiyono. So she was a beautiful woman who had many men going after her and admiring her beauty and and her intelligence as well. She was a very smart and very intelligent, and she realized that the external physical appearances, her beauty is not permanent. And one day she would grow old and this beauty, does not last. And so she wanted to renounce as a monastic. However, all the temples that she went to, to be asked to be a nun, to shave her head and to become a nun. They all refused her seeing how beautiful she was. They're worried that [00:23:00] her beauty was going to be a distraction for the monastic community at the time. When she realized that her beauty became an obstruction for her. An obstacle for her, to prove her sincerity, she actually used a hot charcoal to burn her face, to show her determination and conviction to cultivate in practice. So then, one of the masters was touched by her conviction and decided to renounce her as a nun. And so she became a monastic in the temple, practicing for over, 20 or so years and just leading the monastic life and one night as she was carrying an old wooden bucket of water. As she gazed at a reflection of the full moon in the water, the aging bamboo strips holding the bucket [00:24:00] together, broke. The bottom fell out, and then the water flush out, vanished hand, so as the moon's reflection. In that instant, Chiyono was enlightened. The pail, I guess from, the readings that I have, done that the pail symbolizes her ego, like her little mind and the water was her grasping mind when the container broke, she was left with only um, the real moon in the sky. It reminds me of one of the, lines that, one of my teachers said that you are the moon, but you mistaken the reflection of Moon in the drainage as you.[00:25:00] Anyway, so she wrote at a poem after her enlightenment experience. This way and that way, I tried to keep the pail of water together, hoping the weak bamboo will not break. Suddenly the bottom fell out. No more water, no more moon in the water. Emptiness in my hand. trying to understand The state of mind or state of being that she had as she was writing this poem, it's like understanding that in that instant, as she breaks through the grasping mind, the confine of our [00:26:00] mind, and suddenly she realized her nature is the same nature as the empty spaciousness. I guess that's my understanding. Um, now let's go to another story. This is in the Tang dynasty, China. There was a Zen Master. Her name was Moshan Liao Ran. She was very well respected. She was known as the teacher of monks because a woman leading a monastery was very rare at the time, so the monks would actually travel to test her, skeptical of her authority and her cultivation. So there was this [00:27:00] story, that a monk, arrived and asked her a pointed question, what is the master of this mountain like? He was asking about her true nature and her awakened mind, and Moshan master replied with a brilliant, clarity. This mountain, the true nature, is not a female form. With this one line, she did two things. She directly addressed this monk's preoccupation with her gender, and then she pointed to the ultimate truth that awakened mind is beyond all forms. There's no male or female. The monk was, still stuck in his prejudice. And then he pushed back and he asked, "Since you are so powerful, why don't you transform yourself out of this female [00:28:00] body?" And Han's Master's response was a thunder clap of truth. She said, "I'm not a fox spirit or a god. What is there to transform?" And I guess if we think about what she was saying, she was saying that my awakening is not a magic trick. This body is my reality. My enlightenment is authentic right here, in this form. I have nothing to prove by changing this. The problem is not my body. The problem is your perception or your differentiation that I am presented as a female form. So the monk was a bit silent and dumbfounded. His assumptions was [00:29:00] dismantled. Her authority or her cultivation wasn't just granted. It was demonstrated radiating from her unshakable confidence in her own realization exactly as she was. And so the monk then realized that Moshan was indeed a highly cultivated nun. And so I think, some of the readings that I've, seen was that, this monk then, work under Moshan for three years as a way to repay because he lost the bet. Okay, so in the Lotus Sutra, there was this story about an 8-year-old dragon girl instantly attained full enlightenment and shocking the male disciples who believed that it took eons of practice and a men body to get enlightenment.[00:30:00] But her story, dismantled this idea that gender or age limits the spiritual capacity. so regardless of what age, what gender you are in, in this lifetime, it doesn't limit your spiritual capacity. Another one is, in the Tibetan Buddhism, there is Tara, the mother of liberation. a Bodhisattva manifested as a young woman. So in a past life as a princess, she was told by monks that she should pray to be reborn as a man to become a Buddha, and she refused. She actually declared there is no male, there is no female. To say a man or a woman is of [00:31:00] no use at all. And she then vowed to become enlightened in a woman's form. She will return lifetime after lifetime as a woman until all are liberated. Her very existence of Tara Bodhisattva is a teaching that liberation has no differentiation between male or female body. So I wonder what your thoughts about, the stories that I've shared. And I think these stories matter because a lot of us working in the therapy, in mental health, in education and care professions are women. but a lot of the time, because of the socialization, we often doubt [00:32:00] ourselves, we underestimate ourselves. We tend to overstretch and under rest, and we apologize for our power and. I think when we understand fully the Buddha's teachings, it actually says something very different. It's okay to have perhaps very sensitive temperament to have emotions and feelings because a lot of us perhaps are, very intuitive, with strong empathy and emotional awareness. We are sentient beings, so we have this sentient mind with emotions and feelings, but when we only have emotions and feelings without awareness, we tend to be led by just feelings [00:33:00] and emotions, but with awareness, we will then be able to use both our emotions and feelings and awareness to awaken people whom we have affinity with. Actually there are a lot of, Stories and sutras actually stated thatthere will be a lot of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas manifested as female forms to guide senten beings depending on the conditions. When we assure and affirm of our capacity for enlightenment, we need to know that if we practice awareness and compassion, we too can walk the Bodhisattva path Maybe in our female physical [00:34:00] form, female practitioners do have stronger emotional pulls I cry so much and cry a lot, but with awareness, we too can awaken to our true nature. My true nature is not anything less. Our Buddha nature is equal in essence, emptiness in nature. It has no gender. it is neither male or female. It is luminous, spacious, undefiled, free, untainted. Your struggles do not diminish it. Your conditioning does not erase this Buddha nature. Your conditioning or whatever role that you play in this physical life, [00:35:00] would never able to harm, hurt, take away any part of this emptiness nature, Buddha nature, this pristine awareness. Your body does not limit it. You exactly as you are, are part of a vast, powerful lineage of women who awakened, women who taught, women who led, generation of women who were fierce, women who were soft. You are not alone in your work. You stand on generations of women's shoulders. As I'm closing today, I invite you [00:36:00] to take a deep breath with me. If you too have a story in your head that being a woman was a barrier for your cultivation, let's see if we can loosen that grip of this idea and putting that down to see how it sits with you. That, "Hey, with practice you have the capacity to become awakened too. How does that sit with you? What wisdom in your body that you are ready to trust, and what would it feel like to remember that your [00:37:00] Buddha nature is whole, radiant, luminous, and have no issues of needing anything else to make it more enough? To add anything to make it whole. Because it is already whole to begin with. There is a part of you, is enough as you are. The answer that you have been searching for, is complete within you, waiting for you, complete with boundless wisdom and compassion. Thank you for spending this time with me today. I have enjoyed sharing this episode with you. thank you for being part of [00:38:00] this lineage of compassionate, courageous female practitioners and know that you can trust your innate wisdom and you innate capacity, know that you are on a path of practicing towards awakening if you allowed yourself this opportunity. So until next time, take care and may you practice with an open heart, steady and clear mind, as you awaken yourself and others. I wish you well. As we close our practice for today, I want to thank you for sharing this time. If this episode resonated with you, the most meaningful way to support the podcast is to share it, share it with a colleague, or live a [00:39:00] review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. It helps our community to reach other people who need it. Until next time. Keep your heart open, keep your mind clear and steady. Go be your amazing self as you awaken yourself and others. See you next time. Just a gentle reminder that our conversation today is for inspiration and education only. It's not a substitute for therapy or clinicals. Supervision and our time together doesn't constitute a therapeutic relationship.