Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c8.s1.t3.4

c8.s1.t3.4

Women are to the Buddhist of all the snares which the tempter has spread for men, the most dangerous; in women are embodied all the powers of infatuation, which bind the mind of the world. The ancient story books of the Buddhists are full of narratives and illustrations of the incorrigible artifice of women. "Unfathomably deep, like a fish's course in the water," the moral of one such history runs, "is the character of women, robbers with many artifices, with whom truth is hard to find, to whom a lie is like the truth and the truth like a lie."—"Master," Buddha is asked by Ânanda, "how shall we behave before women?"—"You should shun their gaze, Ânanda."—"But if we do see them, master, what then are we to do?"—"Not speak to them, Ânanda."—"But if we do speak to them, master, what then?"—"Then you must watch over yourselves, Ânanda."