Seat of Our Pants

Not only do the Vietnamese Buddhists believe in the ordinary male Buddha, they also pay mind to a Lady Buddha.

According to legend there was a woman who was rejected from a pagoda for being a woman. At that time only men were allowed to become Buddhist monks. The following day she returned in monk’s clothing and a shaved head. Memory apparently ran very short back then; she was immediately accepted into the pagoda and began her studies.

Though she had been an average looking woman, she was very handsome as a man. She caught the attention of a girl from a rich family who lived near the pagoda. The girl tried to convince her to leave the pagoda to be with her. The woman monk refused. That wasn’t really her thing.

Soon after, the girl became pregnant. Though conceived with one of the men that worked in her house, she told the men at the pagoda that it was the new monk’s child. This, for obvious reasons, was not the case but the monks didn’t know this and told the new monk to take a hike.

She left the pagoda and took up residence under a large tree in the village. Because it was an illegitimate child, after its birth, it was given to the woman ex-monk. They lived together under the tree; a hungry, difficult life.

A storm hit the town one night. The woman used her body to protect the child. In the morning the town heard loud wailing from under the tree. When they came to the tree to inspect, they found the child there, but the woman had died trying to protect it.

In preparation for her burial, the woman’s clothes were removed and to the obvious surprise of the monks, there lay a woman instead of a man.

Buddha watched the scene unfold and figured this woman deserved to become a Buddha.

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