Are women a trap for men? (cartoon)

(Rerun Zone) The Male Gaze: Sexism, Racism, and the Biggest Censorship in Classic Cartoons

The most uncomfortable and forbidden truth about women, according to Schopenhauer

The World as Will...Vol. 1

(Refuge of the Male Mind) June 10, 2025: Let's explore one of Arthur Schopenhauer’s most controversial and philosophical views on women. Drawing from his major work The World as Will and Representation, we can analyze how he saw the female nature, the biological role of women, and how it all connects to the blind Will-to-life, the irresistible will to live and carry on, to consume and reproduce. "Eat, Mate, Kill, Repeat." Prepare to reflect on deep, provocative, and forbidden ideas that still spark intense debate today.

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• Unfold feminine grace with Ilana's Method

Would the Buddha agree?

What is the point or profit of an ascetic life?

Buddhism is far more sophisticated than nearly anyone realizes. The Buddha taught in a variety of ways, which made him very popular to different types of people. We imagine he only gave discourses or sutras, but he did much more than that. He told fables (many of which were published in Aesop's Fables), recounted past lives with talking animals and stories (jatakas), histories, a disciplinary code with origin stories for each of the rules (with a spicy sinful story that gave rise to the need for a rule), recorded verses of enlightened nuns, and most sophisticated of all is an entire collection of works in Buddhist psychology and physics called the Abhidhamma Pitaka or "Collection on the Dhamma explained in ultimate terms" or The Higher Doctrine Collection. Are women a trap for men, or men a trap for women, or pleasant objects a trap for clingy humans?

How are we raising our girls in the US nowadays?

• Verses of the Senior Nuns: 13.3: Cāpā Therīgāthā

Why do we become attached and clingy?

The Abhi-Dhamma = Higher Doctrine Collection

There exists a sutra where the Buddha points out that nothing is more alluring for a male than the form of a female. This sounds bad, but the same is said of females. Nothing is more alluring than the form of a male. (What can be said of pandakas, the third gender or gender-nonconforming individuals, we are not told, into which category would fit all LGBTQIA+ persons, whether gay, bi, or pansexual). We can imagine that whatever one likes, whatever one is attracted to, that is the most alluring. And this is problematic for anyone who wishes to make progress toward enlightenment and liberation in this very life.

The Buddha's Higher Doctrine in Practice

The Abhidhamma in Practice by N.K.G. Mendis, Wheel 322, BPS.lk, 2006

Wheel 322/323: The Abhidhamma in Practice

When the mind is not experiencing objects through the five sense doors — eye, ear, nose, tongue, or body — it can still be active through the [sixth sense called the] "mind door," taking as its object either something previously experienced through the five sense doors, recently or long ago, or some idea or image peculiar to itself.

Past experiences are registered in the life-continuum (bhavanga) in a subliminal form, where from time to time they can surface through the mind-door to serve as objects for the mind-moment (citta).

On the one hand, karmically active moments can follow this mental activity, and here again the practice of mindfulness — that is, being [dispassionately] aware that there is thinking — will prevent the arising of unwholesome causative mind moments.

On the other hand, if mindfulness is absent there can be unwholesome mental activity, such as longing [or lust] for things of the past, worry, remorse, regret, grudge, and doubt. Mind moments exhibit certain other interesting features that are dealt with in the Abhidhamma (the Doctrine or Dhamma in Ultimate Terms). Some of these are as follows.

Association with "roots"

Mind moments may be associated with mental factors called "roots" (hetu, mula), or they may be dissociated from these roots.

The former kind of mind moments are called sahetuka cittas, the latter ahetuka cittas; these are, respectively, rooted and rootless states of consciousness.

The roots are particular mental factors (cetasikas) that arise together with the mind moments, often giving it a determinate ethical quality.

Because the mind moment and its constituent factors, the mental concomitants (cetasikas), arise together and because both have the same object and base, it is difficult to appreciate the subtle differences in their characteristics unless one's mindfulness and insight are very sharp.

There are six roots. Three are karmically unwholesome (akusala); the other three may be either karmically wholesome (kusala) or indeterminate (abya-kata), depending on the type of consciousness they arise in.

The unwholesome roots are greed (lobha), hatred (dosa), and delusion (moha). The three roots that are wholesome in some mind moments and indeterminate in others are greedlessness (alobha), hatelessness (adosa), and undeludedness (amoha).

Though these last three roots are expressed negatively they have positive manifestations. Greedlessness manifests as generosity and renunciation (unselfishness and letting go), hatelessness as loving-kindness and compassion, and undeludedness as wisdom or understanding.

In the ordinary unenlightened worldling these six roots can occur in various combinations. When one enters the path leading to enlightenment, the unwholesome roots are eradicated in stages until final emancipation is achieved.

For the fully enlightened person (arahant), the liberated one, the mind moments that arise can no longer be associated with any unwholesome roots. The mind moments that the fully enlightened experiences are neither wholesome nor unwholesome, as one does not generate any further karma; one's mind moments are exclusively indeterminate.

These indeterminate mind moments can be functional (kiriya, kriya), as on occasions when one is mentally active, or resultants (vipaka) when one is experiencing the effects of past karma or abiding in the meditative attainment of fruition.

For spiritual progress, it is important to be aware of the roots associated with the mind moments that we are experiencing at any particular moment. This is possible only by the practice of mindfulness as expounded in the Discourse on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness.

This awareness helps us to rid ourselves of the unwholesome roots and to cultivate the wholesome roots. This practice enables one to purify moral virtue (sila), to develop stillness (samadhi), and to achieve insight (vipassana).

Association with feeling

Mind moments differ according to the feeling associated with them. Every mind moment has a concomitant feeling, but the quality of this feeling differs from mind moment to mind moment. Some are accompanied by a pleasant feeling (sukha vedana), some by a painful feeling (dukkha vedana), some by an indifferent feeling (upekkha vedana).

It is important to recognize the feeling that accompanies each mind moment, for feelings serve as a condition for defilements to arise.

The mind's natural tendency is to develop attachment to a pleasant feeling and aversion to an unpleasant one. Any attachment will eventually cause disappointment (dukkha); for everything within and around us is impermanent, so when inevitable separation takes place, if there is attachment, the result will be sorrow, lamentation, and despair.

Aversion, apart from giving further nourishment to the unwholesome roots, is a totally futile response. We cannot change the essentially unsatisfactory nature of the Rebirth Cycle (samsara), but we can alter our reactions to our experiences in this cycle.

Therefore, the sanest attitude would be neither to get attached to anything pleasant nor react with aversion to anything displeasing.

This would be an attitude of equanimity or indifference, which can be of two kinds. One is a callous indifference that is a total disregard for one's own well-being or that of others. This type of indifference is born of the unwholesome roots and obviously should not be cultivated by a spiritual seeker.

The other type of indifference is a highly refined mental state that is better referred to as "equanimity" (unbiased looking on). This attitude, born of wisdom pertaining to the real nature of phenomena, is an attitude of mental calmness amidst all the vicissitudes of life. This is the kind of equanimous state that we must cultivate [for progress]. More

• Rerun Zone; Schopenhauer via Refuge of the Male Mind, June 10, 2025; N.K.G. Mendis, Wheel 322, BPS via  accesstoinsight.org; Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly