Two-Fingered Wisdom

Life and Teachings of Somā Therī

The nun Somā is considered one of the Therīs, ordained women who lived in the Buddha’s time and realized full enlightenment. Her character and story are reconstructed from a variety of sources mostly found in several texts of the Pāli Canon and their Chinese counterparts. Due to influences of time, translation, and editing, some names or stories of Therīs were mingled together or lost. This is even more so in the case of Somā Therī. One possible reason may be that, as we will see later, the words attributed to her uncompromisingly challenge gender stereotypes. As one might guess, this won’t usually make you famous, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it was indeed the case. Even though the Buddhist tradition is generally welcoming to women and historically, it opened many opportunities for them that might be hard to imagine in ancient times, it still lives through human beings. The vast majority of us are inevitably biased in one way or another, so naturally, it too suffers from problems similar to what we can see pretty much anywhere in the world. Furthermore, I’d like to note that whenever I speak of gender in this text, I refer to the social construct rather than distinct bodily characteristics.

With that in mind, let’s embark on a journey to an ancient city in the Indian subcontinent where a girl was born to a rich and learned Brahmin, a member of the priestly caste. Her parents chose a name related to the moon for her—Somā. Somā was renowned among people for her sharp intellect and excellent memory. One day the Buddha arrived in the city. Somā felt deeply touched when, for the first time in her life, she heard the word “Buddha”, which means the Awakened One. She went to see him, and upon hearing the teachings, she “entered the stream”—having touched the nature of reality, she experienced her first liberating insight.

She ordained as a nun, continued to deepen her practice, and eventually attained complete awakening. Her expression of full enlightenment can be found alongside many other joyful, inspiring poems attributed to Therīs in the Therīgāthā collection. And from yet another text, we get to know a bit more background on her poem. Putting all the sources together, we arrive at a story where Mara, a trickster being, challenges Somā by saying that women are not capable of awakening.

Mara is using a common stereotype to make a statement about women’s nature by using the image of two-fingered wisdom. This symbol might be related to the way ancient Indian women cooked rice. To find out if it was ready to be eaten, they pressed it between two fingers. There are more explanations, but all of them are very similar, and there’s an agreement that two-fingered wisdom is a derogatory way of referring to women and their spiritual capacity as limited.

Somā’s unshakeable heart-and-mind, open and awake, gives rise to the following response:

This is an important statement, not only for women but for everyone. Generally, human beings have the capacity to settle our hearts and see what really is since our experience is the principles we awaken to. To overcome all that makes seeing clearly hard, we re-orient our lives and practice by using intention in ways that support awakening. Intention is accessible regardless of physical characteristics.

In some sources, Somā further adds:

Shoo, you’d better go chat with someone who might believe you, Mara! Somā’s response undermines the very basis Mara’s statement is built upon—the incomplete and inaccurate perception of what we call “self” as something solid, unchanging, and separated from everything else. If one can perceive the nature of all conditional phenomena as impermanent, empty of independent existence, and unreliable, it’s not possible to be attached to any kind of constructed identities, such as gender and many other categories, and so labels of superiority or inferiority don’t really have a place to land on. Not clinging to a single thing, Somā is inviting us to rest beyond any identification.

As I reflect on the teachings in this poem, I’d like to add that it’s a nuanced message that, if misunderstood, could be misused, for example by saying that gender doesn’t matter and therefore, we don’t need to deal with the suffering that comes from discrimination. This is really not the case. The main purpose of practice is to address and relieve suffering. From the standpoint of dismantling systemic injustice, it’s important to understand how oppression works and for those who are harmed by it to have a voice. In my view, because Somā speaks to spiritual seekers, she simply points us one level deeper. These two perspectives don’t exclude each other, but rather the opposite. As soon as we start understanding her words at least to some extent, then there will naturally be no need to invest so much energy in holding on to something that’s slipping through our fingers anyways, and we can devote ourselves to compassionate work more efficiently. Labels of all kinds then become skillful means to engage with the world rather than something that just limits or pushes and pulls us. I celebrate all people who don’t find themselves trapped so firmly in dualistic categories and have the courage to speak up. It is them after all, who are showing us that there’s no need to live controlled by what, to a large extent, society projects upon us.

What stood out for me in Somā’s story is the image of trying rice with two fingers. One of the common mudras, symbolic gestures of hands, is the Vitarka mudra. It’s associated with teaching and discussion. When I form this mudra with my hand, I feel a sense of precision needed for skillful discernment. In Sōtō Zen monasteries, there’s a role crucial for the monastery to work—Tenzo, the head cook. I was fortunate to spend some time in the monastery kitchen, as a newbie mostly washing dishes, or cutting vegetables and occasionally my fingers. There, I met two Tenzos deeply dedicated to their task, my Dhamma brothers Shokan and Dojun. Tenzo doesn’t just cook but needs to do many other things to ensure that the whole monastery is nourished. It’s a responsible work full of devotion, skill, and discernment. If rice was too hard and inedible, everyone would get hungry.