– Women are messengers from hell. They cut off the seeds of Buddhahood. They have the faces of bodhisattvas, but their hearts are like demons. Women can no more attain Buddhahood than can a dried up seed sprout.

– The course of a river and a woman’s mind both wander. Water is malleable, it turns here and there when rocks and mountains block its path. Women are like this. They are inconstant as water. Although they know what is right, when they run into the strong will of a man, they are checked and turn in bad directions. The right fades like a line drawn on the water. Women’s nature is unsteady: though they see what they should be, they soon become what they should not be. Buddhahood is founded on integrity. Therefore, women, who are easily swayed, cannot become Buddhas. Women have the “five obstacles” (inability to become anything great) and the “three followings” (follows first the father, then the husband, then the son). Thus in one sutra it is written: “Even should the eyes of all the buddhas of the three worlds fall to the earth, women cannot become Buddha.” Another text says: “Even if you can capture the clear wind, you can never capture the mind of a woman.”

– The passions of all the men of the three thousand worlds and the hindrances to the salvation of one woman are comparably immeasurable.

– Among the three pleasures of Yung Ch’i-ch’i (in “Tales of Chuang Tzu”) was the pleasure of not being born as a woman. He also named the pleasure of not being reborn in heaven as a woman.