The Cosmic Womb: Exiting Saṃsāra on the Path to Nibbāna-Dhātu

A Reflection on Gender, Origin, and Gautama Buddha’s Ancient Path to Liberation

I. Opening Reflection

Let us sit quietly for a moment.

The breath flows in…
and flows out.

This body… born of causes…
This world… full of forms, names, and desires…

And yet, the Buddha’s path points us not toward decorating this existence, but disentangling from it—not toward perfecting the world, but discerning its nature and letting go.

Today’s contemplation arises from a subtle question:
What was the original condition of the human being?

Was it male? Female? Or something prior to both? Who is the one looking, beyond gender?

This very question begins to open up the path the Buddha pointed to.
Not toward more knowledge of who we are in this world, but toward a clear vision of how we are bound to it—and how we can be free.

Our interest is not merely academic or mythological—it is to use this reflection as a raft: to cross the flood of clinging to form, to identity, to the very idea of being.

II. The Womb of the World: Tracing the Matriarchal Thread Across Species and Beyond

1. A Deeper Look at Origin

The question of origin has always fascinated both philosophers and seekers. Where do we come from? What is the nature of our first form? Are we male? Female? Or something beyond?

In the scientific realm, biology offers a surprising clue.
And in the Dhamma, this clue becomes a window into the profound structure of saṁsāra.

2. Biological Foundations: We Begin as One

Modern genetics confirms a fascinating truth:

Every human embryo begins as structurally female.
The X chromosome is foundational, containing over a thousand genes.
The Y chromosome, associated with male development, is a modified, smaller version—carrying far fewer genes and added later in embryonic development.

In other words:

In the beginning, the human body is undivided.

The X chromosome expresses wholeness, completeness. The Y is a catalytic division—a fork on the path.

This echoes an ancient truth:
Separation arises later. Division is not the beginning—it is the result.

In the ancient stories of creation, especially in the Book of Genesis, there is a notion of a first human—“Adam”—created in wholeness, before the split into male and female. A being formed in the divine image: not yet identified by sex, nation, or narrative.

The earliest Buddhist cosmology, too, speaks of beings descending into the coarse, starting from luminous non-material states, gradually acquiring form, sexuality, hunger, territory, and self-view. (Aggañña Sutta, DN 27)

This descent into duality and division marks the beginning of saṁsāra:

From light into form
From unity into gender
From freedom into becoming

In this way, gender arises not as an ultimate category, but as part of the architecture of bondage—a condition that enables craving, reproduction, and rebirth.

3. Echoes in Nature: Matriarchy in Other Beings

This pattern is not unique to humans.

Let’s explore how matriarchal structures appear across other species:

1). Insects – Matriarchal Power and Genetic Control

Honeybees live in strict matriarchal societies. The queen is the central reproductive figure, while males (drones) exist only briefly to mate—and then die.
Ants have vast colonies led by queens. Workers (all female) do everything: defend the nest, forage, care for the young. Males appear only briefly and serve one purpose.
In parthenogenetic insects, like some aphids or stick insects, females reproduce without males at all.

Here, we see that the feminine is the origin, the organizer, and often, the sustainer of life.
The male is peripheral, sometimes temporary.

2). Reptiles and Amphibians – Gender Fluidity and Female First

In some species of reptiles and amphibians, temperature determines sex—suggesting gender is not fixed, but conditional.
Some species of lizards are entirely female and reproduce through parthenogenesis—no males involved at all.

3). Birds and Mammals – Matrilineal Memory

Among elephants, the most intelligent land mammals, herds are led by the matriarch, who guides with memory and wisdom.
Orcas (killer whales) also live in matriarchal pods, where the oldest female leads and transmits knowledge.
In humans, mitochondrial DNA—passed only through the mother—traces our genetic lineage back through time. It is the most reliable thread of ancestry we have.

Even in species where males appear dominant in behavior (like lions or gorillas), the biological foundation and lineage transmission often remain maternal.

4. A Universal Matrix: The Feminine as the World

In this light, we begin to see:

Form, in saṁsāra, is feminine in structure—not merely gendered, but matrixed (from mater, Latin for “mother”).
The world itself acts as a cosmic womb—holding, shaping, nourishing all beings within it.
From the smallest insect to the human embryo, life begins with a maternal matrix.

And yet, within this supportive field arises a fundamental challenge:

That which gives life also binds.
That which nurtures also ensnares.

The Buddha saw this clearly.

In this world, life comes through division.

The child is born of the mother.
Matter gives birth to form.
Desire gives rise to identity.
Beings are conceived, born, named, divided, and continue in saṁsāra.

From a cosmic lens, this universe is structured like a cosmic womb—feminine in its essence: it gives, nurtures, contains, pulls us back again and again.

Even biologically, we see a trace of this: every embryo starts with an X chromosome. The female pattern is the structural default. The Y chromosome, denoting male, is a modification—reduced in content, yet catalytic in function.

In short: the biological world is matrilineal, reproductive, sustaining. It is designed for continuity—not freedom.

But the Buddha did not take birth merely to repeat the cycle.

He saw that birth itself is dukkha.
That all this womb-like nurturing ultimately leads to aging, sickness, and death.

He declared that he had seen the origin of becoming, and that he had no delight in it.

This was the awakening—not just to the suffering in the world, but to the nature of the world as a trap.

III. The Descent: From Non-Dual Consciousness to Gendered Identity

In the Aggañña Sutta (DN 27), the Buddha describes the descent of beings from a luminous, non-material state into material existence:

They begin as self-luminous, floating in space, without sex, without form.
Gradually, they begin to taste physical matter—craving arises.
Bodies form.
Differences arise.
And finally, gender is born.

“As these beings fed on the solid earth, their bodies became heavier, and their beauty faded. Differences in appearance arose… then the female and the male appeared.” (DN 27)

This description is not to be taken as mere mythology, but as a psychological and ontological truth:

The more we grasp, the more we descend.
The more we feed on form, the more we become subject to it.
Gender is not the origin—it is the result of a descent into identification and grasping, and we call it the Kama-loka, sensual/sex world.

Thus, when we identify deeply as male or female, mother or son, we are not seeing reality—we are grasping a temporary condition.

The World is One, But Not Free

The universe as we know it—and all worlds in it—is structured by cycles of birth, growth, decay, and rebirth. Whether in stars or wombs, the world follows patterns of gestation, nurturing, dissolution, and regeneration.

This pattern is not random. It is matriarchal in essence—not in a social or political sense, but in the archetypal and energetic structure of becoming:

A vast womb.
A nourishing matrix.
A force that pulls beings inward, gestates them, dissolves them, and then gestates again.

This is saṁsāra—the ever-turning wheel.

All beings, from devas to insects, move with the current of this cosmic rhythm. They participate, but do not rebel.

Except one:
The manussa-jāti—the race of man.

The Nature of the World: Entangling by Design

This world, for all its beauty and warmth, is structured around attraction—the cycle of desire, reproduction, and continuity.

The Buddha did not see this as evil, but as dukkha—unsatisfactory, unreliable, impermanent.

This universe is fertile, creative, abundant—like a vast womb of endless becoming.

And yet, the Buddha described it as:

“A net of craving… a field of Mara… a wheel that spins endlessly until wisdom breaks it.”

It is in this context that we begin to understand: Gender, sexuality, family, and form are not neutral—they are instruments of continuation. They tie the mind to the process of cyclic birth, aging, and death.

To take delight in gender—whether masculine or feminine—is to remain entangled in what the Buddha called the house of becoming.

But there is a way out.

The Dhamma Lens: From Origin to Escape

Gautama Buddha did not merely teach about the origin of beings, but about their liberation from the cycle of becoming.

In the Aggañña Sutta, beings fall from radiant states into coarser and coarser forms, eventually acquiring gender, sexuality, and family roles.

“Then the distinction of female and male appeared… and the beings rejoiced in it, and took to dwelling in houses.” (DN 27)

What appears as joy and bonding is, from the Dhamma’s view, a web of becoming.

First there is wholeness—non-dual luminosity.
Then comes division—gender, form, identity.
Then comes grasping—craving for sensual pleasures, for roles, for belonging.
Then comes suffering—birth, death, and rebirth.

And yet, the trace of wholeness remains—a longing, perhaps unconscious, for unity, peace, stillness.

This is the seed of renunciation.

The Path Beyond the Origin

So, yes—biologically, genetically, and socially, this universe has a matriarchal foundation.

But Gautama’s Dhamma uses this insight not to declare one sex superior, but to reveal the entire architecture of bondage.

Gender is not a prison—but it is a process.
Life is not evil—but it is unsatisfactory.
The world is not bad—but it is not freedom.

Our task, then, is not to glorify origin, but to realize its impermanence.

To see through the patterns of biology, role, and identity—
To turn the mind inward toward stillness—
To walk the path of disenchantment, dispassion, and liberation.

And to emerge, not as male or female, but as one who has gone beyond becoming.

Gautama Buddha’s Path: Disenchantment with the Womb of Saṁsāra

The Buddha pointed not to glorify either gender—but to go beyond both.

He taught:

“Sabbe saṅkhārā aniccā” – All formations are impermanent.
“Nibbidā virāgo vimutti” – From disenchantment comes dispassion; from dispassion, liberation.

The world is fertile, warm, abundant—but also impermanent, unsatisfactory, and not worth clinging to.

Just as a child must one day leave the mother’s womb to live—
The awakened being must one day leave the cosmic womb to be free.

The Human Task: From Disenchantment to Liberation

In the Pabbajjā Sutta, Gautama Buddha then as Bodhisattva speaks:

“Having seen the danger in sensual pleasures, I seek the unborn, the unaging, the deathless, the unconditioned.”

This is the true task of the human being—not to worship gender, lineage, or identity, but to see through them.

The Buddha taught:

Nibbidā — Disenchantment:
The mind turns away from the world, not from hatred, but from clarity. It sees the trick of form, the pull of duality, and loses interest.
Virāga — Dispassion:
The heat of lust, ambition, and identity cools. Gender, once clung to, is seen as a costume, stitched from saṅkhāras.
Vimutti — Liberation:
The mind, no longer chained to name or form, breaks free. Not through effort alone, but through deep seeing—yathābhūta-ñāṇa-dassana, seeing things as they really are.

IV. The Purpose of Manussa: Not to Continue, but to Exit

The term manussa (race of man) comes from manas—the mind, the capacity for discernment.

Unlike animals, who follow instinct, or divine beings, who abide in pleasure, Earth humans, as part of the race of man (hybridized from a monkey like primate and the race of man), are uniquely suited for wisdom, for disenchantment, for letting go.

And yet, this human body still carries the deep imprint of biological life—the pull toward sex, reproduction, attachment to kin, lineage, nation.

We see this most painfully in examples like:

A mother who clings to her children even as they cause her pain.
A man who cannot renounce desire, even when he knows it leads to downfall.
A practitioner who begins the path with sincerity, but is pulled back by longing for relationship, status, or identity.

All of these are symptoms of being still entangled in the womb of the world.

Gautama Buddha, however, taught the path of nibbidā—deep disenchantment.

“When one sees with wisdom: ‘This body is not mine, not me, not my self,’ then disenchantment arises.” (Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta)

It is not hatred of the world, but a serene disillusionment—like a butterfly no longer fascinated by its cocoon.

A Subtle Knowing: Leaving the Womb of the World

You may notice—this universe has a motherly quality. It nurtures, embraces, conceives. All beings return to it, are reborn within it. In that sense, it is matriarchal, fertile with form.

But the Buddha’s path is not to remain within the womb of the universe—it is to exit the womb entirely.

To become a Tathāgata—one who has gone Beyond.

The human form (manussa-kāya) offers this possibility—not by becoming a better man or woman, but by transcending both, recognizing them as conditions, not truths.

And so, the Buddha taught the highest form of love is letting go.
Not clinging to the womb of the world, but stepping out of it.

From Disenchantment to Dispassion

The human as part of manussa is unique. Human world is not the most pleasurable, nor the most powerful, nor the most stable. And yet, it is the realm where human beings can consciously disobey the laws of the world using the power of human will.

“Manussa is the species designed to transcend the universe—not to perfect it.”

In this sense, manussa is contrary to the world.

Unlike other beings who move with the grain of sensual delight, reproduction, and identification, the human being has the rare potential to say:

“No. I will not play this game.”

The householder who becomes a samaṇa,
The prince who becomes a Buddha,
The daughter who leaves the village for a forest kuti—
All are expressions of this contrary current.

They are not seeking to succeed within the system, but to exit it.

Having become disenchanted, the mind naturally cools.

This is virāga—the fading of passion.

Passion (rāga) is an attachment. It binds us to the body, to sex, to stories of “me” and “mine.”
Virāga cools this fire.

When rāga is present, gender becomes destiny:

“I am a man; therefore I must protect, achieve, dominate.”
“I am a woman; therefore I must nurture, serve, connect.”

But when virāga arises, those roles are seen as costumes, not truths.

We do not have to become cold or lifeless.
Rather, we become free and deathless.

Patriarchy: Not Domination, But Divergence

The Buddhism tradition uses a social form of patriarchy, but not in a worldly, oppressive sense. Rather, it symbolizes lineage, direction, and severance.

In a matriarchal universe, beings flow naturally into cycles of becoming—like children returning to the mother’s womb.

But the paṭipadā—the path—requires cutting that tie.

The path to liberation is not circular—it is vertical.

This “verticality” is archetypally patriarchal—not in opposition to the feminine, but in counter-movement to the worldly.

Thus:

The male archetype becomes a symbol of upward striving, renunciation, and severance.
The father-image in ancient texts often represents the guide who leads out of the home.
In Buddhism, this is symbolized in the bhikkhu-sangha as the pitimutta-purisa—one who has “pierced through” the round of becoming.

The manussa race is born into this dissonance:
To live in a world designed to pull you in—yet carry the seed of disobedience, nibbidā, and liberation.

Examples from the Tipiṭaka

(1). The Going Forth (Pabbajjā)

The act of pabbajjā is not merely social renunciation.
It is a symbolic death—a refusal to participate in the worldly cycle of procreation, legacy, and continuity.

“Having gone forth from the home to homelessness…”
– Typical refrain in the Suttas.

The human being who chooses not to propagate, not to build, not to continue—is rare in any realm.

This act is patriarchal in the sacred sense—not as rule over others, but as a vertical break from the womb of the world.

(2). The Story of Gautama Buddha as Bodhisattva

The Buddha-to-be was born into the Gautama lineage, kinsman of the Sun God Aditya (Ādiccabandhu). And yet he abandoned the worldly throne, his wife, his child.

This severance is not rejection of the feminine—but transcendence of both male and female roles.

“I have destroyed desire for the world of the mothers and fathers,
and I go alone like the tusker in the forest.”
– Dhammapada 329

(3). The Mahāvedalla Sutta (MN 43)

In this dialogue, the noble disciple is described as “bhāvitattā”—one who has developed the mind to the point of liberation from all conditions.

He is no longer of the world, though he walks within it.

This condition—vimutti—is not a return to the womb, but freedom from all worldly becoming.

The Function of Manussa: To Cut Through, Not Settle Down

Other beings may indulge in pleasures, bask in divine light, or multiply with instinctual drive.

But human beings can renounce.

This capacity is not a mistake—it is the design of manussa-jāti.

We are not here to build bigger wombs.
We are not here to romanticize the universe.
We are here to see through it, and to let it go.

Just as the knife is not shaped like the loaf it cuts, the manussa is not shaped like the world it must escape.

This is why human life is so uncomfortable.
We are misfits.
Born to a world that nurtures, but also ensnares.

Only in dissonance, disenchantment, and letting go do we fulfill our purpose.

Disobedient by Nature, Free by Path

The matriarchal universe nurtures all things—gently, irresistibly, maternally.

But the one species has the potential to transcend it is the Earth human, as it descends from Manussa – the race of man.

To walk the path, then, is to honor this contradiction.
To embrace the archetypal vertical movement:

from saṁsāra to Nibbāna,
from clinging to freedom,
from womb to wisdom.

Not to conquer the world—but to leave it behind.

The Exit: Liberation from All Becoming

Now comes the final breakthrough: vimutti—liberation.

This is not merely freedom from suffering.

It is freedom from the world itself.

From all form, all name, all birth.

The arahant does not merely transcend gender; they transcend the need for worldly existence.

They do not merely balance masculine and feminine qualities—they go beyond all conditioned qualities.

They are no longer children of the womb.

Reflections and Analogies

Let’s consider a few analogies to clarify:

A fish lives in water and cannot imagine life outside it. But a human, upon seeing the dry land, may never return to the ocean.
A moth is drawn to the flame—its nature compels it. But one with wisdom walks around the fire, no longer enslaved to its glow.
A child, growing in the mother’s womb, depends on it. But to live, it must leave it behind.

In the same way, the universe nurtures and binds. It gives rise to gender, birth, and identity.
But to be fully alive, fully awake, with permanent bliss, agingless and deathless, we must exit the womb of conditioned existence.

The Great Renunciation

So when we contemplate the first human, whether male, female, or whole—
Let us remember:

The point is not where we came from.
The point is where we are going.

We were born into division.
We are bound by gender, name, and history.
But the Dhamma offers a complete release—a return to the unconditioned.

Let us walk this path not with bitterness, but with deep peace.

To see form… and not grasp.
To feel identity… and not believe it.
To let the world go… like a boat untied from shore.

This is not escapism.
This is freedom.

VI. Concluding Practice

Let us now sit quietly once more.

Feel the body.

Is it male or female?
Young or old?

Let it be.

Notice the awareness that sees it all.

This awareness…
is not male.
Is not female.
It is not born.
It does not die.

Rest in that.

Let the world return to itself.
Let the mind be free.

Final Reflections

Are you still clinging to being one?
Do you still believe you must continue?
Or have you begun to see through it all… and step beyond?

To be born is to enter the womb of the world.
To be liberated is to never need to return.

Gautama Dhamma