Problems Bared, Essays on Buddhism

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with its constant frictions and conflicts; tejo, engendering its emotional
feelings and passions.
Masculinity and femininity are the prerogatives of the human
species only when they are opposed in sex-problems. But they exist
and function without conflict not only elsewhere in the organic
world, but even in inorganic structures. They co-exist in individual
flowering plants, but they are also found in the actively and the
passively storing capacities, which involve a selective competency,
closely akin to emotion. As much as infantile sexuality is entirely
disconnected from the function of reproduction, so masculinity and
femininity are expressed in many ways besides the generative organs.
Female activity is that which gives form to the formless; it is
that which develops, grows and multiplies. In order to do so, there
must be the passive attitude of receiving and assimilating, and also
the art of expressing. Male activity on the other hand is that which
initiates, directs and intensifies. It is the active attitude which gives
strength to growth, guidance to sensation and reason to action. But
long before reason comes on to the scene of evolution, there is action
and passion even in the tiniest molecule, a giving and taking,
with the sole aim of survival, to establish an equilibrium between
the positive and the negative, not only in a magnetic field, but primarily
between becoming and cessation. It is the natural struggle
for endurance, continuance and survival, which culminates in the
search for a permanent soul which is neither male nor female.
The physical sense-organs are also listed as material qualities
through which contact is established (saḷāyatana-paccayā phasso).
And although they may not be found in inorganic matter in the same
form as they are found in the animal kingdom, still there is no doubt
about the existence of a reaction which is not altogether mechanical,
e.g., the stretching of tendrils in a creeping plant towards another
object for support before contact is made; or the refusal to react
in the normal way of closing up in self-defence of the mimosa, also
called “touch-me-not”, in a down-pour of rain; or the warping of