Heated discussion at my church's Men's Group about the "traditional role of men" in society

[usonian]

8. Western culture is male-dominated and focuses on blame rather than accountability and responsibility.

And women are the scapegoat.

In the Lotus Sutra, and I paraphrase (I am substituting modern cosmological terms for old ones)

"Everyone, men and women alike, possesses the ‘infinite possibilities that are inherent in their (human) nature.’ It is a jewel that exists in the lives of all living beings. This is the meaning of mutual containment (1) and the holographic principle (2); this is the Lotus Sutra’s fundamental revelation.” (explanations of those are for another time)

Men and women are of equal spiritual nature. Just as night and day are manifestations of the physical laws that explain planetary rotation and light propagation, Just as heat and cold are manifestations of laws of thermodynamics, men and women are manifestations of the life of the universe, in which everything is different (sometimes extremely so) but in which the same physical laws guide change, that is, equal.

A universe (or population) of identical beings is so immensely boring that the laws of Quantum mechanics just won't allow it. It immediately differentiates.

Our differences: physical, mental, experiential, and emotional, provide meaning to the universe. We are its eyes and arms and so on. The analogy is that people are God's eyes and arms in this world, enriching it by cherishing it and being a blessing to others.

You many have heard that "Children are the face of God" That can't be denied, and people who tolerate and commit the abuse of children are damned. I also believe that Mozart's music is a gift of the divine and is played in heaven, if you believe in one.

From the movie Amadeus:

Antonio Salieri: [reflecting upon a Mozart score] On the page it looked nothing. The beginning simple, almost comic. Just a pulse. Bassoons and basset horns, like a rusty squeezebox. And then suddenly, high above it, an oboe. A single note, hanging there, unwavering. Until a clarinet took over and sweetened it into a phrase of such delight! This was no composition by a performing monkey! This was a music I'd never heard. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing, it had me trembling. It seemed to me that I was hearing the voice of God.

Anyway, I live a life where my manhood is a source of help to others (I enlisted in the Coast Guard), as a trusting and loving father, finder (and returner) of lost items, "teacher" of all I have learned in my work and spiritual life, witness to the beauty of the universe in my photography, lover of music, never blaming others when it's my own damn fault.

Nobody wrote a script or even a sketch on a napkin for my life.

My principles are in the great Lotus Sutra, liberator of beings from greed, discrimination, aversion and servitude (those societal "expectations" in the form of "fairy stories" that only benefit the rich and abusive.)

My door is open.

(1) the mutual possession of the Ten Worlds

(2) three thousand realms in a single moment of life.