Nothing is permanent, so everything is precious. Here’s a selection of some happenings—fleeting or otherwise—in the Buddhist world this week.

Myanmar’s Military Releases Vitriolic, Anti-Muslim Monk Ashin Wirathu 

Myanmar’s military junta has released the Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu, notorious for his nationalist and anti-Muslim tirades. The military government released a statement on Monday that all charges against Wirathu had been dropped, without providing reasons for his sudden release. In 2019, Wirathu was charged for sedition after he gave a series of speeches criticizing then-leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the civilian government. Wirathu thwarted authorities for months before eventually surrendering in November of last year, and the monk has been held in prison awaiting trial since his arrest, according to the BBC. The military’s statement added that Wirathu was currently receiving treatment at a military hospital, though his medical condition is unknown. 

Bhutanese Monks Join Push to Promote Sexual Education

In Bhutan, senior Buddhist monks are working to increase awareness of sexual health and rights. In addition to the standard religious services and ritual dances that occur during annual religious festivals known as Tshechu, which are held at monasteries across the country, monks are also using the occasions to teach people about reproductive rights.

Monks aren’t the sole leaders of this movement, however. For decades, Her Majesty Queen Mother Sangay Choden Wangchuk has been advocating for increased awareness of topics like reproductive health and gender-based violence among the Bhutanese population. Her work as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) includes organizing workshops and training classes on reproductive health and rights, which more and more male monastics are attending. “There has been a change in the mindset of monks, who now freely discuss and advocate on issues of sexual and gender-based violence, which in the past were perceived as a private matter,” said Lopen Sherab Dorji, one of the first monks in Bhutan to participate in a life skills education training conducted by UNFPA.

Nonprofit Home Instead Donates $100 to Senior Living Community for Every Vaccine Administered at Pasadena Buddhist Temple 

On Thursday, the Pasadena Public Health Department hosted a COVID-19 vaccine clinic at the Pasadena Buddhist Temple, reports Pasadena Weekly. For every shot given, senior care nonprofit Home Instead donated $100, up to $10,000, to senior living community Pasadena Village, which supports seniors who live independently at home. Donations to Pasadena Village will help lower membership costs in the community that sets up support networks among members. This is just one of many vaccine clinics that the temple has hosted. “We’re really happy that we can be one of the sites that they use,” Kathy Kumagai, Pasadena Buddhist Temple board president, said of the partnership they’ve formed with the Pasadena Public Health Department.

Twenty Years Later, Buddhists Reflect on September 11

Twenty years ago today the attacks of September 11 stunned the world. In the first issue of Tricycle magazine that followed the attacks, leading Buddhist teachers shared practices and perspectives for the unprecedented moment in time. Twenty years later, the same teachers reflect on what their words mean today. Read more here. For more reflections on 9/11, read a blog post written by a practitioner while on retreat with Bhante G just eight days after the attacks; and a reflection by Sharon Salzberg one year later.

Sakyadhita to Honor the Life of Venerable Bhikkhuni Kusama in Memorial Service 

The Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women will hold a memorial service to celebrate the life of and pay tribute to Venerable Bhikkhuni Kusuma, a pioneering female monastic who passed away on August 28. The service will be held over Zoom on September 11 at 10 p.m. EDT and will include chanting in Pali, a dedication of merit in Korean, and a sharing of remembrances. Sakyadhita’s vice-president Dr. Eun-su Cho will also share a recently recovered video of Bhikkhuni Kusuma leading the historic ordination of the first Sri Lankan nuns to become fully ordained in modern times. Interested participants can join through this Zoom link. 

The post Myanmar’s Military Releases Vitriolic Monk Ashin Wirathu appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

The ordination debate is not new, and it’s not going away. While some believe that efforts to reinstate full bhikkhuni ordination for women monastics into the Theravada tradition represents a departure from the vinaya—a monastic code of conduct attributed to the Buddha—others argue that its return marks the actualization in the present day of the fourfold assembly, the four-part sangha of ordained men, ordained women, lay women, and lay men.

Some monastics are now trying to realize this assembly in their own backyard. Ven. Canda is an ordained bhikkhuni who has practiced in the vipassana tradition as taught by S.N. Goenka and in the Thai Forest tradition with Ajahn Brahmavamso Mahathera, better known as Ajahn Brahm. After studying in Burma for several years with Sayadaw U Pannyajota, Ven. Canda joined Dhammasara monastery in Perth, Australia, undergoing full bhikkhuni ordination in April 2014, with Theravada nun Ayya Santini as preceptor. She’s also head of the Anukampa Bhikkhuni Project, an organization working to establish a monastery for bhikkhunis in the UK.

Ven. Canda has been a nun for over ten years, but it wasn’t until she left her monastery in Burma that she realized how important full ordination is for the well being of women monastics. She recently spoke with Tricycle about the questions and biases that continue to surround ordination and how to work toward equality without burning out. 

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Why is it so important for bhikkhunis to have their own space to live and practice? I actually think the most important thing is the ordination in itself, even over and above having space. Until women are given equity in terms of their ordination platform, they won’t receive the same support as monks. Right now, many nuns don’t have the independence to live separately from monks because they depend on monks to provide food and the environment for practice. 

Only bhikkhunis have the ability to ordain other nuns, so if you’re not fully ordained, you don’t have a lot of autonomy in developing or building a community. It’s also very important for laypeople to see Buddhism give equality to women. People want to feel proud of their religion, rather than see it as so far behind the times. The Buddha, by ordaining bhikkhunis, was far ahead of his times in this regard!

How is full ordination different from being semi-ordained, which is the case for most nuns in historically Buddhist places like Sri Lanka and Thailand? Full ordination makes someone a recognized member of the monastic sangha. On a practical level, fully ordained nuns have more disciplinary rules, which are very helpful in establishing strong mindfulness and deepening meditation practice. As I said, with ordination also comes more autonomy to create our own sanghas and make decisions. But it takes time to establish this kind of equity and to educate the public about the issues we face. At the moment [in Theravada communities], there is a strong cultural bias toward supporting monks, rather than nuns. Being told, as a woman, that you have a kind of second-class ordination has psychological effects. It’s like being told you’re not quite as good, that you’ve got to prove yourself more, or try harder. 

When I first became a nun, however, I didn’t realize the importance of ordination. When I started living and studying in Burma with my teacher Sayadaw U Pannyajota, he basically told me that there was no bhikkhuni ordination available, but that I would be living as a nun. For me, that was enough––it was an ordination from the heart, a huge renunciation that for years I had prepared for. I didn’t see any need for technicalities or fine print about the number of precepts. None of it would have made a huge impact on my actual practice life then, anyway, because the right conditions were in place. It was only later, when I got very sick and had to leave the monastery, that I realized how important full ordination is. 

As a monastic, you’re very dependent on your base monastery. If you stay there you’ll be supported, but once you move away, sources of support and places to stay are few and far between. And as a nun, you’re not recognized by laypeople as worthy of support in the same way that monks are––as the optimal “fields of merit”––so things are even more difficult. 

But even with full ordination, nuns are subject to extra rules that the monks don’t face. How do we work with these biases that seem to be built into the tradition itself? It’s a matter of understanding where the rules come from—why they were formed and how to apply them in a practical and compassionate way. Pali scholars can help tell us which rules were most likely laid down by the Buddha, which were introduced later, and which have been, perhaps, exaggerated in order to restrict women’s ordination further. 

I do not suggest that the rules should be altered in any way, and I don’t consider [bhikkhuni ordination] a changing of the rules according to our time. The way I’m observing the vinaya does not have anything to do with me being a modern woman, as some might allege. The vinaya always has been—and must be—a living, adaptive system; the point is that we’re trying to understand this ethical rulebook in a skillful, compassionate way. In fact, the vinaya began as a series of responses that the Buddha said when certain quandaries happened in the sangha. It’s not a system of law, it’s more like the Buddha was asking us to think about the consequences of our actions and gently nudging the monks and nuns in the right direction. It’s our job to use our wisdom to try to understand what he meant, and how to apply these rules in any given situation. 

What is your response to people who say that the current system of full Theravada bhikkhuni ordination—which is a result of collaboration with Mahayana nuns—is inauthentic? That’s an old argument at this stage. I think that if you want to find fault with bhikkhuni ordination, you can—and you will—find fault with it. There are only very artificial differences between the Mahayana and Theravada vinaya, so in my opinion, bhikkhuni ordination is authentic. 

How and why did you decide to found the Anukampa Bhikkhuni Project? In October 2015, Ajahn Brahm asked me to take steps toward establishing a monastery in the UK to increase equality in practice and ordination opportunities for women, and thus the Anukampa Bhikkhuni Project was born.

The Buddha said [in the Digha Nikaya] that he wouldn’t pass on until the fourfold assembly of bhikkhus, bhikkhunis, laywomen, and laymen was fully established. A goal for the Anukampa Bhikkhuni project is to realize this assembly.

I’d already been a nun for about ten years. I realized there was a scarcity of actual conducive conditions for women to ordain into, and very few opportunities for us to take full ordination. It was really a matter of figuring things out step by step on the ground. So it was very grassroots.

I’m English; I was born and brought up here, but left when I was 18. Until I came back, I lived most of my life in Asia and Australia. Coming back was almost like visiting a new country—I also found myself getting to know my own country from the perspective of a nun. I didn’t really know anybody here in the UK who could offer a place to stay. That support network formed over time. 

What advice do you have for people who are working against injustice who want to practice acceptance and also work toward amending the problems they see? We need to learn to have a wholesome relationship to all of our experiences, whether we are unequivocally averse to them or not. Ajahn Brahm talks about “kindfulness,” which I think goes straight to the heart of the Buddha’s teachings. We need to combine our awareness of what is with kindness and right intention. This kind of attitude should be at the forefront of our minds and inform our relationships to any experience that we have. 

In terms of activism, if we’re coming from a place of frustration and despair, we are less effective and more prone to burnout. I see meditation as a way to learn how to handle our emotions in a skillful way. When we work from a place of awareness and kindness, we’re able to better understand where to put our energy, when to take breaks, and how to act wisely when confronted with a trying situation. 

♦

Further reading: To learn more about the challenges that women monastics face in the Buddhist world today, read this interview with nuns Ayya Anandabodhi and Ayya Santacitta and our guide to bhikkhuni ordination. 

The post It’s 2020. What’s Happening with Bhikkhuni Ordination?  appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Nothing is permanent, everything is precious. Here’s a selection of some happenings—fleeting and otherwise—in the Buddhist world this week. 

Happy 93rd Birthday, Thich Nhat Hanh! 

Thich Nhat Hanh celebrated his birthday on October 11, marking 93 years since the revered Buddhist teacher has (mindfully) walked on this earth. “Thay,” as he is affectionately known to his followers, spent the day at Tu Hieu Temple in Hue, Vietnam, where he first began monastic life at age sixteen. According to a statement by Plum Village, Thich Nhat Hanh’s international sangha network, monks and nuns came from across Vietnam to honor their teacher, and installed an exhibition of his books in the temple’s meditation hall. While Thay’s health remains fairly stable, the bestselling author of Being Peace lost the ability to speak after suffering a stroke in 2014, and is now in a wheelchair. Plum Village also indicated that it considers partaking in the current wave of climate activism as an important part of maintaining Thich Nhat Hanh’s legacy of engaged Buddhism. “Knowing that we are Thay’s continuation, we are coming together as a Sangha to support worldwide efforts to incite change and protect the Earth,” the statement reads. “The Earth-Holders network of sanghas [a Plum Village initiative for climate action] has put out a call to support the student climate strikes. . . .In August, we had our biggest ever Wake Up Earth retreat, with over 500 young people. . .from all around the world, including a delegation from Palestine and 10 young members of Extinction Rebellion who were sponsored to come and join the retreat.” Tricycle extends its sincerest birthday wishes to Thay. 

Extradition Treaty Between China and Nepal Shelved 

A proposed extradition treaty between China and Nepal has been shelved, according to reporting by Tibetan news site Phayul.com. The treaty, which would have been signed during a recent visit to Nepal by Chinese president Xi Jinping, allows Beijing and Kathmandu to hand over suspected criminals to the jurisdiction of their respective governments, putting some 20,000 exiled Tibetans who live in Nepal at increased risk for arrest. Nepalese media reported that the treaty was dropped due to “local opposition” and fears of infringing upon the sovereignty of Nepal. While this particular pact was left unsigned, Xi left the Himalayan nation on Sunday having endorsed “18 memorandums of understanding” and “two letters of intent for developmental and infrastructure deals,” which include a trans-Himalayan railway and tunneling projects. In recent years, Nepal has increasingly aligned itself with the policies of its northern neighbor. Xi’s two-day visit saw the arrest of 22 people, including 11 pro-Tibet activists and 11 Nepalese human rights activists. Over 80 Tibetans were also “blacklisted”: a source told Phayul that Tibetans who are associated with pro-Tibet demonstrations and celebrations for His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama’s birthday were either detained or kept under supervision by Nepalese special forces during Xi’s visit.

Museum in Afghanistan Restores Ancient Buddhist Artifacts

In 2001 the Taliban destroyed a number of 3rd-century Buddhist artifacts, including two giant buddha states in the region of Bamyan, and smaller objects excavated from monasteries, in an attempt to erase the vestiges of a pre-Islamic past in Afghanistan. Today, with the help of the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute, conservators at the National Museum of Afghanistan are restoring the artifacts that the militant Islamic group damaged 18 years ago, objects which testify to the region’s potent historical connections to Buddhism. “[This restoration work is] very important because it is actually restoration of our heritage, our identity, our past,” said Mohammad Fahim Rahimi, director of the museum told Reuters. “Buddhism was practiced here for more than 1,000 years. That’s a very large part of our history.” While efforts to repair the objects began after the Taliban government fell in 2001, the more recent US-backed restoration project aims to reassemble thousands of broken pieces into statues within the next three years. Photos show dozens of chipped Gandhara-style buddha faces, ears, noses, and sections of Shakyamuni’s trademark curly hair. Conservator Sherazuddin Saif recalls working for the museum under the Taliban before the US invasion. “They [the Taliban] wanted us to tell them the number of antiquities and we ignored their request, but some days later they came and started breaking the antiquities,” he said. US peace talks with the Taliban about withdrawing US troops came to a standstill last month, but the idea of including the Taliban in power-sharing deals in the region worries museum director Rahimi, who is exploring options for moving the artifacts to another location if it appears they are threatened again. But a spokesman for the Taliban, Suhail Shaheen, told Reuters that the group has no plans to harm any more Buddhist objects, stating, “All antique artifacts will be preserved in their place. They should be preserved for the history and culture education of the upcoming generations.”

Dhammananda Bhikkhuni Named One of BBC’s Influential Women

This week the BBC revealed its 2019 list of “inspiring and influential women” from around the globe, highlighting the contributions of female activists, politicians, artists, and athletes. Dhammananda Bhikkhuni, the first woman to receive full monastic ordination as a bhikkhuni in the Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka, was featured for her role as “Thailand’s first female monk,” and her position as abbess of Songdhammakalyani monastery, the only monastery for fully ordained nuns in Thailand. Although full ordination for female monastics died out in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Laos, and Burma between the 11th and 13th centuries, efforts by both Western and Asian nuns in the last 30 years have begun to reinstate the bhikkhuni order in Theravada Buddhist countries by soliciting the help of fully ordained nuns in Mahayana countries like Taiwan and Korea. 

The post Buddha Buzz Weekly: Thich Nhat Hanh Turns 93 appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

6 a.m. Every day starts with meditation. Even better is meditating with chirping birds in a garden at Somaiya Vidyavihar, an educational institution and campus.

8 a.m. After a South Indian breakfast of idli [rice cakes] with sambal [chili sauce], I’m off to visit local Buddhist monasteries and pilgrimage sites.

8:30 a.m. The first stop is Chaityabhumi Stupa, a memorial to B. R. Ambedkar, who drafted the constitution for an independent India. In 1956, he led nearly half a million people from low-caste and outcaste communities to become Buddhist.

11 a.m. I visit a temple founded by Ambedkar Buddhists in the Ramabai Nagar District and meet with members of the local community. Ambedkar Buddhists still face serious discrimination, so this is an opportunity to encourage them and express international solidarity on social justice issues.

2 p.m. Navigating the chaos of Mumbai’s streets and waterways can get a bit overwhelming, so it’s relaxing to take an occasional mental health break.

4 p.m. After lunch, I meet students and faculty at the K. J. Somaiya Centre for Buddhist Studies at the University of Mumbai to explore the role of gender studies in Buddhism. We often hear people say, “Men and women are equal in Buddhism.” So why do gender inequalities persist in Buddhist societies and institutions?

♦

See the previous installment of “A Day in the Dharma”: A Day in the Dharma with Jules Shuzen Harris, abbot of Soji Zen Center

The post A Day in the Dharma: Ven. Karma Lekshe Tsomo, cofounder of Sakyadhita appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Title: Bhikkhuni – Buddhism, Sri Lanka, Revolution

The Buddha established an order of fully ordained nuns during his lifetime, but it died out across southern Asia a millennia ago, relegating Buddhist nuns in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand to second-class status. Three determined women take on the patriarchy by reviving this abandoned Buddhist tradition and becoming the first fully-ordained Theravada Buddhist nuns in their nations’ modern histories in this documentary. Follow Bhikkhuni Kusuma from Sri Lanka, Bhikkhuni Dhammananda from Thailand, and Bhikkhuni Gautami from Bangladesh as they challenge opposition from monks and governments in this contemporary documentary. To learn more about the film visit https://bhikkhuni-film.com.

This film will be available to stream until midnight on Saturday, March 30.

The post The Nuns’ Revolution: Restoration of Bhikkhuni Ordination appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Learn more about bhikkhuni ordination

The post Fun Fact Friday appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Abandoning houses, going forth,
Giving up son, livestock, and all that is dear,
Leaving behind desire, anger, and ignorance,
Discarding them all,
Having pulled out craving down to the root,
I have become cool, I am free.

—Verses of the nun Sangha (Therigatha 18); trans. K. Norman

There are these fools who doubt
That women too can grasp the truth;
Gotami, show your spiritual power
That they might give up their false views.

—The Buddha’s instructions to Mahapajapati (Gotami Theri Apadana 79) trans. Ayya Tathaaloka Bhikkhuni

In the inaugural issue of Tricycle, the editors ran an excerpt from Old Path, White Clouds, a colloquial retelling of the Buddha’s life by Thich Nhat Hanh, about the genesis of the bhikkhuni, or nun, lineage. While the particulars vary from version to version, the story centers on Mahapajapati, the Buddha’s aunt and surrogate mother—and an ardent disciple—who asks the Buddha to admit her to the monastic sangha, but he turns her away.

Dead set on ordaining, she and her following of 500 women cut off their hair, don saffron robes, and walk 150 miles to Vesali, where the Buddha is teaching. Again, she is refused. Moved by the women’s plight, Ananda, the Buddha’s principal attendant, intercedes on Mahapajapati’s behalf. “Is it that women cannot attain the fruits of awakening?” he asks. No, says the Buddha, women are equal to men in their capacity for awakening—that is not the problem (though he doesn’t articulate what is). Ultimately, he agrees to ordain Mahapajapati and her retinue. In very short order, every single one of them becomes enlightened.

But there’s a catch to the story—or rather, a detail that has become a catch in the intervening 2,500 years: according to the Vinaya, the monastic law code, as a precondition for ordination the Buddha imposed on Mahapajapati, and all subsequent nuns, a set of eight restrictive rules, known as the garudhammas, or “rules of respect.”

These rules unequivocally positioned women as subordinate to men in the monastic hierarchy. Rule 1, for instance, states that a nun, no matter how senior, must always bow to a monk, no matter how junior—even to one ordained “but that day.” In that first issue, the editors interpreted the rules, as Thich Nhat Hanh described them, as the Buddha’s temporary strategy to keep the brahmins from rising against him. But the garudhammas have proved quite durable, and in the quarter century since Tricycle first weighed in on them, bhikkhuni ordination and the status of female renunciates have become two of the most important and talked- about issues confronting contemporary Buddhists.

Scholars, both lay and monastic, generally agree that if the historical Buddha did insist on the garudhammas (that they were not, as some Vinaya experts have argued, a much later addition to the canon), he imposed them to keep peace with the society around him, where women were mainly chattel and the status quo would have been intolerably threatened by their departure for the spiritual life. The rules defined a second-class status for nuns that mirrored their position in the society at large, and by placating the laity, the theory goes, they made women’s ordination possible.

Related: Making the Sangha Whole Again 

But in what has become a confounding irony, the rules seemed to make it nearly impossible to revive a lineage that has since largely died out. This perception zeroed in on the sixth rule, which requires the presence of elder bhikkhus and bhikkhunis to officiate at a nun’s ordination:  “When, as a probationer, she has trained . . . for two years, she should seek higher ordination from both orders.” A nun, in other words, should not receive full ordination unless a retinue of both monks and nuns is available to grant her permission and officiate.

The garudhammas are still very much with us: they first appear, along with the nuns’ origin story, in the tenth chapter of a book of the Vinaya called the Cullavagga. They are subsumed under the 311 rules of monastic discipline for nuns (84 more than the 227 for monks), and they have outlasted the bhikkhuni lineage in most Buddhist places by a millennium at least. Invasions, wars, and famine, combined with the endemic subjugation of women in nearly every kingdom where Buddhist monasticism had thrived, wiped out women’s orders—around the 8th century CE in India, around the 11th in Sri Lanka, and likely in the 13th century in Burma.

In the intervening centuries, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Burma have not allowed full ordination for women, nor do Tibetan schools of Buddhism. China, however, is another story. Bhikkhuni orders there survived, and Mahayana lineages in the places where Chinese Buddhism spread, like Taiwan, Korea and Vietnam, have continued into the present.

“The Buddha gave full training to those who were hell-bent on Nirvana. Why shouldn’t we receive it?”

Indeed, in the 25 years since Thich Nhat Hanh’s story appeared, Buddhist women’s monasticism has undergone a sea change. Movements to resuscitate the bhikkhuni lineages have swelled and gained more traction than they’ve probably had, on an international scale at least, for centuries. Hundreds of women in Theravada and Tibetan traditions have taken full bhikkhuni ordination in Taiwan, with Chinese officiants and preceptors. In the late 1990s, a group of Sri Lankan women novices were ordained in India, with Chogye monks from Korea and Taiwanese nuns presiding. Since then, hundreds of nuns have ordained in Sri Lanka, arguably reviving the bhikkhuni order on the island. Even in Thailand, a country whose ecclesiastic leadership is resolutely opposed to nuns’ ordination (and where the female order may never have existed), women have begun receiving higher bhikkhuni vows.

From Asia, like the Buddha’s teachings millennia ago, the ordinations moved westward; by now they have become too numerous and varied to list. This is largely thanks to pioneering nuns and monastic scholars, such as Bhikkhu Analayo, Bhikkhu Bodhi, and Ayya Tathaaloka, an American nun in the Theravada tradition, who have parsed and reparsed the scriptures to get at the Buddha’s intention concerning nuns’ ordination. Bhikkhu Analayo in particular has laid out textual evidence that the Buddha left open the possibility for monks alone to ordain nuns in the absence of other nuns. In 2009, four women became full bhikkhunis in Australia in a Theravada “dual sangha” ordination (where both monks and nuns officiated). The following year, the United States had its first-ever dual sangha ordination of four nuns in northern California.

As women have ordained, they have also established nunneries—in the United States there are now roughly a dozen small hermitages, some with just one or two nuns in residence. Support and communications networks for bhikkhunis have evolved, too, an essential development given monastics’ dependence on lay support for their survival. Sakyadhita (the International Association of Buddhist Women), cofounded by the American nun and scholar Karma Lekshe Tsomo in 1987, has helped organize nuns’ ordinations over the past 25 years and in 2015 drew more than 1,000 nuns and laywomen to its biennial conference. The Alliance for Bhikkhunis, and now the Alliance for Non Himalayan Nuns, offer resources and guidance for aspirants and nuns on a scale that would have been unimaginable a couple of decades ago.

In the Tibetan monastic world, where women have historically been barred from full ordination and advanced religious study, nunneries and nuns’ education have grown exponentially. The Dalai Lama has said he believes women, in theory, are entitled to higher ordination; last year, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, the young 17th Karmapa, in defiance of tradition, announced that he intended to help restore the bhikkhuni sangha. “No matter how others see it, I feel this is something necessary,” he said. “As the Buddha said, the fourfold community [monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen] are the four pillars of the Buddhist teachings.” Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, a veteran nun and currently president of Sakyadhita, has worked for decades on behalf of Tibetan nuns and to reinstate the lost togdenma (yogini) lineage. In 2000, she founded Dongyu Gatsal Ling, a nunnery where novices can both practice in seclusion and study with senior monks from nearby monasteries. In 2003, Thubten Chodron, an American who received full ordination in Taiwan in 1986, founded Sravasti Abbey in Washington State to train both male and female monastics according to Tibetan and Chinese vinayas. And the list goes on.

From conservative perspectives, like those prevailing in Thailand and among many Tibetan lineages, none of the contemporary bhikkhuni ordinations are valid. For Theravadins, rule 6 of the garudhammas has created a sort of chicken-and-egg dilemma, demanding that nuns exist in order for new nuns to be made. The legalist view holds that a woman from one Buddhist tradition ordained by monks or nuns in another invalidates the very notion of lineage. And by extension, “inauthentic” nuns cannot legitimately go on to ordain other women in their own traditions. In some places, women’s ordination is even considered a crime. In Burma (Myanmar), where female ordination is illegal, a handful of nuns have been jailed for ordaining in Sri Lanka; the Australian monk Ajahn Brahmavaso, who officiated at the nuns’ ordinations in Australia and northern California, was kicked out of the Thai Forest Sangha for violating Thailand’s 1928 “Sangha Act,” which forbids bhikkhuni ordination.

Related: The Story of One Burmese Nun 

Even monks and laypeople who cleave to the notion that bhikkhuni ordination cannot and should not be revived agree that the future of the dharma hinges on the future health of monasticism. But without nuns, monasticism isn’t whole. The Buddha wanted a fourfold sangha. According to the canon, he told the demon-tempter Mara that he would not leave the world until all four were well established. Indeed, functioning monastic systems are imperative so that seekers, female and male, ready to dedicate their lives to awakening, have access to the full training and the best possible conditions for developing concentration and insight, unlatched from societal obligations and the sticky pull of worldly attachments. Laypeople need the possibility of excellent role models—well-versed teachers who have renounced the world in exchange for the dharma; experienced guides on the path to awakening for whom no conflicts of interest exist.

The Buddha, we know, was a radical. He upended the caste system at the very heart of the culture around him: rich or poor, educated or illiterate, upstanding citizen or seasoned delinquent—any sincere aspirant was eligible to enter the monastic sangha. Past karma, however onerous, can ultimately give way to one’s potential for wisdom, if practice is diligent and wholehearted—even if it takes lifetimes. Women are equal to men in their ability to awaken, he said. The mind is the mind. The radicalism of the Buddha’s approach permeates the customs of his enlightened disciples—the habits of mind and comportment that we practitioners are urged to emulate in order to live skillfully and to cultivate wisdom. It stands to reason that sexism and the oppression of women, in all of their multifarious, insidious guises, fly in the face of those customs.

The onus for reviving the bhikkhuni order, however, rests not only on the shoulders of monks who work the gears of the Southeast Asian and Tibetan monastic hierarchies. They are a key, just as are learned monks who can provide instruction and counsel to nuns and their emerging monasteries, as was done during the Buddha’s lifetime. But just like the laity surrounding the Buddha, whose opinions and needs played a large role in shaping the monastic rules, so we, as donors and supporters, have the power and responsibility to support the kinds of teachers we say we want. This is a quid pro quo writ large.

We may lack the ingrained, centuries-old cultural habit of supporting monastics, but nevertheless we need to put our money, and our hearts, where our mouths are. Plenty of us have jumped on the bhikkhuni ordination bandwagon, but the attentive generosity required to support a monastic community—support in perpetuity—is not yet keeping pace with our feminist, and humanist, enthusiasm.

Ayya Medhanandi, a Theravada nun who founded Sati Saraniya in Perth, Ontario, described the moment of her full ordination, in Taiwan, like this: “It was a lightning strike; I had this almost fetal recognition—as if an umbilical cord connected me directly to Mahapajapati. I was finally completely part of the Buddha’s monastic lineage.” As is true for so many women who want to ordain, her trajectory to full nunhood was no walk in the park: she practiced for decades as a renunciate in Burmese and Thai Forest monasteries, keeping the ten precepts, subsisting on alms food (and sometimes going hungry) until she ultimately answered a relentless inner calling.

After clearing a score of logistical hurdles, she took vows in an unfamiliar language and system, at the age of 58. But the lightning strike has continued to reverberate. “Since becoming a bhikkhuni, not only is the training ratcheting up my levels of renunciation, it’s also forcing me to be stronger than I ever imagined I could be,” says Ayya Medhanandi. “The Buddha gave the full training to those who were hell-bent on nirvana. Why shouldn’t we receive it?”

In the hagiographies of early Buddhist nuns, spiritual power is conveyed in glorious metaphors: enlightened women are great trees bearing heartwood, she-elephants that have burst their bonds, roaring lionesses who have sprung their cages. In fact, no textual record from an early civilization comes close to naming, and venerating, as many female spiritual masters as that of early Indian Buddhism—strong proof that women renunciates were identifiable and highly regarded. Thanks to that record, we can look to those long-ago sages, like Mahapajapati, for inspiration, to goad us toward that “fetal sense” of connection to the path. We can do what they did; we, too, can purify our minds and abandon the defilements that keep us shackled to samsara. But how much more inspired we could be with visible, contemporary women masters to emulate! The Buddha wanted us to have that, too. 

The post Bhikkhuni Ordination: Buddhism’s Glass Ceiling appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Saccavadi grew up the youngest of six siblings in a rural area of Shan state in northeast Burma. She ordained at the age of 21, following the footsteps of her sister, who had ordained just a year before. When she was young, Saccavadi was a tomboy, preferring to hike and fish rather than spend time on schoolwork, she says. But after she ordained, her dedication to her spiritual studies saw her excel. She regularly got top marks in state-sponsored Buddhist exams and was regarded as one of the most promising monastics of her generation. In late 1998, when Saccavadi had been a thilashin [novice nun] for 16 years, she made the decision to study for a further degree in Buddhist Literature at a university in Sri Lanka, long a cradle of Theravada Buddhism. While in Sri Lanka, she was surprised to find nuns wearing the same saffron-colored robes as fully ordained monks.

In Sri Lanka an order of fully ordained nuns, known as bhikkhuni in the Theravada tradition, existed for more than 1,000 years, until in the 11th century invaders from southern; India established the caste laws of Hinduism, which relegated women to subordinate roles. As Buddhism went into decline, the island’s order of monks dwindled. It was later revived, but the bhikkhuni order was not restored until the 1990s, when the full ordination of a small number of Sinhalese nuns took place as part of historic ceremonies held at Sarnath and Bodhgaya, in India. Since then, a vibrant bhikkhuni community has flourished in Sri Lanka. Though some conservative monks dispute this, there is evidence that Burma, too, had a flourishing order of bhikkhunis until around the 13th century, when it is thought to have died out. But in Burma resistance to reviving full female ordination is deeply entrenched, as Saccavadi was to discover.

Seeing the Sri Lankan bhikkhuni nuns inspired her to want to follow the same path. But when she sought the advice of Burmese monks living in Sri Lanka, she was told full ordination was not possible for women. The monks did not leave it there. They filed a complaint about her request with the council of senior monks appointed by the Burmese government, the State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee (SSMNC), in Yangon. Despite then receiving written objections from the SSMNC, Saccavadi, together with another Burmese thilashin named Gunasari, proceeded to ordain as a bhikkhuni. It was 2003, and they were the first female Burmese novices in modern times to receive higher ordination in Sri Lanka.

Two years later, when Saccavadi received news that her father was gravely ill, she returned to Yangon and events took a darker turn. After learning of her return to the country, the SSMNC opened a formal investigation into her bhikkhuni ordination. Shortly after her father died, Saccavadi was summoned by the SSMNC’s senior monks to explain herself. “They kept wanting to know what is my point [in taking full ordination],”Saccavadi says. In May 2005 she was ordered to appear before a council of senior monks at a religious court hearing held at Kaba Aye Pagoda in Yangon, a temple where monks traditionally have close links to the government. The charge she was called to answer was, in effect, one of “impersonating a monk.”

“It was a huge hall, a Buddhist courtroom, and it was full, maybe 400 people there,” Saccavadi recalls. “A row of senior monks seated up on a platform, me below, alone, in front of everybody. Staff from the department of religious affairs came to watch. There were old monks, some nuns and young monks too. I could see the old monks didn’t want any dispute. They want peace. They sat there very upset.

“I close my eyes and meditate. I think of the Buddha,” Saccavadi says, in a quieter voice, switching to speaking in the present tense, as if transported back to the courtroom.

“It is dead quiet. I am calm. I feel what I am doing is not just for me, but for all Burma,” she continues.

“Then I hear the monks clear their throats loudly, ‘Huhhumm!’ like that. Like I must show respect. Then they start to read their demands over a loudspeaker.”

The demands were, first, that Saccavadi bow three times to them. Second, that she remove her saffron bhikkhuni robes and replace them with the pink robes of a thilashin. Third, they demanded that she sign a document admitting she was foolish and wrong to have become fully ordained and, fourth, that she read this admission out loud.

“I was alone. My father had died. There was no one to help me answer their questions. The monks were saying how stupid I was. Everyone was scared. It all happened quickly,” says Saccavadi.

The account of what happened next differs depending on whom you speak to. But Saccavadi is quite clear in her recollection.

First, she says, she bowed to the monks three times, as they demanded. She was then presented with two sets of clothes. “I was forced to change,” she says. “They laid out the pink thilashin dress and also lay dress. I chose the lay dress.” Reverting to wearing a novice robe was simply too galling. According to Saccavadi, she stepped behind a privacy screen to change her clothes (later, rumors circulated that she had stripped down in front of the monks). She then signed a document given to her, admitting she had been wrong to take full ordination. But she could not bring herself to read it aloud and ask for forgiveness.

Instead, she says, she turned and addressed the laypeople present in the courtroom. “Please forgive me if I have abused your support. I have accepted your alms food not as a beggar but as a female monastic who has tried to follow the teachings of the Buddha.”

Again, the senior monks asked her to read her admission of guilt aloud. Again, she refused. Indignant at the affront, the monks promptly sentenced her to five years in prison.

“I was taken to a police car. Bam, bam, bam, very quick,” she says.

First Saccavadi was taken to a local jail close to the temple. Shortly afterward she was transferred to Burma’s infamous Insein prison, a place that more than lives up to its name. Insein is internationally renowned for its inhumane treatment of inmates, many of them political dissidents and prisoners of conscience. It was here that Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was twice imprisoned. Accounts of the mental and physical torture that detainees are regularly subjected to are repeatedly highlighted in human rights reports.

“When I first ordained in a forest nunnery in southern Burma and went on alms rounds, I used to see groups of prisoners tied together, working in chain gangs, picking up rocks by the side of the road. I used to look at their faces and think, ‘How fortunate that I’m a nun,’” Saccavadi says. “Then when I went to prison, I thought, ‘My God! Now I am one of them.’”

After Saccavadi was released from prison, she was forced to leave the country. She relocated to the United States from Sri Lanka in 2007. Now in her late forties, she lives in California with her husband, an American Buddhist. –The Editors

♦

From In Search of Buddha’s Daughters: A Modern Journey Down Ancient Roads, by Christine Toomey. © 2015 Christine Toomey. Reprinted with permission of The Experiment Press.

The post The Story of One Burmese Nun appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, an African-American woman refused to obey a bus driver’s order to give up her seat to a white passenger. This simple act of defiance became one of the most important symbols of the modern Civil Rights Movement in the United States.

Before she passed away in 2005, Rosa Parks became a Buddhist—at age 92. One can speculate that this female icon—and fierce opponent of discrimination—chose Buddhism because it lends itself to the advancement of social justice causes.

She was right.

Buddhism should advance the particular social justice issues described in United Nations Millennium Development Goal Number Three (MDG 3): Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. For Buddhism to grow in our modern world, we need to do more than teach meditation, preach inspiring sermons, and make the sutras available online. We are good at studying, publishing, and spreading the word of Buddhism. Where we have not been very successful is showcasing the compassion and selflessness of the dharma by our actions. We have written many more words in our books than what few kind words we have spoken to the poor, lonely, and desperate. We have built so many more temples than orphanages.

Patriarchy in Buddhism today

Theravada Buddhism’s current male leadership, in particular, needs to clearly demonstrate its commitment to MDG 3 through the acceptance of bhikkhuni ordination. Only then can the Theravada sangha use its considerable influence to make a fairer world—one where people are judged by their character, not by their gender.

Theravada Buddhist monks, generally speaking, are very conservative. Claiming to be the guardians of “original Buddhism,” they consider one of their most important duties the preservation of these precious early teachings. However, monks of all traditions in all countries—and Buddhist lay scholars as well—accept that there were fully ordained women, called bhikkhuni, in the lifetime of the Buddha. Moreover, in these early teachings, the Buddha clearly states that he seeks to give full ordination to women:

Ananda, once I was staying at Uruvela on the bank of the river Neranjara [present day Bodh Gaya] under the Goatherd’s Banyan tree, when I had just attained supreme enlightenment. And Mara the Evil One came to me, stood to one side, and said, ‘May the Blessed One now attain final Nibbana; may the Sugata [Buddha] now attain final Nibbana. Now is the time for the Blessed Lord’s final Nibbana.’ 

At this, I said to Mara: ‘Evil One, I will not take final Nibbana until I have bhikkhus, bhikkhunis, lay men, and lay women followers who are accomplished, trained, skilled, learned, knowers of the dhamma, trained in conformity with the dhamma, correctly trained and walking in the path of the dhamma, who will pass on what they have gained from their teacher, teach it, declare it, establish it, expound it, analyse it, make it clear, until they shall be able, by means of the dhamma, to refute false teachings that have arisen and teach the dhamma of wondrous effect.

Theravada Buddhism

Theravada Buddhists should have an advantage over other major world religions because their tradition explicitly gives equity to women. Christianity has no tradition of gender equality in its priesthood—nor does Islam, Judaism, or the various schools of Hinduism. Buddhism stood ahead of its time in granting such status to women from “when [the Buddha] had just attained supreme enlightenment” at Bodh Gaya.

Nevertheless, there remain two significant obstacles to the acceptance of bhikkhuni ordination in Theravada Buddhism: (1) Ignorance about who makes the decisions that govern the sangha, and (2) Ignorance of the Vinaya, the rules established by the Buddha that restrict what decisions may be made. 

As to that first point, for instance, many monks in Thailand argue that a 1928 ruling from the Sangharaja [head Buddhist monk] of Thailand, Phra Bancha Somdet Phra Sangharacha Jiao Gromluang Jinawarn Siriwad, banned the ordination of female monks: 

It is unallowable for any bhikkhu to give the going-forth [ordination] to women. Any woman who wishes to ordain as a samaneri [novice nun] in accordance with the Buddha’s allowances, has to be ordained by a fully ordained bhikkhuni. The Buddha laid down the rule that only a bhikkhuni over 12 vassas [an annual three-month retreat] is eligible to be a preceptor [ceremonial guide who delivers vows]. Since there are no more fully fledged bhikkhunis to pass on the lineage, there are thus no samaneris who have obtained a proper ordination from a fully fledged bhikkhuni.

The Status of Nuns in Thailand

Besides the antiquity of the ruling, one could also point out that the Sangharaja of Thailand, together with the Thai Council of Elders [senior monks], is only permitted to rule on matters directly concerning the monks and novices of the two main Thai Buddhist sects, Mahanikaya and Dhammayuttanikaya. They are not legally empowered to rule over the affairs of other monastic groups, such as Mahayana monks or nuns. The wait will never end for those well-meaning monks holding out hope that the Thai Council of Elders will sanction the legitimacy of Theravada bhikkhunis. The Thai Council of Elders, after all, is not legally entitled to rule on matters beyond its remit.

As for the Vinaya, the second obstacle that I listed, each monastic community is bound to act within its rules.

Renowned Theravada scholar monk Bhikkhu Analayo argues that the Thai Sangharaja’s 1928 ruling—and thus, the Vinaya in its current form—has no bearing because it directly contradicts the Buddha’s original teachings. In a recent publication, “The Revival of the Bhikkuni Order and the Decline of the Sasana,” Analayo argues persuasively that the Buddha gave authority for bhikkhunis to receive ordination in a dual ceremony—both in a sangha of bhikkhunis and then in a sangha of bhikkhus.

By restoring equity to women in the Theravada sangha through reinstating bhikkhuni ordination, we will address the inferior status of women in many Theravada countries, promote gender equity in education, and thereby make a strong statement in support of the third UN Millennium Development Goal: gender equality and the empowerment of women.

In a recent paper, scholars Emma Tomalin and Caroline Starkey explore the role that Buddhism in Thailand and Cambodia plays in maintaining gender disparity in education. Ultimately they ask, “What is the relationship between the reassertion of women’s traditional ordination rights and female empowerment through education?” Since, as they note, “several scholars, both Thai and Western, have implicated Buddhism as one explanatory factor for the historical inequality between genders, particularly in the poorest areas,” many advocates of bhikkhuni ordination see “a direct relationship between the low status of women in many Buddhist traditions and the inferior status of women within Buddhist societies.”

By fixing our own house first, we have the considerable opportunity and moral authority—through our books and sermons—to inspire our Buddhist followers to work toward gender equality in spheres other than religion. Such action would lead to a world with less violence, better health, and more prosperity.

The post Putting an End to Buddhist Patriarchy appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

In 1976, Venerable Karuna Dharma was the first woman to become a fully ordained member of the Buddhist monastic community in the U.S. She has continued to break new Buddhist ground by orchestrating three Grand Ordination ceremonies since 1994 for women of all Buddhist traditions. Close to fifty women have become fully ordained nuns, or bhikkhunis, in these ceremonies.

Ven. Karuna was born Joyce Adele Pettingill in 1940 to active Baptist parents in Beloit, Wisconsin. In 1969 she signed up for a class in Buddhism, where she met her Vietnamese Zen master, Venerable Dr. Thich Thien-An. She helped him found the International Buddhist Meditation Center (IBMC) in Los Angeles in 1970 and became the abbess there after his death in 1980. A recognized Buddhist scholar, Ven. Karuna is a past president of the American Buddhist Congress and current vice president of the Buddhist Sangha Council of Southern California and the College of Buddhist Studies.

In 1994 she suffered a serious stroke, but she regained speech and mobility that same year and managed to organize the first of three Grand Ordinations that included three major Buddhist schools: Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana. For each ordination she reached out to sramanerikas (novice nuns) who wanted to become bhikkhunis. Women came from all over the world to be ordained by her. This was a giant step on behalf of women in Buddhism, especially considering that in some Theravada countries, like Thailand, a nun can be arrested for wearing the robes of a bhikkhuni.

Ven. Karuna’s ordination work has been most significant for women in the Tibetan tradition who are denied full ordination in their own temples. While the Buddha ordained both men and women and the bhikkhuni lineage continued after him in Mahayana countries like Vietnam, China, and Korea, it died out in Theravada countries like Thailand and Sri Lanka, and never entered Tibet. Traditionally, ten bhikkhunis are required to ordain novice nuns. As of now—without ten bhikkhunis in any Tibetan temple—their teachers can bestow only the purple robes of a novice nun, and the students remain novices for the rest of their lives.

Related: Bhikkhuni Ordination: Buddhism’s Glass Ceiling

The First International Congress on Buddhist Women’s Role in the Sangha will be held in Germany, at the University of Hamburg, in July 2007, and will feature Ven. Karuna as a speaker. The symposium hopes to conclude the long ongoing debate about reestablishing the bhikkhuni order around the world. His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama will be participating in the conference and has publicly stated his support of the recognition of Buddhist nuns.

Ven. Karuna has been my teacher since 1991, and I took the vows of a Dharma Teacher in her order in 2004. This summer—after lunch at my apartment in Playa del Rey, California—we spoke about the legacy of the bhikkhuni order, the changing role of women in Buddhism, and the effects of those changes on the longstanding Buddhist patriarchy. Ven. Karuna has always had a very no-nonsense approach. In true Zen style she always says what she thinks, and this day was no exception.

—Mira Tweti

You were the first woman to be ordained in the U.S., but weren’t there other bhikkhunis here at the time? There were very few bhikkhunis at that time. In fact, there were no other bhikkhunis at my ordination. I was not only the very first American woman to be fully ordained in the States, but also the very first woman to become a bhikkhuni here. Before that time you had to go off to Taiwan or Hong Kong or some place like that to get ordination.

Did you see it as a momentous event for women in Buddhism? It didn’t seem particularly important to me at that time. I didn’t think of it as a big groundbreaking thing. I just knew that somehow I had to become a bhikkhuni. I can’t explain it. Just something inside me said I had to become ordained.

You have been very involved since then with organizing grand ordination ceremonies that include women. How did these events come to be? In 1994 I had some male students who were ready to become bhikkhus. Venerable Dr. Havanpola Ratanasara was in the college [of Buddhist Studies] office. I went down to see him and I said, “Bhante, I have some students and it’s time for them to become bhikkhus. Would you be willing to be our Upajjhaya?” Upajjhaya means the main ordaining master. And he said, “Karuna, I would be honored to be the Upajjhaya!” 

With some trepidation I said to him, “Bhante, there’s one little problem. My students think that since I’m their teacher, I should ordain them, but I know that I cannot ordain men.” He said, “Let me think about this.” After a few minutes he said, “My job as the Upajjhaya is to make sure that whoever leads the ordination is qualified to do it. And I want you to lead it.” I thought about it that night, and when I came down the next morning I said, “Suto, I’m very honored that you appointed me to be the ordaining master, but I don’t think I should do it alone. Let us share the job.” And he said, “That’s a wonderful idea.”

So we sat down to do the program for the ordination and we broke it in half. Instead of having three main ordaining masters, we had six: three men and three women. We had twenty more masters sitting up on the dais—ten men and ten women—and we also had another twenty or so who came along as witness masters.

You told me that Dr. Thien-An started the tradition of inviting all the different traditions to ordinations, and that mindset is why he named the center he founded the International Buddhist Meditation Center. Dr. Thien-An said, “You are an American, and this is going to be Buddhism in America. We should not limit the ordination to our particular school.” In fact, there weren’t very many Vietnamese around at that time anyway. He said, “I’m going to invite masters from all the different Buddhist traditions.” So he did, and they all came to the ordination ceremony. And I’ve carried on that same tradition because I think it is a very excellent way to do it. As Suto said, “We are not ordaining people into a particular Vinaya [set of rules and regulations for the communal life of monks and nuns]. We are not ordaining them into a particular school of Buddhism. We are ordaining them as monks and nuns, period.”  

Is that because it was Buddhism in America, where all traditions are represented, unlike Asian countries that each have a specific tradition? Not only that, but also because that is the way it was in the beginning with Shakyamuni Buddha. There was no such thing as denominations in Shakyamuni’s time.

How does it work exactly? Because even though there were many traditions represented on the dais, you’re my teacher and you come out of the Vietnamese lineage, and when people ask me, I say that is my lineage. When I ordain people they put on the robe of their own school. So if you are a Tibetan you put on the Tibetan robes, if you are Vietnamese you put on those robes, if you are Theravada you put on the Theravada robes. That is why our ordination ceremony looks very different from others’.

Before the ceremony in 2004, I sent out a package to each candidate with information and an agreement. In order for her to come to the ceremony she had to write to her teacher and have her teacher sign the agreement that she was ready to be ordained and also that he would look out for her for at least five years afterward. Because for the first five years you are not free to just go and do whatever you want. According to the Vinaya, you have to be under the tutelage of your master. The masters all signed that agreement. We kept it fairly straightforward and strict that way.

After getting their agreement signed and traveling to L.A., all of the women had to stay at IBMC for at least two weeks ahead of time for the traditional ordination training. We had women who came in from Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain, Australia, and both coasts of Canada. A lot of women came and most, but not all, were Tibetans. There were a few Theravada women who became ordained. We ordained twenty women in all.

Why is it important to have bhikkhunis? The same reason it is important to have bhikkhus [male monastics]. The sangha [community of monks and nuns] protects the dharma, they carry on the traditions. If no one would fully ordain, who would do the teaching or carry on the traditions? You never ordain to get more enlightenment—you have to do the practice to become enlightened. A layperson can become enlightened as well as a monk.

In addition to the traditional bhikkhuni ordination, which requires 348 vows to be taken, you gave out Dharma Teacher ordination, requiring just 25 vows, to both male and female students. I know Dr. Thien-An started this revolutionary practice. Would you talk a little about it? It is revolutionary. Dr. Thien-An had lived in Japan for seven years, and he fell in love with Japanese culture. Almost all monks in Japan are married. They do not take the traditional vows of a bhikkhu. They take 25 special vows of Zen priests. That’s what you and your dharma brothers took in 2004 instead of the 250 for the bhikkhus and the 348 for the bhikkhunis. “Dharma Teacher” to me is equivalent to “bhikkhu” or “bhikkhuni.” They’re not laypeople, because they received the same training as the bhikkhus did.

Does it matter? Is there a loss to us in not taking 348 vows? It depends on what your goal is in being a monastic. If you want to be a true monastic, you should probably take the full 348. But if you want to be more like a missionary type, out there with the people, not living in a temple, it’s best that you take the 25.

Are the Dharma Teachers recognized in Buddhist circles worldwide? I have no idea if they are accepted worldwide. Some of my Sri Lankan friends say that we’ve added another level of ordination. But they accept when I tell them that I see Dharma Teachers as being on the same level as bhikkhus and bhikkhunis. That’s the way I look at it, and that’s the way Dr. Thien-An looked at it. I have no idea how everybody else looks at it.

Do you think Buddhist clergy in traditional Buddhist countries take American Buddhism seriously overall? I think they do. Many Asians when they first meet Americans have no idea of the Buddhism in America. They have no idea of the wonderful dharma work that’s being written in English. In some ways they think we don’t know Buddhism the way they know it, but when they begin to understand that we do know it the way they do, their attitudes change.

Tell me about the Buddhist conference you just attended. What’s the purpose of it? I went to the Sakyadhita International Conference on Buddhist Women in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Approximately a thousand people attended, including about three hundred bhikkhunis from around the world. The rest were Buddhist laywomen. The conference is held every two years. It includes anything that has to do with Buddhist women and supporting them, but, of course, one of the major things that comes up every time is the bhikkhuni order, because it does not exist in every country.

Weren’t you involved in establishing this conference? Yes, I went to the first in 1987, which was held in Bodh Gaya, India. When I got the notification that they were holding it, I thought it was more important to attend than the World Fellowship of Buddhists, because there had never been a conference for Buddhist women before. On the very last day of the conference we were thinking maybe we should make this a more permanent thing. We voted on the name Sakyadhita because it means “daughters of the Buddha.” The Tibetan nun Karma Lekshe Tsomo and I were elected the co-presidents at that time.

What was important about bringing Buddhist women together? First of all, it really opened the eyes of the Tibetan women, because they had no idea that Western women were being ordained as bhikkhunis and there were so many of us Westerners at that particular conference. The Tibetans became very jazzed up, I suppose you could say, by seeing these American women bhikkhunis who took control of their lives. The Tibetan women had never seen anything like that. There are still no bhikkhunis in the Tibetan order. His Holiness the Dalai Lama was there and gave a talk. He was very supportive of the women, and a lot of Tibetan nuns came with him. The conference was held in two languages that year, English and Tibetan.

Which topics were on the agenda at that first conference? The first time we were not so much focused on the bhikkhuni order but rather on how Buddhist women could raise themselves up, because in a lot of the countries Buddhist women still have a very minor role.

The first conference was also the very first time the bhikkhunis there were able to chant the Pratimoksha [the bhikkhuni vows]. It is supposed to be done by every bhikkhu and every bhikkhuni twice a month on half-moon and full-moon days. According to the Vinaya, you have to have at least four members to be able to chant it together, so it was the very first time I’d ever chanted it.

The person who leads it is supposed to be the oldest, so it got left to me to lead the chanting. It begins with the first eight vows. If you break one of these vows, you are automatically expelled from the sangha. I’d chant the first vow and say, “has anybody broken this vow?” and if they hadn’t, they’d remain silent. Every vow of the 348 is mentioned specifically and repeated three times. It took us three hours to get through the whole thing, and I was chanting as fast as I could!

It was a really wonderful experience, that all of these bhikkhunis from all over Europe, Asia, and the U.S. were chanting together. But none of the Tibetan nuns could be included, because none of them had become bhikkhunis.

How has the role of Buddhist women changed from the time of this conference or even from the time you were ordained? Now that you’re thirty-five years in, is it the same? In America, bhikkhus and bhikkhunis are going to be totally equal to each other. At the Soto Zen monastery up at Mount Shasta, two-thirds are women and one-third are men. They call everybody a monk, regardless of what sex they are, and they wear the same robes and they do the same work if they are able.

Thich Nu An Tu is my transmission name, and Dr. Thien-An always wanted me to say Thich Nu, because the “Nu” part after Thich indicates that it’s a female name. I said, “Dr. Thien-An, why do you do that?” He said, “because if I don’t, then nobody will know that you’re a woman!” I didn’t understand at that time what he meant. But now I realize that he was very proud of his women and he wanted people to know that these are bhikkhunis, not just bhikkhus. These are bhikkhunis!

Related: It’s 2020. What’s Happening with Bhikkhuni Ordination? 

Do you think the gender equality happening within the American Buddhist community is a reflection of the gender situation in the larger society? I think that has a lot to do with it. Men like to be around liberated women. After Dr. Thien-An died and I became the abbess, I thought most of the men would leave the temple. But they didn’t, and I have more male students than I do female ones. I think men are actually a bit tired of the patriarchy and want to see strong women in leadership roles.

A lot of the American female teachers are highly respected, primarily because we’ve somehow avoided getting into the big controversies that have entangled men. It’s not so much that we’re purer than men, but rather that women are more aware of what can happen if they get involved in some of these things.

Are you referring to the sex scandals? Yes. If you are a master at a temple and someone wants to get at you, they will accuse you of abusing two things: sex and money. And, very frankly, these accusations are not always true. People make up stories. Women are much more careful than men about these things—not that there isn’t plenty of opportunity for it. In fact I’ve been approached by both male and female students.

Really? Yes. When one female student approached me, I just laughed at her. She said, “I’m serious,” and I said, “You think you are, but you’re not really.” A few months later she came to me and said, “Rev. Karuna, I’m so glad that you told me that.” Because by that time she’d found a partner with whom she became involved, and they have a very loving relationship.

This sounds like a very modern, even American situation. How do you find the gender issues you deal with here relate to the gender issues you find when you travel to Buddhist Asia? In the U.S. there is equality. In the rest of the world there is still quite a bit of inequality regarding men and women. When I talk to the Vietnamese monks, I’ll say, “Please make sure the women play the role they should! Encourage them to take a more active role in the temple instead of just cooking and cleaning. Encourage them to become teachers of the dharma.”

Actually, in some Mahayana Asian countries like Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Korea, most of the ordained are female. The Korean women are very strong. Their basic concern is that the big temples are run by men, not by women. My gosh, in most countries around the world bhikkhunis would be glad if that were their biggest problem!

Conservative Sri Lankan monks believe that bhikkhunis must be ordained by other Theravada bhikkhunis. Since there haven’t been any bhikkhunis there for a thousand years, none could be ordained, but there are monks all over Sri Lanka who have quietly been encouraging women to become bhikkhunis for some time. As far as I know, I ordained the very first Sri Lankan bhikkhuni in 1997. Her religious name is Sumentha, but her nickname is Loku Mani, meaning Big Mother, and she runs an orphanage in Sri Lanka. She had been a novice nun for at least twenty years when she came to our temple to visit Dr. Ratanasara and some of the other Sri Lankan monks in residence here. I offered to give her ordination. At first she was unsure, but Ven. Ratanasara convinced her to do it. Now there are almost a thousand bhikkhunis in Sri Lanka, whereas ten years ago there were none.

That’s exciting. Yes, it is quite exciting. In fact, I’ve noticed a change in the Thai people themselves. When I was in Thailand two years ago, it was the very first time that Thai men would come up and bow to me. When they saw the yellow robes they knew exactly what I was, but they didn’t bow before. So the Thai people are changing much faster than the monks, particularly the older monks.

Do you think it’s a question of the old order dying out for bhikkhunis to be accepted in Theravada countries? I think that’s part of it. Once the old order dies out, the younger monks will be able to express their more liberal viewpoint. In fact, that is already starting to happen in Thailand, but it’s going to be a while before it takes hold.

The problem in Thailand is that women can only become Mahayana bhikkhunis. Any woman there who puts on a robe so that she looks like a Theravada bhikkhuni can be arrested and thrown in jail. But Theravada women don’t want to become Mahayana bhikkhunis—they want to be Theravada bhikkhunis.

Isn’t another obstacle for women the extra precepts they must take to be considered fully ordained? What is your opinion of them? I would like to see the eight special vows for nuns be absolutely thrown out the window! The Buddha, in spite of what many people think, did not lay them down. Theravada scholars—both Thai and Sri Lankan—will point out to you that these were not taught by the Buddha. They were added later.

What are the eight special precepts? The first one—probably the most obnoxious to women—is that no matter how old the bhikkhuni is, she has to bow down before a monk who has been a bhikkhu even for one day. That’s probably the most offensive of them. They are rules like that. I teach them to my students, but I explain that these were not originally written down by the Buddha himself.

I don’t remember seeing you do that. Do you bow down to male monks that are younger in dharma years than you? Are you kidding?

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Buddhism’s Glass Ceiling

The eight controversial vows that women traditionally must take to be a fully ordained member of the Buddhist community:

1. A bhikkhuni, even if she enjoys a seniority of a hundred years in the Order, must worship, welcome with raised clasped hands, and pay respect to a bhikkhu though he may have been a bhikkhu only for a day. This rule is strictly to be adhered to for life.

2. A bhikkhuni must not keep her rains-residence at a place that is not close to the one occupied by bhikkhus. This rule is also to be strictly adhered to for life.

3. Every fortnight a bhikkhuni must do two things: To ask the bhikkhu sangha the day of Uposatha and to approach the bhikkhu sangha for instruction and admonition. This rule is also to be strictly adhered to for life.

4. When the rains-residence period is over, a bhikkhuni must attend the Pavarana ceremony at both the assemblies of bhikkhus and bhikkhunis, in each of which she must invite criticism on what has been seen, what has been heard, or what has been suspected of her. This rule is also to be strictly adhered to for life.

5. A bhikkhuni who has committed a Sanghadisesa offense must undergo penance for a half-month, pakkha manatta, in each assembly of bhikkhus and bhikkhunis. This rule is also to be strictly adhered to for life.

6. A bhikkhuni must arrange for ordination by both the assemblies of bhikkhus and bhikkhunis for a woman novice only after two year’s probationary training under her in the observance of six training practices. This rule is also to be strictly adhered to for life.

7. A bhikkhuni should not revile a bhikkhu for any reason whatsoever. This rule is also to be strictly adhered to for life.

8. Bhikkhunis are prohibited from exhorting or admonishing bhikkhus with effect from today. Bhikkhus should exhort bhikkhunis when and where necessary. This rule is also to be strictly adhered to for life.

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