So, is this unfair ?
No - but treating women as second class whether they are monastics or lay people is not only unfair, it is also unethical. Just like it is unethical to discriminate on the bases of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation etc.
The Buddha’s prohibition regarding the disabled, may well have been a practical consideration. Monastics requesting ordination are required to have a requisite degree of autonomy - an ability to look after themselves.
I don’t buy your argument because it sounds like the attitude adopted in male chauvinism. I do not subscribe to that point of view. 
Can you elaborate ?
So, I am a chauvinist to you !
You had the impression huh !
On the contrary , FYI I supported a bhikkhuni ordination and many bhikkhunis requisite .
And I have had supported many of the Buddha disciples bhikkhunis bhikkhus whom I considered they followed the right path !
Very good - in that case, I simply don’t understand your point. But I can see that you do!
Because you are saying , there are some things in buddhism seems unfair ,
Could you elaborate on that ?
Such as treating women second class and discrimination ? Is it that the number of precepts of bhikkhuni more than the bhikkhu or female only can become bhikkhuni once in a lifetime ? Put aside the aṭṭha garudhammas as many already disregard it .
Samsara is unfair, not the Dhamma. And our minds are buried in pride and conceit, unlike the Buddha who saw absolutely nothing demeaning in venerating a seven year old boy who had realized the same Nibbana that he had. From Thag 6.10 :
Hi all
I (a Bhikkhu) do not accept all the Vinaya rules.
best wishes
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Hi Jose, thanks for the question.
I understand you mean ‘Bhikkhuni ordination’ in principle. I would think you accept that any person requesting ordination as a monk or nun, must undergo certain tests to see their suitability and some may be rejected.
I think an Arahant could not be against Bhikkhuni ordination on both Dhamma and Vinaya grounds. I agree with AnagarikaMichael’s first post in this thread.
best wishes
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Hi all
Please let me disagree. I do not believe that more or stricter rules, or no or less women would shorten or lengthen the life of pure Dhamma, even though there are texts that might say just that. I think that is Wrong View and those texts are later additions.
There is a very clear piece of advice and example from the Buddha (and another) on this topic that does not seem to be followed by organised Buddhism, not the First, Second, Third… Sixth or whatever Council. It is the Buddha’s instruction to hold council:
from https://suttacentral.net/en/dn29:
Wherefore, Cunda, do ye, to whom I have made known the truths that I have perceived, come together in company and (1.) rehearse all of you together those doctrines and quarrel not over them, but (2.) compare meaning with meaning, and phrase with phrase, in order that this pure religion may last long and be perpetuated, in order that it may continue to be for the good and happiness of the great multitudes, out of love for the world, to the good and the gain and the weal of devas and men!
The story of the First Council does not give credit to the Buddha for the idea of holding council, but rather to Bh. Mahākasappa! That is disrespectful and not the practice of an Arahant or even Stream Enterer, imo.
As you see, there is no mention of preventing women’s ordination! Maybe a future version will add ‘and do not allow women’s ordination’.
The so called Councils, rehearse, but do not seem to compare in the way displayed in the EBTs, e.g.:
- Bhi. Dhammadinna SuttaCentral compares the Noble Eightfold Path with the Three Trainings (though, I believe, in a wrong way), and
- the Buddha SuttaCentral compares the 16 steps with the 4 Foundations.
Instead they compare different versions of the texts to try to identify errors in transmission of particular words. This seems like, hearing two very similar words: exhibit, inhibit. The context usually makes the intended word clear.
If the story is true, the first three councils were oral, so spelling didn’t really matter and if the Dhamma was taught in the language of the common people, as the Buddha recommended, it would be in various dialects with different pronunciations or spellings. So there would be no need for conformity to one version in the letter (literally), but only the spirit. The conformity in the letter, this way, was a concern of the Brahmins for their scripture. Bh. Mahākassapa, was said to be Brahmin.
Best wishes
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Dear Venerable ,
Greetings to you .
Forgive me ,
I am puzzles , if everyone don’t accept all the vinaya , everyone follow their own believe , would not that bring doom to the dhamma at the end ?!
I think my answer to the original question is:
What does it matter?
The Arahant’s nature is something she may try and point out to us. And then it’s our business to learn that. That’s it.
As for Bhikkhuni ordination, it shouldn’t matter if supporters of it are Arahants or not. Primarily it should matter whether it’s Compassionate; secondarily it matters whether it is in line with Vinaya and based in genuine, Early Buddhist Texts.
Forgive me, those of you who have been playing “Mara’s Advocate”…there are plenty of voices who express such things and they’re not playing games. We don’t need to hear more of this. We need to stay focused on the positives. Don’t bring us down with such things. Raise us up. So on that note, I have to say that I love this comment further up by @vimalanyani! And then there’s this whole thread. And this; and let me tell you, I know for a fact, that these nuns are learning Pali so they can do the best they can at keeping their rules.
Plenty has been already said elsewhere about how the Vinaya is a thing that ought to be “lived” with Compassionate flexibility - as opposed to inflexible rigidity - because so often this is what the Buddha clearly displayed when formulating some of the rules; so I’m not going to bother to go into this now. But if you really care enough about this matter and are truly interested in prolonging the Sasana (please…the 500 year thing’s already passed…and if you try and say it’s metaphorical, I just won’t bother replying to you because you’re clearly ill-informed) then let’s give more people the chance to be guardians of the Dhamma and become these Arahants. The more contemporary female Arahants there are, the less chance there will be that their “old” worldly conditioning will have any bearing on how they view female ordination.
Anyone seeing this as a “modernist” revival is clearly unaware that they have made the Dhamma-Vinaya something only for the past. But if it’s True, then it should be true today as well. And if it’s True, then it’s also True that’s it’s impermanent and that social forces aren’t just going to shape it today, they shaped it 2600 years ago and they shaped it 1200 years ago and 500 years ago. Our job is to work out what is an EBT and what is not. Our job is see and understand the external social forces throughout history and see them clearly so that it becomes really obvious what we need to separate from what is True.
Chances are that EBTs will hold up and point to something True…otherwise our faith is founded on nothing solid. Because if you can’t trust an EBT to find what the Buddha really meant, then you can’t trust anything much and why be Buddhist at all… This is how you destroy the Sasana. By not investigating these texts, by not understanding, by not being flexible or compassionate. Not by admitting women…I mean what a gross, disgusting notion to even put forward! This is how you destroy Buddhism, by repeating this kind of stuff; if I thought for a moment that a Compassionate Arahant Buddha really thought women would destroy Buddhism, I would stop being a Buddhist. This is not my Buddhism.
But I suspect, it’s not the Arahants who are actively unsupportive of Bhikkhuni ordination. I bet they’ve got better things to occupy themselves with.
However, as to those monks who are actively supportive of Bhikkuni ordination, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an arahant or two in their ranks.
But why should we care? Take personal responsibility for why you do or don’t support Bhikkunis. And don’t play games with words for the sake of some academic argument…it’s not academic…it’s painful and impacts real people and it’s putting into writing and bringing to notice some stupid, deluded views that don’t deserve this sort of attention: which is why I mostly don’t bother with these sorts of threads so much anymore.
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Other than academic minutiae, there are also those who are Buddhist Bible-thumpers; in this latter case, teaching opportunities are …very infrequent, to put it gently.
Misogyny as religious injunction? Sign them up.
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Sadhu! A real lioness’s roar! 
(Buddha to Māra:) “Evil One, I will not take final Nibbāna till I have female disciples 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; till they shall be able by means of the Dhamma to refute false teachings that have arisen, and teach the Dhamma of wondrous effect.ʺ
DN 16
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Hi Apeiron
Greetings to you too.
I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong by asking a question, or feeling puzzled. I appreciate your concern for the long-faring of pure Dhamma (and Vinaya).
To me your question is based on the philosophy of centralised control, or everyone agreeing and practising exactly the same way, which I do not see the Buddha tried to enforce. His advice for (a?) sangha (parisā?) to do away with minor rules if it deems fit, speaks to that, imo. The idea of centralised control has been promoted at least since the Third Buddhist Council. Its outcome was that, even if it may not specifically be stated as a goal, but I think it was made quite clear that was a goal.
The Buddha refused to appoint a successor, indicates to me that he didn’t even think of himself as the leader, but, as he said Dhamma and Vinaya would be the teacher when he had passed, as it always had. To me one person in charge speaks to centralised control, not faith in Dhamma and people’s wise reflection.
For me there is a core, which those with Right View would agree on and practice and there is periphery, with secondary things. In the words of Vinaya: Sīla (morality/ethics) - core and Ācāra (good habits) - superficial, secondary. I believe those people with Right View would agree on what was the core, which would be timeless (akāliko) and would know that all outside that core would be secondary and dependent on conditions.
Those who have not attained the Fruit of Stream Entry, (eradicated the First Three Fetters) may not see such a distinction and, if they did have the distinction, would certainly not agree on what was core and what not. Thus (attachment to) Rites and Rituals is maintained.
Those with wise reflection could be called ‘wise’ and Dhamma is to be discovered, each for themselves. Even so, I believe they would agree on what is the core and what is periphery. (This is opposite to the story of the First Council.)
I think everyone does follow their own belief, but those with Right View share the same essential beliefs. They have made the theory of Dhamma their own personal experience.
There is a place where the Buddha says to Ānanda, that disagreement over the Patimokkha (Vinaya) would be a trifling thing, but disagreement over what is the Path (or Way - the Fourth Noble Truth) would be for the detriment to the many for a long time. Thus the advice from the Buddha on comparing teachings (of the path) to ensure the longevity of the Dhamma and this does not seem to be done in the Buddhist Councils.
It is the sekkhiya sections of the Patimokkha that seem to have the most variation in number throughout the various Buddhist traditions. Regarding the monks’ rules, there is a place that mentions (about?) 150 rules. Without the sekkhiya, there are around 150. Sekkhiya are certainly minor rules, imo. For me, 4 Parajika and 13 Sanghadisesa (=17) are serious and cover sīla (morality/ethics) and the rest are minor and cover ācāra (good habits).
I hope that answers your question and eases your puzzlement.
Best wishes
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Ven.,
Thanks for answer the question .
Could you explain what do you mean by right view ?
Thank you .
Hi Apeiron
Thanks for your question too, though maybe off topic. If someone were to say they had realised the Fruit of SE, this would be the question to ask, alternatively: what are the Four Noble Truths?
Of course you would know some of the traditional/textual explanations, that knowledge of the Four Noble Truths (4NT) is Right View (e.g. as found in SuttaCentral which I think is a later compilation, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have original teachings). In another place (ref?) it says if one knows (understands?) any one of the Four, one knows them all, which I don’t accept.
I agree with the first idea, but in different words I could say: ‘Right View is that view which causes the eradication of the First Three Fetters’. So there would be three aspects to Right View matching the First Three Fetters. One who is Attained to (Right) View (achieved the Fruit of SE) would have covered all three aspects. Various names of types of SE’s would reflect which/how many aspects they had realised.
Fetters:
- identity view
- doubt
- attachment to rites/rules and rituals
Aspects of Right View:
- understanding the (true) meaning of the 4NT, most essentially the first, which covers identity view, imo. (I have already discussed my understanding of the Fist Noble Truth in another thread What is the First Noble Truth?. There I try to point out that these two lines of thought/explanations are not compatible: The First Noble Truth is: 1. Life is (the Five Aggregates are) suffering, supported by the doctrine of the 3 (Universal) Characteristics and the commentarial doctrine of the three kinds of suffering, which is pure Hinduism to me and 2. Life with clinging is (the Five Clung-to Aggregates are) suffering. So the Arahant’s Five Aggregates are without clinging and are therefore not suffering, only impermanent and anattā.)
- developing confidence in the theoretical framework of the 4NT from investigation and reflection, in the way the probably Buddha taught, seeing the Buddha’s teaching is an integrated whole, not a patchwork of nice but not really related teachings
- testing the theory of the 4NT and experiencing the first taste of liberation, enables one to see rites and rituals are ineffective for liberation, though they might have some social relevance e.g. bonding
Those can be easily matched with what I believe is the Path to SE (Fruit) (ref?):
- association with the wise
- listening to what they have to say
(these two match the first aspect) - reflecting on it
(this matches the second aspect) - practising the Dhamma according to Dhamma
(this matches the third aspect)
See also the ‘gradual training’: SuttaCentral
At the point theoretical understanding is confirmed in experience, then Right View changes to Right Insight, imo (see the 10-fold Path, which has Right Insight and Right Liberation after Right Concentration see (PDF) Bucknell's 1984 Study of Five Presentations of the Path | Joe Smith - Academia.edu).
I hope that answers your question.
best wishes
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Ven . ,
Thank you for taking time to elaborate , well ,since this is off topic ,I would like to bring it to a new topic to enquire further if you don’t mind ?
Thank you .
oh, yes, good idea, thanks
I strongly believe that after Buddha’s Mahaparinibbana anti-Buddhist Sangha again destroyed the core teaching of the Buddha. If you want to know more details please see the " Divine revelation in Pali Buddhism". It is revied by Alexander Duncan’ "The overwhelming implication of Masefield’s analysis echoes that of Herbert Guenther, that the modern Buddhist sangha is a puthujjana sangha, completely devoid of authenticity, offerings to which have no kammic value or efficacy whatsoever. There was a huge mistrust with early Buddhist Sangha who represented the first Buddhist Council without Bhikkhuni Sangha.
Wonderful. That makes look like the real Buddha. 