Now to friend @Cara, @anon29387788, Ayya @vimalanyani, and others, regarding Vinaya. I would like to say that the Vinaya to which you are responding, and which troubles you, has nothing to do with the Vinaya that the Buddha intended for you! Vinaya is more like an idea, actually it exists in every spiritual tradition that involves a monastic or renunciate life, even if it is never written down or declared clearly in speech. I have never met a sincere spiritual practitioner of any kind, who had nothing similar to Vinaya; all of them do have it, in one way or another. The origin of the word “Vinaya” in Pali comes from Vi + the verb “nayati”: to remove, take or carry away. Thus the Vinaya is really a concept, an idea, a pedagogical system, a “training”, that aims to allow us “remove” the obstacles which we are sure to meet in our renunciate experience. Let me assure you that, everything which contradicts that purpose, is no longer “Vinaya” in the way it was intended.
Secondly, there is an element of “experience” also when it comes to practising Vinaya. You learn how to absorb it only with time, and you grow increasingly skilled, familiar and comfortable with its annoying stability despite of your moodiness and emotional fluctuation, but you also get comfortable with the fact that you keep transgressing it and be at fault! It is humbling, and woe to those who want to be “right” all the time! That Vinaya, and not another which is imposed on you, will help you realise deep things about yourself, about how your mind changes ceaselessly, about your weak points, and about how your ego wants you to be right all the time! And if you are really determined to grow in practice, you will soon recognise Vinaya as a very good friend rather than annoying or unfair authority. But I was at first also very anxious about Vinaya, later I learned to relax and I hope you will take it easy too
Now some Dhamma about gender inequality and unfairness:
It is a curious question, what is it that makes man subjugate a woman, woman subjugate a child, a child an animal, and an animal another?! And if all this dukkha was “unnatural”, if it was “reversible” in mundane terms, if it was not “lakkhana”; then what would be our need for Nibbana?! Are we not here pursuing mundane solutions to mundane problems, whereas in fact, there aren’t any such solutions?! A good topic for contemplation!
Likewise for standing in front of a “big scary sangha”, or big scary anything, a carnivorous bear perhaps, or one’s own ego! I am not “lesser” because I am being viewed as such, I am lesser because this is what I actually am in every mundane respect! Gender being the least of worries here! But this body and its death! Obsession with control, safety, freedom, comfort, independence, self-worth, sensuality, and many such other profound conditions that we view as “fundamental rights”, and without which we think we cannot live. A sincere renunciant, boy or girl, will have to give up just that, not because they have to, but because they want to! They want to experience, how is it, when one is no longer fettered by these things. This is very curious!
It doesn’t mean to humiliate oneself, and no one is saying that inequality is good or right, but what i’m trying to say is that, if you respond emotionally, then your suffering is essentially the same when being subjugated by a big scary male sangha, or when a tiny fleck of dust happens to enter your eyes!
And whereas some may consider that an alternative gender view, for example, is one of ‘undoing’ the conditioning, to me it is merely the replacement of one conditioning by another! And whereas for some people, freedom and peace is characterised by the absence of inequality and unfairness outwardly, to me the transcendence of the dukkha of inequality and unfairness inwardly is what really matters.
The theme runs as follows: put together everything that you think you cannot live without, everything that ensures your satisfaction, everything that gives you a feeling of self-worth, then purge it all out of your heart, like one who spits out the mucus!
It’s not gonna feel good right away, actually it will feel horrible! But even western psychologists, lost as they are, have by now grasped that “delayed gratification” is far superior to one that happens immediately!
Can you understand me? The troubles of monasticism as it exists today is something that is beyond our control! But I am pointing to our own attachments and dissatisfactions because it is the only thing in this world over which we have absolute control, and that we can certainly change if we so wish. There is no other way, and in this, man and woman, and neither, are perfectly equal!