Is the Vinaya fit for purpose?

And…sorry…I just go on and on…

Is this the emotional story of all current nuns? Do they all feel the way you do? Perhaps that’s an impossible question to answer with 100% accuracy and would of course be based on how wide your experiences have been…but it would be interesting to hear your thoughts.

:heartbeat: :blossom: :tulip: :sunflower: :heartpulse:

Thank you so much for this discussion!

I can’t find words right now to add any personal perspective from my side, but I find it very inspiring to read this discussion. And as someone who is aiming at ordination I feel well supported by so much compassion and good will!

:heartpulse::anjal:

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Good!!! That’s totally the idea. :smiley:

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I mean…if there are a variety of interpretations to choose from on one single rule or whatever…why wouldn’t you choose the most compassionate one? Isnt’ that the Buddhist way!? I would support that.

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I’m glad to see you are so enthusiastic although the topic is rather difficult…

Thanks for bringing this up. It’s a very common notion among laypeople, and probably one of the reasons why monastics rarely discuss their vinaya practice openly with non-ordained people. Laypeople mostly have very little knowledge about vinaya and how it is practised today (I’m of course generalizing here), so chances are that if you open up about your questions and concerns, you might destroy your support base.
How do you judge that the monastics in some place, p. ex. Bodhinyana and Dhammasara, are keeping vinaya if you know very little about it? Most people would just look at whether they are using money, and maybe some other obvious things such as not eating after noon, not driving (a very particular interpretation of a minor rule…), and for nuns: bowing to monks.
Because of this constant evaluating and judging of monastics, the monastics tend to have distant and formalized interactions with laypeople. Laypeople’s expectations are just unrealistic and it is too exhausting to deal with their demands. Nobody’s keeping vinaya perfectly, but many monasteries make an effort to project that image, because lay support depends on it.

As you said, you can try to explain things, and after a while some people might open up and come to a less rigid understanding - like you did - but it’s just so much effort. Much easier to just keep quiet.

I can only speak from my own experience, but I think many communities would discourage their members from just posting such stuff on a forum. It can be so easily misunderstood. Just see what is happening on this forum: People oppose bhikkhuni ordination because “bhikkhunis don’t keep the rules”, despite all the threads that we have had where monks have posted how flexible vinaya is, how monks don’t keep it, how the sangha of the EBTs didn’t keep it, etc. So much effort, and so little change.

So no, there are no rules, but a general underlying principle in the vinaya is that you should behave in a way that projects confidence. Raising vinaya questions is best done with your teacher or your community.

LOL, I really can’t speak for everyone, but I think there is a huge spectrum of vinaya practice among nuns, and we are all individuals, so we feel differently!!
On the one hand, you have the “traditional Asians”, who ordained without any intention whatsoever to keep any vinaya, because the monks in their community also never kept it, and they simply never thought about it at all. On the other hand, you have people who live in very teacher-centric monasteries where you just follow what your teacher does without questioning too much. Some people also just don’t worry about vinaya much and keep it flexibly and loosly, without trying to keep all the rules. But yes, I do know quite a few nuns who want to properly adhere to vinaya and feel very similar to me. It’s not uncommon to decide not to take full ordination and to remain on 8 or 10 precepts to avoid the cognitive dissonance and the feeling of inferiority. But then again, if you don’t take full ordination, you also feel inferior…

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Just wanted to add a somewhat related fun fact: Personally, I have mostly been criticized by laypeople for the opposite: for being too strict on vinaya. :grin: As a samaneri I technically only need to follow 10 precepts, but even that is too much for many people. They find it exceedingly bothersome that I don’t handle money, so they have to buy bus tickets for me or transfer donations to my kappiya. Or that I don’t stay in secluded places alone with men. …
Vinaya is really a matter that seems difficult to handle for lay Buddhists. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Allow me to apologise for being so slow in catching up with this fast developing thread. It’s been a busy day for me as I went here and there today seeking the council of many wise and learned authorities, to discuss the issue of @Cara and her fears and apprehensions regarding going forth! And allow me to report that all have agreed, as if speaking in unison, that it would be only trouble for us, to admit Cara in our midst, and that though for the time being we are only blessed by her determination not to go forth, nevertheless we must remain ever alert and vigilant should she change her mind later, and that no effort should be spared to prevent that from ever happening, at all costs, unless the Earth splits and the sky falls. Later we secretly contacted Ayya @vimalanyani to release her first post here so as to demolish in Cara’s heart any lingering hope for going forth, which she did with incomparable diligence and excellence! :+1: Mission accomplished! :sunglasses:

Okay! Sorry about that! But I just automatically respond with humour whenever I feel the slightest sadness! It’s like those buppies which immediately start peeing each time you carry them! Can’t help it! :paw_prints:

Naturally I feel saddened to observe, how such wonderful people as you are, who have already found their way to Dhamma, developed faith in it, and feel drawn to renunciation - must feel this way about joining a monastic community. I am really sorry for this!

In all honesty I naturally have no experience of my own, regarding how is monastic life actually experienced for women. In few occasions I have encountered [apparently] happy and relaxed nuns in Sri Lanka, and every now and then I hear good reports from nunneries in the West. Nevertheless, I myself have no experience and don’t know how things are in reality.

The most important thing is to find a suitable monastic community in which to ordain. This is a difficult choice even for monks. It took me four years, and of nearly non-stop travelling and investigation, during which all delusions I previously had about Buddhist monasticism, vanished for good! And in my experience, what makes a monastic community suitable for one person could be just the thing which makes it unsuitable for another! It depends on a lot of factors which only you can grasp, advises of others in this matter could lead one totally astray! And if one does not understand oneself and one’s [often fluctuating] needs and temperaments, it is easy to make wrong decisions. Making a wrong decision is problematic nowadays because also the seniority system has influenced the minds of many monastics in certain sects. So the more they stay, the more they count the vassas (years of seniority), the more they become privileged; and that makes it very difficult for them to leave later, even when they know in their hearts that they are not happy in that environment which they have chosen, now many years ago!

And by the way, even for a sincere layman who wishes to ordain with faith and desire for practice, the options are not so many, and I have met so many such laymen whose only reason for remaining laymen, to this day, is that they never found the right environment for them, and were never able to make concessions.

But what you have on top of that common difficulty is (1) male dominance and (2) vinaya issues. In other words, more key variables and conditions exist for you which define and determine a “suitable” environment. Now I wonder what is the position of Buddhist women alliances, for example, on these issues? Is there a support system for women wishing to ordain, that recognises and responds to these two particular challenges?

Ultimately what I would think you need to focus on is to either (1) locate such suitable environments and support systems [if they at all exist], or/and (2) try to create more of them. And certainly help each other.

We are talking about monastic environments in which “man” does not have a role to play in the first place, and if he does, then that would be only in such ways which are predetermined and controlled by the community of nuns and women practitioners. And it will not matter what kind of “recognition” such a community will earn, since whatever you do by way of “subservience”, you will probably still go unrecognised as official nuns in most traditional circles. And believe it or not, male monastic sects don’t always recognise each other as well! [that is, in the eyes of some other sects, I am not a monk and my ordination is invalid, and would be unwelcome to stay in a monastery of theirs!].

The most important thing is to always keep in mind “why” we want to ordain and lead a monastic life, to serve what end, for what purpose. Because it is too easy, in the middle of all this mundane struggle, that one may eventually totally forget what brought them here in the first place!

May you find the conditions and life circumstances which lead you onward in practice, and succeed in attaining deliverance and safety from endless rebirth in this life. :pray:

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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 :slight_smile:

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 notlakkhana”; 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! :slight_smile:

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!

clt3

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!

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Venerable, once again your words bring sheer delight and joy to our lives - it is your unique gift!

You have raised many excellent and valid points.

This is absolutely true also!

This is an excellent point, one that I had not thought of, and which I and whoever else is interested, will need to address. We have Sakyadhita, Alliance for Bhikkhunis, and probably others… perhaps there is something we can do together… Filing that away for later action!

Now as for the rest - you have offered such a wealth of knowledge and experience for which I am truly grateful. The lived experience of vinaya which you have to offer is very valuable - thank you and SADHU! :smile: :anjal:

I have changed my mind, and agree with you - there is no more point worrying about whether man, woman or neither is equal, better or worse! That is an impossible question, and no point to answer. Like you say, why bother proving one conditioning is better than the other! :laughing:

But my interest now is, why have a different monks and nuns vinaya? I think we cannot always say, in this case, we should accept the way it is, because dukkha is a reality. This is not just emotional, but an objective recognition, that the nuns rules are different, and more difficult, and that nuns are under the management of monks.

So I guess, in this case, they are not equal, and that is interesting. I want to take a good look at that, and investigate it and see the skillfulness or unskillfulness of what is there. It sparks my curiosity because, as a woman, if I want to ordain, this is what will be asked of me. So it is an additional layer I guess I feel I have to be prepared for and understand.

Venerable, thanks again for your humour, inspiration and wisdom from your experience! :smiley: :anjal:

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@Cara if you could ditch only one vinaya rule only, and you could become a nun after that, which one would it be?! You don’t have to tell us, but it might be helpful for you to know! :grin:

with metta,

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:blush: :anjal:
I’m only getting started! This is all so much more simple than you may be thinking! I’m very glad to discuss with you and likewise appreciate all your efforts in maintaining this fine space of learning and sharing. Sādhu.

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Hey @Mat,
I don’t really see it as a transaction like that and I am not trying to ‘ditch’ any rules, merely have a discussion. So while I appreciate it, I don’t think the exercise will be helpful, sorry! :woman_shrugging:

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No of course not! Just a ‘thought experiment’. Reframing can be helpful- one a monk told the Buddha he just couldn’t keep 100’s of vinaya rules. The Buddha said, ‘can you keep three?’ The monk said yes. He asked him to sila, Samadhi and Panna. This restructuring if you like, seemed to help the monk. But not everyone’s cup of tea, I can appreciate.

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Thank you all so much for the discussion in this thread. I’ve been deeply moved reading through the comments and I have been given much to consider.

You have created a very beautiful space with this forum.

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With no gender, there is of course no heterosexuality and no homosexuality. I guess that this would push the duty of avoiding lustful situations back onto the practitioner. Some may say that this is where it belongs. But I’m also guessing that maybe this sort of segregation is so that the monastic sangha are not brought into disrepute because of perceptions in the larger (current) society. But that perception changes too.

Unisex (or gender neutral) bathrooms and toilets in public spaces are gaining traction in the West now.

I’ve had a gender neutral toilet in my home for as long as I’ve had a toilet in my home :wink:

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Yes. It was a deliberately provocative opening post :wink:

Just like practitioners of the EBT’s it’s more of a sub-culture within a sub-culture. But it is one that is gaining traction I believe. I am just a beginner on the path to transcending gender. The real experts are 2 generations below me and I have been dragged (kicking and screaming) into the new millennium by them. Now that I’m here I must confess it makes a lot of sense, but I still haven’t fully transcended binary gender like some of the (younger) adherents. So, it’s more of a community in training at the moment rather than a society, but it is one that I believe is gaining converts.

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Will this eradicate lust ? Arahants of yore accepted the simple division of beings and still managed to attain release from samsara.

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Oh no. It certainly won’t eradicate lust! It’s not intended to. But actually practicing ‘this’ (whatever you want to call it, say ‘gender neutrality’) has quite a profound effect on the understanding of impermanence for someone like me.

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@anon61506839 @Cara @vimalanyani & all

So I have a question here, which I can’t quite get my head around. It may be that I don’t really understand the subtleties or the terminology used in this thread.

What is the gold standard of discipline for the purpose of enlightenment?

Is it the monks rules?

Is it the nuns rules?

So I’m presuming here that the nuns have all the rules that the monks have, plus they have some other ones which appear to be mainly around subjugating themselves to the monks.

So if the nuns rules are the gold standard and these extra rules that the nuns have is important for the purpose of enlightenment , why do the monks not take them up? Perhaps subjugating themselves to nuns? Maybe they could take it in turns, alternate weeks? :wink:

If these extra rules that the nuns have is not important and the gold standard is that of the monks, then presumably these rules are additions that make no sense and they can be dropped. In fact, why would one put a carbuncle on a gold standard? Why make something more difficult than it already is with the addition of rules that serve no purpose for the goal? Isn’t that a sort of asceticism that would be disapproved of by the Buddha?

I’m guessing that this might have been discussed before, so a link would be fine.

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But why do you think that gender and sex are only socially conditioned? Yes, language and certain “rules” for defining this or that are socially conditioned, behavioural patterns too, but only socially? No. They are also conditioned by brain structure and its capabilities, by body plan, by the ancestry of humans (being primates, not carnivores or molluscs for example), by the sensory system of humans, by history, by natural events in the past that defined the evolution of humans and society, by individual kamma. Even old Indian caste system is not entirely socially conditioned for that matter. The separation of humankind from the universe is another great illusion.
So an attempt to build “genderless” society would fail just in the same way as attempts to build just societies of equality failed before (example: communism - instead of ideal world without money and satisfaction of human needs we got something pretty different).

Except that it will be some other, different vinaya already, won’t it?

Exactly! :pray: :relieved:

Generally, it is quite a philosophical question, which rules are important and what are not. For instance, let’s take money thing. It is prohibited by vinaya, but yes, indeed, quite often monks nowadays even have to ignore this rule. But does it say that the rule is bad? Or that socioeconomic conditions are bad for the Sangha? I am inclined to think in the latter way. Should the rule be officially dismantled then, if socioeconomic conditions become unfavourable? We can easily fantasize a condition, where some other important rule becomes hard to follow. Then another one, and so on. In the end nothing would left of the discipline, and what kind of Sangha would that be? Now the question returns to the issue of “benefit”. What benefit would that give to individuals ordaining? What is better, 3 monks of near-arahant vitue, or 300 which are basically lay people? Wouldn’t it be better for buddhist community, if there are objective obstacles for many people taking full ordination, to have more lay practitioners in white robes, which could be still supported on some level by the “ordinary” laity? See here: Thilashin - Wikipedia (I know about the troubles that such women have in Thaliand, but it seems in Burma it’s better, and can be done even better elsewhere, if desired: I am not talking just about women here, but men alike who feel vinaya is too hard for them to follow).

That is when we assume there’s no difference between male and female practitioners at the novice level. Is there? Well apparently there definitely was at least at the moment Buddha himself established additional rules. It this difference there now? I know for sure that males and females do exist amog humans, and they are different, and they do behave differently, whatever the conditioning behind this (society, biology or else). So maybe at least some of the rules are not so ungrounded after all.
I think for the modern discussion of the differences between two vinayas it would be goo to establish which rules where introduced when. I am unaware of a in-depth analysis on the matter, if one knows, please provide a link. Those set at the time of the Buddha should be kept, at least the major ones, don’t you think? Or otherwise it will just end in cosplay.

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