Bhante, this is not about me. This is about the institutionalized discrimination that undermines the Bhikkhuni Sasana. It’s about that same institutionalized discrimination that has caused the Bhikkhuni lineage to die out in the first place.
Just because it is “part of Buddhist culture” does not make it right, nor does it make it “what the Buddha taught” or part of the EBTs. Where in the Vinaya does it say that nuns have to go behind the Samaneras on Pindapata?
I would also rather sit behind my computer and lead a quiet life just coding and meditating and forget about all of this. But how can I not speak up when 3 nuns I know disrobed in just the last month as a direct result and other friends are depressed and even traumatized.
Today I heard for the first time of a Sri Lankan monastery in Illinois where nuns are asked to go on Pindapata with the monks in line of ordination date, not gender. Contrary to popular belief on this forum, this is the only monastery that I know of where this happens, the only other one stopped when it’s abbot left 6 years ago.
I have a deep respect and gratitude for the Ajahns who have helped the nuns to gain full ordination and who help them to build monasteries. But the underlying problems have not yet been addressed and these patterns that have culturally grown are still alive today, even in their monasteries. It is not enough to give nuns a place of their own to keep them out of the monk’s monasteries. By doing so you cut them off from all training and you keep the discrimanatory patterns alive that have culturally grown but are not part of the Vinaya and that are in the end not helpful for anybody, including the monks.
In my opinion we need to have an active dialog between monks and nuns to learn to understand each other and to eradicate these patterns that are detrimental to Buddhist practice.
These discrimanatory practices have their roots in fear of the “other”, the fear of difference and change and they have to be rooted out for us all to be able to grow and develop.
After all, fear is the path to the Dark Side.