Ordination Questions - Gender, Health

The Watercooler
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Warm greetings, Dhamma friends,

I am a lay practitioner located in the U.S. who is seriously considering trying to pursue ordination in the next couple years. There are many different considerations in my heart around this, and I have a few questions I was hoping to pose to the community here:

  1. Is it possible for someone to ordain as a Bhikkhu with a Bhikkhuni preceptor and in a Bhikkhuni community? I know there are some communities with both Bhikkhu and Bhikkhuni residents (Empty Cloud, Bhavana Society), but I feel like I have primarily heard of Bhikkhunis going forth under the guidance of a Bhikkhu, and not necessarily any situations that were the other way around. Asking primarily from a Vinaya perspective, knowing that this is something individual communities may not allow even if it is permitted in the monastic rules
  2. From my understanding there are some varying views on those living with HIV / AIDS going forth, and that different communities approach these situations differently. This is a pretty niche question, but does anyone know of any communities where there is or might be some openness to ordaining someone living with this condition? I have reached out to a handful of places (Abhayagiri, Amaravati, Cittaviveka, Empty Cloud, Bhavana Society, Jetavana) and received a variety of responses

Thank you for considering these inquiries and sharing the path! It is a gift to have this forum to connect with others along the path :slightly_smiling_face:

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The Vinaya has an allowance for Bhikkhus to ordain Bhikkhunīs but not vis-versa.

Who your preceptor is doesn’t need to matter overly much as long as they give you permission to go train with a community you do feel inspired by.

The Vinaya does not mention AIDS specifically (for obvious reasons!) but it does mention similar diseases. So, it’s up to each preceptor to decide how to apply the Great Standards in this case and the aspirant (and other monastics!) should accept their judgement (either way!).

Hope that helps!

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Thank you so much for the responses, Venerable Khemarato! Much gratitude! :pray:

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If you are non-binary then you kind of have to ‘pick a team’ for the purposes of ordination. :frowning: (I say this with a great deal of cringe and metta). As Ven Khemarato said, this doesn’t prohibit you from living elsewhere after ordination, as long as your preceptor deems it suitable. There is a small community of people interested in trans* ordination opportunities - you can DM me if this is useful for you.

My recommendation would be to travel around and stay with different communities and see which community/ies fits you best and then start talking with them from there.

The only reason I would see HIV being a problem is if the medication you need is prohibitively expensive. The US medical system confuses me, so maybe it’s not a thing.

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I wonder if that could be by-passed if a monastic perhaps had a family member or other benefactor willing to support their medication needs :thinking:

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Sure. It might even be possible for the monastery to pay.

With any long-term health condition I would reply the same. It’s the kind of thing which I’ve seen discussed prior to ordination.

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