Found a Tik Tok clip of a Dhamma talk given by a famous Sri Lankan monk in Sinhalese where he claims that Parents who have daughters have accumulated bad kamma and this is why they have given birth to female children.
My first initial reaction when I saw this was to cringe and get slightly angry since I am brought up in the west where these kind of statements are frowned upon. But then putting aside my western values, I realised that this monk might not be completely wrong.
The fundamental facts in this human realm is that the females have been dealt a bad hand no matter where they live (Obviously varies to what extent). So have parents who have daughters committed accumulated bad kamma?
How would you argue for or against this monk’s statement based on the EBT’s?
Exactly. One view that has helped inform me understanding discrimination and how so called “allies” can affect it was I read once that when in the 1930s Jewish people were heavily discriminated against, I read what dishearted one person the most was not the racists but those who were “sympathetic” or “concerned” but did not hire them because they were discriminated against and didn’t want to potentially cause them to be discriminated against at their workplace.
This is still the case today with e.g. construction and women
Lol sometimes you have to take things to their logical conclusion…
So according to that monk, the ideal race would be made up of men only, who clone themselves.
In the Samyutta Nikaya, when King Pasenadi Kosala’s wife gave birth to a girl and was disappointed, the Buddha told him that daughters can even be better than sons. (Paraphrase) Also where does he think the sons come from anyway? Daughters give birth to them.
It is also well known that external factors like temperature can affect baby sex.
Famous Sri Lankan monks say all kinds of stuff. They aren’t speaking for all Sri Lankan monks and nuns, let alone for all Buddhists. Some people (including Buddhists) actually want to have a daughter. Even the Vedas include ritual instructions for people to get a daughter if they want.
Many of the world’s great religions (none of which originated in the West) have taken stances against female infanticide & gender selective abortion, it is a shame that certain bhikkhus can’t see a link between the things that come out of their mouths and the continued existence of these practices in the world. But ok. Some people would just prefer that women don’t exist. This unfortunately seems to be the tone in many parts of the Theravada world these days.
Hi. It is meritorious right view (MN 60; MN 117; AN 10.211; Iti 106; etc) to understand there is mother & father who are our benefactors. If having a daughter was due to bad kamma then this seems to logically also infer having a mother was also due to bad kamma because every mother was once a daughter. The view of the monk seems to infer if all people did good kamma, there would only be male species in the world. This denies the basics of biological existence.
MN 135 is possibly the most detailed sutta about the results of kamma. Since MN 135 treats men & women equally as being equal recipients of the same types of kamma, MN 135 obviously does not mention birth as a male or female is due to kamma.
Also, AN 4.53 refers to a good wife and a bad husband.
People are strange. I recently watched the movie 50 shades of Gray because a YouTuber made fun of it. He basically states how dumb the novels were written. He said it was even worse than cheap fan fiction. So I was curious and watched the entire movie. Skipped a few parts. But the bottom line is that the guy who is a billionaire, he is the way he is because he himself was a sex slave to an older woman since the age of 15. Until he was 20 or something. But the story made sense to me and I ended up disagreeing with the YouTuber. This movie was probably not all that bad because it probably tells a real world true story, encased in erotic fiction. What if this type of stuff actually happens among rich people? Dude basically was a sex slave to his mother’s rich friend. My point is that even if you’re rich it doesn’t guarantee you a happy life. You never know what is going on behind closed doors. Especially if you’re rich and have the money to dig a secret dungeon or something. Remember the case of Epstein’s Lolita island, where all the big rollers happen to pay it a visit? This world is a weird mess.
Many sutta’s describe that birth as human is rare, only a few, many are born in other existences:
AN1.333-334
“Just as, mendicants, in India the delightful parks, woods, meadows, and lotus ponds are few,
while the hilly terrain, inaccessible riverlands, stumps and thorns, and rugged mountains are many;
so too the sentient beings born on land are few, while those born in water are many.
… so too the sentient beings reborn as humans are few,
while those not reborn as humans are many.
There are also sutta’s in SN56 with the same message.
That monk’s opinion appears to contractict at least two suttas:
In the sutta Unconjecturable, the Buddha lists several things that ordinary human beings can’t learn for themselves. One of these things is the exact set of actions that through kamma, have led to a person’s conditions in the present.
In the sutta To Sivaka, the Buddha states that not all events that happen to a person are the result of kamma.
The general message of SN56 is that beings are mostly born in lower realms, and once there, they are most of the time finding a new birth in the lower realms again. It is rare the find the upwards path once in the lower realms.
Also as human most find a birth as animal after death and not as human again or deva (AN1. 348-377)
But why is it translated into sentient beings? Don’t the translators know English language? So you’re comparing human birth to peta and animal birth? This is like saying driving a car is rare because not everyone can afford a car.
sometimes you have to take things to their logical conclusion…
