The day I became an inferior human being

I think that pretty much all bhikkhunis get full ordination from monks outside the Thai forest tradition, except for those living in Australia who usually get ordination with groups of monks related to Ajahn Brahm (who depending on your definition may or may not be in the Thai forest tradition.) In other parts of the world, I know of individual monks of the Thai forest tradition that have participated in bhikkhuni ordination but the vast majority of monks are Sri Lankan.
I’m not familiar with the situation inside Thailand and I’m not sure how Thai bhikkhunis ordain. I’ve heard that some of them also go to Sri Lanka for ordination.

Women interested in ordination need to find a bhikkhuni monastery that accepts them into their community. If they fulfill all the requirements for ordination, the senior bhikkhunis there will ususally make the arrangements.

I don’t think you can actually “rewrite” an ancient canonical text. What you can do is do the research and outline which are the late parts, and then try to restore earlier practices. But that should be done separately from the canonical vinaya in an independent collection of (modern) texts.

For example: We can look at other early texts, such as the Therigatha, which show that the lifestyle of early nuns was significantly different from what is mandated in the vinaya. We can do comparative studies of the vinaya texts in the various Buddhist schools. We can look at different textual layers that were written at different points in time and see how things developed to become more discriminatory towards women. Etc. (Lots of work in this area has been done already.)
From there, we can try to go back to earlier practices when things were more equal in the sangha. After all, the Buddha made it very clear that it’s not allowed to add more rules after his passing. So if it can be shown that things were added on later, it is reasonable to reject them and try to restore earlier versions.
But yes, such things would certainly be considered heretical by large parts of the sangha.

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Thank you for explaining, Venerable @vimalanyani. :pray:

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Examining the history of the Buddhist schools, we find that Buddhism adapted itself to the customs of the various civilisations it spread to. For instance, in China, the monks were allowed to work the land to feed themselves as Chinese culture doesn’t take kindly to feeding idle hands.

Perhaps, what we are currently seeing are the birth pangs of an authentic Western Buddhism. Viewed in that light, it is but inevitable that Buddhism will once again adapt itself to reflect the western principles of equality of genders, alongside other ideas such as the focus on rationality, logic etc. I personally think that such a reformation would represent a quintessential genuine Buddhism.

All of us, both ordained and laity, really need to have deep meaningful conversations about these things, don’t we?
:grinning:

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I never new this. Could you please provide some more information or links on this. I’m very interested in the monasticism of ancient Sri Lanka.

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I remember once a senior bhikkhunī said simply, “The Buddha ordained women.” That’s the true conservative, orthodox, and traditional position :upside_down_face:

This is certainly coming at a time when Western Buddhist monasticism is forming its own identity, but I am hesitant to look at the issue as Western vs. Eastern.

After all, certain Western-led and Western-founded were quite content to jump on the patriarchal bandwagon, and the Catholic Vatican—sitting at the so-called cradle of Western civilization—is not exactly the champion of human rights. Equality isn’t really a Western principle, any more than gravity is. And actually many Westerners do not believe in the equality of genders or rationality or logic, and historically have also not believed in those things.

(For more on this, I highly recommend the book Forest Recollections by Kamala Tiyavanich, which, in part, outlines how the Thai Sangha we know today was very much influenced by European colonialism and the Western aspirations of the Thai State at the time.)

Unfortunately no one region or people has a monopoly on greed, hatred, and delusion :sweat_smile:

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Please see this thread Venerable.
Ven @Suvira posted some interesting research that you may find useful…:pray:t4:

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Placing a link here, to a presentation from the Bhikkhunis at Newbury Buddhist Monastery in Victoria Australia last night . Enjoy :slight_smile:

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Dear Bhante,

Yes, but it may take some time. I learned a lot about this while attending on Ayya Tathaaloka in Sri Lanka - we visited ancient bhikkhuni monasteries and sacred sites. Including the Anula Devi Cetiya and the Sanghamitra cetiya. These places had such special energy and ambiance. So inspiring! Though little known even to our Sri Lankan devout lady friends.

If you were to look through Ayya Tathaaloka’s FB posts - this might be the best source for general information about this.

I would love to see bhikkhuni forest monasteries re-established in Sri Lanka.

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@vimalanyani, thank you for starting this conversation. It made me terribly sad to read your post, so much so that I just didn’t want to even think about it as I just felt a bit hopeless. But, now I wonder if @Brahmali may have been lying in wait for such an invitation!

Sadhu! Sadhu! Sadhu! To both of you.

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Blockquote[quote=“Adhimutti, post:59, topic:18771”]
would love to see bhikkhuni forest monasteries re-established in Sri Lanka.
[/quote]

Absolutely, due to popular knowledge of vinaya laxity in the Sri Lankan Sangha. Lay people are becoming more and more disillusioned and critic. I was one of them . But forest monks are a constant source of inspiration and faith, that shows the Dhamma is still alive. A forest bhikkhuni tradition will be a major win for women and the sasana as a whole.

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Thank you so much, Ven. @vimalanyani for expressing the trials and tribulations we have to go through as female monastics. May we all be free from suffering and swiftly attain awakening!

My experience however has been more along the ‘what is wrong with these people, why are they treating me like I am an inferior being’?” :smiley:

So while I haven’t gotten awakened yet, since I put robes on I got ‘woke’ to the truth that sexism is alive and well everywhere. It stings more as a female monk because we have no place to hide anymore: the line between Dhamma and ADhamma can get very blurry and sacred scripture is often used to put us faithful women into submission.

This is no different in Buddhism than it is in every single other religion that I am aware of. So I am afraid the root of the problem here is not Buddhism or the Vinaya, but rather unquestioned patriarchy and our internalization of it. A clear example of this is in this thread: amongst so many liberal woke practitioners not one challenged @Ehipassiko claim that women are matter-of-factly inferior to begin with.

[quote=“Ehipassiko, post:21, topic:18771”]

Don’t the suttas say that being born as a woman is worse karma than being born a man? Clearly that’s true. Biologically we have it a bit harder with all the childbearing stuff. And not only throughout human history, but in nature also females are subordinate to males in most species. [/quote]

As they say, silence is complicity. So let’s be clear here:

  • No, the Buddha never said that a female birth is an inferior rebirth. Those are just assumptions that unenlightened people have made in the past 2 millennia.

  • No, women don’t intrinsically have it harder than men. Childbearing is not just some painful experience, it’s also for example an incredible and powerful state of being which creates conditions for generating the type of unconditional love described in the Metta Sutta. It’s very good kamma to have a human rebirth: whether it’s female, male, trans, non binary… it does not matter. The body is just the body.

  • No, females have not been subordinate to males throughout history. Just mostly in the patriarchal past 4000 years or so, which is nothing in the large scheme of history. For more information you can read Gerda Lerner’s “The Creation of Patriarchy”: PATRIARCHY: IS IT INVENTION OR INEVITABLE? - The New York Times

All conditioned things are impermanent, so why would patriarchy be any different? It is our delusion that gives it the attributes of permanent to the extent that we even project this ‘natural patriarchal state’ on the animal world, creating distorted assumptions of other mammals, like in the case of lions: Where’s Simba’s mom? In real life, female lions run the pride.

As women, before we get into any efforts of practicing non-self (…or telling other oppressed folks that there is no self that is being oppressed), our job should be first and foremost to question our underlying assumptions. Where are we getting these ideas from? Why do we think we are inferior? Who taught us to hate yourselves?

Ideas, thoughts and emotions don’t belong to us, they are dependently arisen phenomena. Whatever conditions we are immersed in, those will affect the way we think and act on the path. It is for this reason that the Buddha advised Ananda that spiritual friends are the entire path. If we are surrounded by people who don’t cultivate the Noble Eightfold Path, it will be very difficult for us to nourish wholesome qualities. In the same way if we are immersed in an oppressive system, we will inevitably absorb such ideology, and act in accordance with it. That’s exactly what you see described in Venerable @Adhimutti accounts of the feeling of female inferiority and male superiority in practitioners, no matter how accomplished in meditation they both might be.

This is problematic not only for women, but for everyone in Buddhism. Not only because it’s a human rights issue, but because first and foremost it’s a huge obstacle in the path. Meditation represents only three factors of the path at best, and as the current system puts people in the gendered position of oppressor or oppressed, it hinders each one of us from fully acting skillfully through body, speech, and mind in all occasions. This is a huge issue in the development of virtue.

While I appreciate and support the efforts of Ajahn @Brahmali on @Vinaya matters, I personally don’t think the Vinaya is the problem per se, but how and why we decide to uphold each precept. Because the latter this stems from delusion within our communities and from our own mind.

I think a lot of times we are asking the wrong questions. For example, in an ideal world having a senior Bhikkhu teach Bhikkhunis would be considered a blessing (who would not want to have Ven. Bodhi share Dhamma with them on a regular basis?), so the ones who are missing out are the poor Bhikkhus who don’t have the same opportunity with Bhikkhunis. Being admonished in this Dhamma and discipline is not a punishment but an opportunity for growth, something to be looking forward to. So in this light, preventing Bhikkhunis from admonishing Bhikkhus is detrimental to the Bhikkhu Sangha, isn’t it?

I personally would like to see a conversation on how patriarchy is in opposition to core elements of the Dhamma and a hindrance first and foremost to the the practice of awakening of the Bhikkhu Sangha.

And what are the three kinds of conceit that are to be abandoned? (4) Conceit, (5) the inferiority complex, and (6) arrogance: these are the three kinds of conceit that are to be abandoned.

The Buddha AN 6.106

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Dear Ayya Soma, I’m sorry I did not explain myself better but hope you can consider that this is not what I’m trying to say.

Great post I must say. Thank you for sharing.

Dear @Ehipassiko

Thank you for your kind note. To be clear, my intention was not to attack you or your comment :slight_smile: as I am sure you meant well :kissing_heart:

What really caught my attention was that no one felt the urge to correct what was being said, nor ask for clarifications. If you had used the word black instead of woman in your comment, I doubt it would’ve been overlooked.

It’s the implicit bias we all have, that needs to be dismantled.

I personally had this realization years ago, when I looked into the Five Points and found this article by Leigh Brasington Bhikkhuni Ordination, and had a first insight on the internalized sexism I had been carrying all along and that I was completely oblivious about.

Delusion is difficult to dispel because we are not aware of it. When we see a glimpse of it, it’s a blessing, because we can dig more deeply, uproot it, and make progress in the path :slight_smile:

May you be well and happy and swiftly attain awakening!

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14 posts were split to a new topic: Turning this off topic discussion into a PM so that you can carry on in private

Thank you for your kind reply. I want to clarify that I do not hold a bias about women (or any gender, skin colour, or other personal attribute) being inherently superior, inferior or same. I mean that being born a woman is on average harder than being a man, being born black is on average harder than being born white, being born in a developing country is on average harder than being born in a developed one.

These attributes are (as I understand it) the results of kamma. No more or less. It’s not a value judgment of people and says nothing of one’s worth or potential. Am I wrong in equating easeful, positive life circumstances with the results of past good kamma?

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Even if the Buddha had said such a thing (which he did not, since there is enough evidence out there that it is ADhamma), how would it translate to woman being an inferior rebirth?

By your logic, since the Buddha allegedly comes into this world with the marks of a great man, then we should also have other types of inferior rebirths.

For example, from DN 30

“His complexion is gold” = that pale white Anglosaxon skin is clearly an inferior rebirth.
“His eyes are deep blue” = oh wait, looks like also being East Asian is largely an inferior rebirth.
“His teeth are even” = maybe you can address that with Ajahn Sucitto and Ajahn Brahm?

Bringing to the table the argument that women cannot become Sammasambuddhas is irrelevant. We have all had male and female bodies in the past, and we will all have female and male bodies in the future. And right now, no human can become a Sammasambuddha, as the teachings of Gotama Buddha are still accessible. The only option we have is Anubuddha.

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Dear @Ehipassiko,

The best result of kamma is to be reborn in a place with access to the Dhamma, the teachings of liberation that bring an end to suffering. Hence being born Buddhist in a Buddhist country is incredibly good kamma.

Last I heard, that largely means being reborn in a developing country and as a person of color. :wink:

As a matter of fact if you are a white male trying to ordain in the Tibetan tradition or in Chinese Mahayana, much of your privilege fades away, because you are not Tibetan nor Chinese. And largely, from their perspective, that’s a big sign of bad kamma! :laughing:

Prior to Buddhism I used to work in the editorial field of fashion where all the people in power are either women or gay men. No one in that field thinks that Anna Wintour has bad kamma :wink: and never was I presented with these crazy ideas of female inferiority like I have been since I started practicing!

So as we can see, sometimes kamma is a little bit more subtle than we think. It’s often perhaps like seeds that we carry with us, which activate and germinate only once we put other conditions in place like soil, nutrients, and water.

Don’t tell me, or yourself, or anyone for that matter, that you do not hold bias. You are unenlightened: this means you DO hold bias by definition, it’s subconscious, and you need to investigate it if you want to make progress in the path. And this is not specific to you. It applies to everyone who is unenlightened, including myself.

In the Zen tradition they like to say something along the lines of “even when you think you’ve seen the Buddha, kill the Buddha” - by which they mean we should constantly question our beliefs and understandings of the Dhamma, even when we think we are enlightened.

The parallels of kamma you are giving sound more like a projection of Western cultural conditioning on kamma, than they sound like Dhamma. And what we need to do is align our mind to the Dhamma, not try to fit the Dhamma to our preexisting beliefs.

The Buddha does not speak in terms of color of the skin, or gender, or any type of specific attribute as being good or bad kamma. As a matter of fact he refutes that way of thinking in the Vasettha Sutta.

In AN 197 when asked about kamma, he doesn’t tell Queen Mallika that her bad kamma of the past produced her female rebirth. He tells her that anger produced the result of ugly features, generosity produced wealth, and being without envy made her influential.

Much metta to you! :heartbeat:
You are not a female because of your past bad kamma! Do not tell yourself that, do not believe that. Throw that thought outside of the window :heartpulse:
As Suzuki Roshi said, “You are beautiful just the way you are and you need a little work” :wink: :kissing_heart:

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Hi Ayya! Nice to see you here! Hope you’re doing well. I had heard you were on retreat?

As I spend (too much) time on this forum, I thought I could take a moment here to explain a point of culture: on this forum (generally) only aggressively bad posts get Flagged for moderating. Mild trolling is best simply ignored so it doesn’t become a discussion.

On this forum, not challenging isn’t complicit, it’s a way of starving the trolls and not derailing conversations (similar to what teachers call “planned ignoring” which is often the best response to kids attention-seaking misbehavior). Not saying that’s right it’s just the culture here that it’s always ok to not respond.

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Good to see you here too, Bhante!

Yes, we are in the middle of our 2 month retreat here at Empty Cloud. But this week is my “Monk on Duty” week, where I’m supposed to take care of a few things at the monastery… and as I opened my laptop, this thread appeared in my inbox, and it was way more interesting than taking care of tedious admin stuff :grin: :face_with_hand_over_mouth: :joy: #procrastination

Is the above considered trolling? I’m not usually on forums, so I have no idea about online etiquette… what I do know is that these are very common wrong views expressed in Buddhist circles. I have so many years of being seriously trolled in real-life under my belt! :joy:

Hope you are well and happy in Thailand!

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