The heart recognises only what the eyes can see, and to recognise the whole picture, you have to step back, far back, from what you seek to grasp!
The question is, why can’t people go about their monastic business, showing their inspiring success and, indeed, victory, and showing their virtue, restraint, and wisdom, without denigrating and ridiculing those with whom they disagree and oppose in the bhikkhu sangha, if not even the bhikkhu-sangha at large across Theravada history? And how is it that you can’t celebrate the ordained bhikkhunis of Asian societies without placing them in direct opposition to those who oppose their ordination in their own societies, as if they represent the defeat and overcoming of conservative monks, and with whom those bhikkhunis themselves have to continue to coexist, and to whom their own societies continue to pay the highest respect? Would that not expose those bhikkhunis to much danger and harm rather than protection? Would that not vex those, in both monastic and lay communities, to become either less tolerant, or even more antagonistic to them? Would not that fuel conflict rather than calm it? Does any one here really care about those bhikkhunis, two hundred of them by number in Thailand, I hear, whose precarious existence is unfolding in an environment which you yourselves recognise as intolerably hostile to them? And if you [“you” being a figure of speech, no one in particular] are indeed victorious, successful, happy and contented with what you have accomplished, why can’t you support the bhikkhunis without antagonising those who don’t, especially when this means antagonising the majority of the Theravada tradition in which bhikkhunis seek to be recognised? Which is the deluded barking puppy here, and which is the lion that is ignoring it?!
Indeed, to those whom the Buddha used to call “people of faith”, that is, people of faith specifically in the Triple Gem, the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha, the description of the bhikkhu-sangha as being
would only be afflictive, perhaps even deeply so, and particularly in the occasion when it is being uttered by one who himself dons the monastic robes and receives every requisite from, “people of faith”, and further when the description is being mentioned simply as yet “another reason” to support the cause of bhikkhunis, as if that will be what it takes to resuscitate sangha from the brink of extinction, and revivify it into a healthy existence, “or else let it die and rot”, as if that would be the consequence which a bhikkhuni-less sangha deserves!
The strangest thing is that it is not even true that this is the case: the Theravada tradition as we find it presently in the world, may well be regarded as “flourishing”, and the spread of any sangha in the West testifies par excellence to such flourishing. Well, at least Theravada is doing quite fine! But you don’t get to make this simple straightforward observation by comparing sangha to an abstract concept of justice and correctness that may come about at a certain point in its future, or in world’s future, but only in comparison to other religious communities around the world as they factually exist today, including those which ordain women, and also in comparison to Theravada’s own past, given that it had witnessed episodes of severe decline across its rather long history, including in times when Bhikkhunis were still in existence, and in comparison to which the present moment for Theravada could only be regarded as a miraculous rebirth rather than a near-death experience, as is purported here! And if you think that I am exaggerating, take a swift look on the state of affairs of such religions as Taoism, Manichaeism, Gnosticism, and even Jainism, and myriad other religions which present existence is only frail, and despite of the fact that they were once upon a time vastly influential on a social and even global scale, by the standards of their times.
Is the Theravada tradition perfect? Certainly not! Are there serious challenges facing it? Certainly yes! But any discourse on the identification of those challenges, their prioritisation, and proposing solutions to them, must be founded on sila-samadhi-pañña, if the dialogue and debate on these issues themselves can be regarded as founded in a Buddhist practice and devotion. And though it is perfectly valid for one who does not identify with the Theravada Sangha to use the harshest and cruelest of words in his criticism of it, and to denigrate and degrade those who constitute its supposedly foundering members - it is yet truly astonishing to me to see people who have chosen to ordain in that tradition, and continue to make that choice, yet at the same time give expression to the most severe states of discontent, alienation, and even contempt with regard to it as it actually exists, and as it has existed for long, and further ignore the Buddha’s own pedagogy in their categorical criticisms of the monastic order which he established, and resolve rather to such mundane views and, even ideologies, which are presently indeed wrecking havoc through out the Western world!
Then I will here laud some of the words of friend @dzt, which he bravely utters, out of tune, in the midst of a chorus that has been mostly singing the same tune again and again unto itself. There are many people in this world who are deprived of the generosity and magnanimity of heart with which, to listen, and to understand, and to seek to listen and understand; it is a deprivation of a receptive kind of yearning! For “wrecking havoc” into the Vinaya which has been upholding the Theravada tradition has been the fear of those who have opposed any official reestablishment of the bhikkhuni order; the integrity of such Vinaya being precisely that which allowed for the official ordination of those monks who now seek to transcend or modify it, without being able to address the possible serious negative ramifications of such modification on the bhikkhu sangha at large, in its original Asian home. I myself have likewise failed too, in demonstrating with any degree of confidence that no such negative ramifications may indeed ensue. But I have recognised my failure and didn’t blame the listener for it, and whether I now agree or not with either those who support or oppose bhikkhuni ordination, I am not so dumb and deaf as to disregard the concerns of those with whom I disagree, and at least I try to listen to and understand both sides, with equal attention and sympathy, even when what is being said does not immediately, or at all, blend with the frequencies of what I personally might find likeable or desirable.
It’s quite understandable when a layperson fails to grasp the traditional high station of Vinaya in official Theravada life, or to understand anything about Theravada monastic life at all, but I do take issue when a monk reinforces the misunderstanding rather than reduces it. With respect to the debate on bhikkhuni ordination, it’s all about the Vinaya, this is the argument and here is the knot: the Vinaya! Any other talk about hating renunciate women, or fearing their rise into officialdom, only deflects from the main argument and the one knot, and bears the marks of the mundane agony that is presently taking place in the West, and which is indeed wreaking the havoc in Western societies as we speak, far from Asian culture and history, unique and different as they are comparing to Western ones, and in the midst of which the Theravada tradition was preserved and evolved!
Friend @dzt is correct, and there is no religious reform in all human history, not only that which was conceived as progressive, but equally those which were fundamentalist, which did not exercise a degree or another of destruction, if not even total collapse, on those religious structures which existed before them, and in reaction to which they were developed. But instead of reasoning with these concerns, and listening, and understanding, not only their rationale but also the possible emotions which arise along with them - those who are driven by yearnings that are neither receptive, nor self-reflective, at least ignore them, and at worst ridicule and denigrate them, and instead of being able to identify and sympathise at least with the worry and concern for the future of Sangha which their opponents repeatedly mention as the foundation from which they make their evaluations and come to their conclusions, the protagonists of social justice will themselves commit the gross injustice of liberally depicting those who disagree with them as bigots whose arguments are driven by nothing beyond hate for women and greed for power, and will remain silent in relation to, if not even celebrate such blatantly sexist remarks as this:
And meanwhile other urgent challenges loom in the horizon of Theravada still, facing Buddhist men and women alike, including the mounting inter-religious strife, and the challenges facing Buddhist practitioners in their ability to pursue with actual, substantial Dhamma practice and renunciate experience, in a world that is becoming increasingly and continually buzzing with various forms of enticing excitements and stimulations. For in the final analysis, Sangha is itself a mundane phenomenon, a phenomenon of the world, and a true practitioner who is devoted to the teachings, will know that even here, he should wear the gloves, the gloves of dispassion and self-regulation, before attempting to handle the mess! And though Sangha may now have various different functions in the various Asian societies in which it thrives, the ultimate bliss associated with it is that it has been indeed a medium through which the teachings of the Buddha were preserved, and not just as text, but as a lived experience, and the very gate through which many have found their way to the other transcendental shore, nibbana, where we can at last become free from the world, never to return to it.
I agree however that, perhaps indeed the hour for any meaningful dialogue or debate is now late, perhaps I have been a fool to think that it wasn’t so all along, and that one camp was in need for a more spacious space to express itself, than another! Alas! Go ahead and celebrate your victory - though the prize seem to me to be like a poor deer that is in the clutches of a hungry tiger, rather than a lasting bliss that is residing deeply in the deer’s heart and shining forth from its tranquil face!
The heart recognises only what the eyes can see, and to recognise the whole picture, you have got to step back, far back, way back! And then you may indeed find it appropriate to finally turn your back and leave, rather than return to what the eyes used to see.
Good luck!
That’s an actual aspect of reality. Clinging to gender privileges will not change that. It will in fact reduce each one’s chances for liberation even during those rare human lifetimes…