Sorry for being personal in my comment, but I think you should really really practice your Right Speech alongside your comendable struggle for gender equality in the Sangha.
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Sounds great so long as it is not to self-congratulatory. We wouldn’t want to give a false impression. People should be enabled to make up their own minds based on the track record, future prospects and, abject failures. 
I think you might be talking about right-blogging not right-speech?
When I practice ‘right speech’ as a commited Buddhist, I take several variables into consideration. There may be more to it than that which contacts the mind-door via the ear-door (and how we ‘react’ to that)?
In order to understand the Dhamma we need to look ‘below/underneath’ the surface- appearance or, the hedonic-tone of what is being shared?
Naturally, when we ‘hear’ divergent perspectives on something as precious as the Sangha, we may ‘feel’ all sorts of challenging emotions and experience difficult mind-states.
Truthfulness is also an important aspect of right speech - don’t you think? Sometimes complaints are justified, it’s usually pretty easy to recognise when somebody goes out of their way to offend. I have never had much trouble recognising this akusala-intent.
It is also the case that complaint can be used as a rhetorical device to shut-down meaningful Dhamma discussion.
Please allow the moderators to perform their necessary role in making these kinds of observations.
This does not mean that I am not sorry you feel the way you do about what you hear and disagree with - for whatever reason.
Please forgive any offence I may have caused as, in all honesty, this was never my intention. Somehow, we need to learn how to accommodate different perspectives on our shared journey together - without losing our equilibrium.
There is nothing that anyone could say to me that would cause me ‘personal’ offense. That does not mean I don’t get sad about the way people react.
For me, if people are unfortunate enough to behave offensively it remains with them. I refuse to let others control my mind as that leads to many problems - best avoided. 
As well you know, we have had cause to intervene in each of the threads you’ve started of this nature, we’ve repeatedly highlighted to you the exact point that Vstakan has brought up - you ignored us, a lot.
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I have always responded positively to the friendly reminders of moderators and thanked them for their guidance. If the current moderator is concerned about what I have written in this thread please point out where the problem has arisen and I will be happy - as per usual - to do as requested. As I have not received any feedback of this nature and, as I have not intended to do the wrong thing, I have continued to respond in the thread. What else was I meant to do other than to assume everything was Ok - so far so good? I did not accuse anyone of wrong-speech when others were insinuating I was slandering my teacher. How would the moderators respond if I had said as much?
I started a number of threads earlier on in this forum where I received no guidance from moderators and many likes for my effort. However, when there is a topic being discussed when my perspective has differed from the consensus view this situation seems to arise. Is this a coincidence?
I trust all of that seems like a fair and reasonable representation to you. From my point of view, I’d put things very differently, but I’m not going to waste more life getting into a slippery argument with you - as far as I can tell, mostly what you want to do here is argue (I can’t say how glad I would be to be shown wrong in this) and you strike me as being very good at it. On the more happy side, I also understand you’re very good at crocheting, too. 
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Dear Aminah, it is not that I like arguing it’s just the case that I have a different take on many topics that we all care about. There is no offence intended!
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I fully trust your good intentions, but maybe it’s worth seriously considering the various communication styles available for exploring of those differences is in a constructive, respectful tone that will likely lead to mutual benefit and mutual growth in understanding.
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Dear Aminah, I do try and if I was a master communicator like the Buddha then I would be better equipped to deal with the many and varied mittas who find my views disagreeable - let alone my communication skills.
Some of what takes place in this dynamic can be explained in a different way. All I am able to do is explain my perspective as best I can and then, respond to the barrage of objections one by one.
Even if I was a Sunday-school teacher, the cumulative effect of repeated objections to my perspectives - that often differ from the consensus view - will lead to a situation where my dialogue partners may start to get irritated.
Some of the mittas in this process simply disagree and others strongly disagree. And this is the general pattern that unfolds when it comes to this form of communication.
I am not saying I don’t contribute to the tensions as they develop but I am not the only one engaged in the process.
As an experiment, you could adopt an unpopular position on a topic we all have an interest in and, do your level best to effectively explain and justify your position and find out what happens?
Occasional passing comments are easier to negotiate but explaining an entirely different position on a topic in the face of many and varied objections is a bit more challenging - IMO.
Hi Michael,
I like Ajahn Brahm too. He’s great. I first met him when I was working at the Buddhist Society in London some 10 – 15 years ago. I was and I remain very impressed with the man. Since then I have met him on around 7 to 10 occasions when he has visited the UK – he used to come to visit his mum in London every year before she died. I have worked on projects for him. Here is a picture of an informal chat that we had when we invited him to the UK for a fund-raising tour in aid of the Anukampa Bhikkhuni Project a couple of years ago (“Never miss an opportunity to promote the ABP Stu!” 
- https://anukampaproject.org/).
In that picture we are talking about the editing of one of his books. I am representing a group of international lay disciples with their concerns that the editing had lost Ajahn’s ‘voice’. Ajahn took on board the concerns from his lay disciples and the editing got changed before publication. Change happens.
Back in 2010 when there was great opposition in the UK from many parts of the Theravada community, I supported Ajahn Brahm by encouraging the Buddhist Society and other UK groups to make sure that there was a platform available in the UK for Ajahn to teach.
I say this just to show you that I have a little more exposure to Ajahn Brahm than just the “jovial speaker that you might see on YouTube talks”, and I have supported his activities for a number of years and wish to continue to support them into the future. I hope this gives some context to my comments.
Agreed. And I’m not asking him to personally manage the behaviours of individual monks at Bodhinyana. That’s not how leadership works. You don’t have to do everything yourself, you set the tone and make it known that certain behaviours are unacceptable. When things go wrong (as seems to be the case here) you supply extra training and monitor the situation. I know this because, in a previous incarnation in this life, I managed a department of around 70 individuals in a large corporation. No way could I personally manage the behaviour of my department, but I could specify what was acceptable and what was not and put in place systems where the team managed themselves.
It sounds like you know me!
These days, now that I’m officially retired, I often work with packs of dogs – all rescue dogs. Now when we get a potential new member who may join the pack, we can test them out. During this period they may display certain aversive behaviours to other dogs in the pack. We have two choices here, we can either say “no” to the new dog joining the pack, or if we see potential, then we can give them a bit of special training so they can start to work with the pack instead of against it. One way we do this is using techniques borrowed from psychology, such as systematic ‘desensitization’ or ‘flooding’. If the dog has aversion to being around other dogs then we might get the dog to walk parallel to another dog, but at quite some distance, feeding them treats for behaving well. Then we can gradually narrow the gap until the dog is behaving in a responsible way towards the other dog. At that point the dog can start to be integrated into the pack and then they really start to enjoy life with a communal sense of purpose.
If a bhikkhu cannot overcome their aversion to being in the presence of a bhikkhuni, then what hope of overcoming greed, hatred and delusion? Let’s help these bhikkhus by giving them some basic training to get them to a stage where they can at least sit at ease with other members of the pack and behave like normal decent human beings. This is all that I’m calling for here Michael. Now I could’ve contacted Ajahn Brahm directly regarding this, but as you state he has a gruelling personal schedule and I don’t wish to add to that. I have publically directed my comments to Ajahn Sujato (who I don’t know except for brief chats online) simply because he is a senior monastic with ties to Bodhinyana engaging with this thread. I’m not expecting anything to happen, because, well, as Ajahn Brahm suggests: samsara is rotten to the core. But I would also love to be pleasantly surprised.
This seems to be suggesting that ‘characters’ are immutable and the rest of us just have to put up with them, or leave the pack (like the bhikkhunis who Ayya Vimala cites as having left robes recently). I do not concede that ‘characters’ are immutable. ‘Characters’ can and do change and we can cultivate a healthy monastic sangha, where the brothers are showing respect to their sisters and not bullying them out of the sangha.
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Stu, I don’t have time at the moment to fully respond (positively) to your comments. Needless to say, it’s wonderful that you have had these opportunities first hand to work with Ajahn Brahm, and anumodana for the good work that you do, and have done.
One great thing about SC…it’s online, but even with these cordial exchanges, we all get to know each other (fr the most part) better and come to an appreciation of others’ practices, personal histories, and personalities. I’m grateful for your kind and very thoughtful response today.
( And, hey! You’re supposed to be sitting on the floor! 
That’s a Thai thing…)
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Yeah! Ajahn let me off because my legs don’t work.
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I understand. We all try our best.
I don’t so much need to do any additional experiment beyond the experiment of my regular life. I have many real positions I feel aren’t especially popular. I try to assess where I might usefully contribute an alternative perspective, where I might best hold my peace and where I might best use a combination of the two.
Mounting a relentless dogged defence of my ideas will pretty much always fall into the ‘not especially skilful’ category. Why:
1a) I recognise the fallibility of my ideas and being too concerned with staunchly defending them does neither me nor anyone else any favours;
1b) I rate listening as the far superior skill than telling;
2) if after a few back-and-forths I get the sense that I’m just trying to assert my views repetitiously I have to conclude I haven’t really connected with whomever I’m talking to in any meaningful way and that I have to review how I’m talking, with (rather than ‘at’) whom I’m talking and the value of continuing talking;
3) I’m relatively at ease with people not agreeing with me on various - sometimes quite important - things and don’t quite feel the attraction/need to go to pains to set out the validity of my views (and if I did, in all honesty, I’d take it as an indicator that my views might be a bit off the mark);
4) The attakavagga is one of my favourite collections of texts;
5) I think there are probably some other reasons, but that will do for now.
Of course, this is just an impression of how I personally look at things, and in the first instance I’m just outlining it show that the experiment you’ve invited me to take part in is based on an assumption I have a fundamental difficulty with: the task of “explain[ing] and justify[ing my] position” is in most situations one I am a bit suspicious of.
Having said all this, I do have real regard for what I understand to be your basic wish, all the more so because it appears to be driven by love for your daughters. My own father wasn’t especially fussed about the concept of fatherhood, so I have quite a clear sense of what a precious, beautiful thing a caring father is and I very much wish you all the best in finding ways to channel your caring energies into something that genuinely brightens the future for your daughters.
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Nope, sorry. Pluralism. If someone other than moderators is pointing out to you that your manner of speech is inappropriate, the sun will still rise tomorrow, won’t it?
It’s not about the Sangha or your divergent opinions, it is about you posting in a passive aggressive and openly aggressive mode as soon as someone expresses an opinion even slightly critical of your own views: you take their words and present them in a highly disparaging and distorted fashion, using connotation-laden words like ‘obfuscating’, ‘for unknown reasons’, ‘having agenda’, etc. When people point this out to you, without even criticizing the content of your primary argument, you don’t seem to be happy with that, which is slightly hypocritical if you ask me. I don’t think that being nice to people is a regressive, reactionary, and un-Buddhist attitude.
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I understand how you see it and I respect your point of view. I guess we have different ways of looking at the issue - in some ways but not all. Thanks for sharing!
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I don’t see how you could have arrived at those conclusions. However, I would like to commend you for your interesting input into the discussion. Keep up the good work! Best wishes, Laurence
Laurence, I have to agree with Vstsken. The position in favor of both reviving the Bhikkhuni order and equalizing the status of Bhikkhunis within the sangha is not unpopular here. I get the impression that a few participants oppose it, but more probably support it. But discussing things with you sometimes feels like being run over by a truckload of passion and zeal. It’s alienating and exhausting, and doesn’t allow for much breathing space for the other participant. It doesn’t change things much if, after the pedestrian is hit by the truck, the truck driver comes over and puts a smiley-face sticker on the victim’s forehead.
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While I am confident that, from your own perspective, this seems like a congenial and friendly remark, other people are likely to respond very differently to it. You just addressed Vstaken as though he were a kindergarten student and you were his teacher.
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If you want to know what was my reaction to it, I’d like to quote my favourite moment in the entire Pali Canon 
:
When this had been said, Upaka, the Naked Ascetic, having said, “It may be (so), your reverence,” having shaken his head, went off taking a different road.
Pi Tv Kd 1
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It gives me sympathetic joy that you and the other Mitta are liking each others input but, we may be drifting away from the topic. Maybe you two should enjoy a few quiet moments together. Is that what they are called? I don’t know how to access that system?