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Ajahn Brahm: Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women in Theravada Buddhism
Jason
God EmperorArrakis Moderator
Read this and thought it was worth sharing:
Ajahn Brahm: Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women in Theravada Buddhism
Props to Ajahn Brahm for his continued vocal support of bhikkhuni ordination and gender equality within Theravada Buddhism.
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Comments
I am liking him more and more. But still a bit dubious about his infatuation with jhana bliss...:).
I guess I am a bit of a chauvinist irl but see no reason why that should apply to buddhadharma or my own cultivation.
Thanks.
/Victor
@Victorious, remember to leave that 'bit' behind when you post on here, bud.... ~wink~
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We are not told why; so the assumption is that the delegates decided it was not something they wanted to hear, face or even admit to....?
Would that be right, do you know @Jason?
I think I may @federica. If I might reply before Jason does...
Ajahn Bramavamso is not in good standing with the world wide Theravadin Sangha.
The fact that he ordained Bhikkhunis is widely seen as courageous.
The fact that he did it unilaterally is seen as highly disruptive and counter productive.
One of the results is that the ordinations are not accepted as valid even by parts of the Sangha that supports Bhikkhuni ordination in principle.
NB Not my own views, any argument should be addressed to them.
Thanks for the response.
Things like this leave a sour taste in my mouth.
It's one of the aspects of Catholicism I was uncomfortable with:
'plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose....'
Grrrrr.....
/Victor
EDIT: I totally misunderstood you @federica. But I am going to leave the reply open in any case...na will remove it unless it disrupts the thread.
. (kids are home sick and I am a bit preoccupied thats why I misread you.)
Things like this make ordaining into an institution seem like a waste of time to me.
Sigh... Just another religion.
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I hope they feel better soon. It's hateful when kids are unwell... no probs, @Victorious....
As far as i know the main hang up with the Brahm ordinations was that mahayana bhikkhunis were used. Which imo is a silly argument. The original vinaya rules did not make such distinctions and imo its not a vinaya issue but a cultural and control issue.
Stuff like these sangha councils and government/cultural involvement are the biggest cause of issues like this, and personally i feel more monastics like Brahm are needed who are not afraid to do something like this regardless of what "administrative" monks( ooh agitation occurs whenever i say that word..) say or decree.
Brahm is proud of his "excommunication", and i would be too. The dhamma is my master, not power loving "monks".
I don't know why, to be honest. As Citta has already mentioned, it could be because the organizers didn't want to make any waves within the Thai ecclesiastic hierarchy due to Ajahn Brahm's support of the bhikkhuni ordinations that took place at Bodhinyana Monastery, and his refusal to acknowledge the invalidity of the ordination ceremony at the request of senior Thai monks from Wat Pah Pong. But I really don't know for sure.
As a side note, Ajahn Brahm didn't, technically speaking, 'ordain' the bhikkhunis. The preceptor was Ayya Tathaaloka, and two other bhikkhunis preformed the recitation of the formal act. Ajahn Brahm and Ajahn Sujato were, however, the reciters of the act on the bhikkhus’ side, which essentially confirms the ordination, but doesn't act as the ordination proper. For more info, check out this and this.
The Thai Delegation, led by a senior monk from Chulalongkorn University, vetoed Ajahn Brahm's paper, due to their opposition to any discussion of the bhikkhuni issue.
The Thai delegation was opposed to both ordaining women, and even any discussion on that issue. Because if they actually examine the vinaya, they'll be forced to accept the ordination of women.
How is this still happening?! And in Buddhism!
Ordain anyone who wants to be a monk or nun! Who are we to refuse this?
Heck I'll ordain anyone who wants in !
woah woah lets not go to extremes here lol.
Hmmm. That's in your gift is it ?
Yo bhikkhuni, you are in. Go choose a cushion.
http://lazybuddhadharma.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/online-buddhist-ordination.html
. . . gosh that was easier than I thought . . .
Yours in the dharma
Venerable C S Lobster
@Citta Haha no it was worded with tongue in cheek!
@lobster hahah I do love your posts. Your cushion jokes get me every time!
I think its worth repeating that the reason Ajahn Brahm finds himself isolated is not because he favoured the creation of Bhikkhunis..many other Theravadin teachers are also in favour..
Its because he took unilateral action.
This was seen as breaking the Vinaya just as radically as if he had taken up arms in a good cause.
Or robbed a bank and donated the money to charity.
No... I don't think it has anything to do with the vinaya, more like the controlling governmental Thai sangha structure. When the rule talks about the number of Bhikkhunis and Bhikkhus needed it doesn't say " with the consent of the high council of administrative monks" or " with Bhikkhunis only of the same sect". We are not dealing with vinaya issues, but with governmental issues that should not exist in the first place and have nothing to do with true dhamma vinaya.
I am sorry @Jayantha, but shortly after the Ajahn Brahm 'ordinations' there was a high level meeting emergency meeting of Ajahn Chah' sucessors, including Ajahn Sumedho ( before his retirement ) and Ajahn Brahmavamso was declared to be in breach of the Vinaya.
The Thai governing Sangha was not directly involved.
It was Ajahn Chah's Sangha that expelled him.
Its all a matter of public record.
Things had been building for some time before the ordination issue.
Ajahn Brahm's teaching was seen by many as having departed from orthodoxy in a number of ways.
Some observers concluded that he had used the ordination issue to take the fight to those who opposed him.
I think you're overstating it a bit, Citta. For one, Ajahn Brahm participated with this full consent of his community at Bodhinyana, which is all he needs to preform sanghakamma, formal acts of the sangha within a monastic boundary. Just because Thai elders in Thailand didn't approve doesn't mean his doing so is the Vinaya equivalent of robbing a bank or taking up arms. The Thai monastic hierarchy, with its sangharaja traditionally appointed by the king, is something unique to southeast Asian culture (there's a similar setup in Cambodia, Burma, etc.), not the Vinaya proper. They certainly bucked tradition by jumping on the bhikkhuni bandwagon; but they didn't do anything unallowable per the Vinaya as far as I'm aware (assuming a case can be made for the allowance of bhikkhuni ordination itself, which I think it can). I'm not really a huge fan of Ajahn Brahm, but I think he's in the right here.
I think the reaction of the Thai elders is a secondary issue @Jason.
It was Wat Nong Pah Pong that expelled him. And that ban extends to all Ajahn Chah's monasteries and centres.
The statement put out by them at the time cited his actions as amounting to a rejection of his Patimoksha vows..this is easily confirmable by contacting Ajahn Amaro.
As is the fact that there was growing unease at the direction that some of Ajahn Brahm's teaching was taking quite separately from the ordination issue.
One of the Abbotts of another of Ajahn Chah's monasteries expressed relief that it had come to a head..he said " off the record Brahmavamso had become a royal pain in the backside "..and I quote verbatim.
Yes, the Thai elders of Wat Pah Pong and afflicated monasteries officially 'delisted' Bodhinyana as an affiliate from the so-called 'Ajahn Chah Sangha.' From their point of view, Ajahn Brahm "performed a ceremony knowing it to be considered illegal by the Thai state, illegitimate by the Mahatherasamakom and thus unacceptable to the Wat Pa Phong Sangha."
But again, he didn't do anything unallowable per the Vinaya as far as I'm aware assuming a case can be made for the allowance of bhikkhuni ordination itself, which I think it can. The whole issue is about the perceived illegality of the ordination and his refusal to renounce the confirmation and invalidating their ordination, nothing more.
The Thai elders have taken a conservative stance on this issue, and many consider the 1928 ban on the ordination of women by the then sangharaja as law. And since the Thai monastic sangha is so hierarchical, many of the senior bhikkhus who are in favour of ordaining women are afraid to openly challenge the traditional prohibition even though they're sympathetic to the cause and direct women to the Sri Lankan tradition instead.
However, this ruling by the sangharaja is something exogenous to the Vinaya proper. The Vinaya doesn't give any single bhikkhu this ecclesiastic status. So regardless of the way some monks may feel about Ajahn Brahm, I don't see how he's broken any rules unless you take the position that the bhikkhuni lineage has died out and can't be revived, and his participation in the 2009 ordination is itself a breach, which I don't.
The niceties of the inner workings of the Theravada Sangha is thankfully not high on my list of priorities ..@Jason.
For what its worth my personal ( Vajrayana ) view is that the Bhikkhuni ordination is worthy of respect no less than that of Bhikkhus..
I am reminded of advice Evelyn Waugh was given when he converted to Catholicism..
" If you fear that you may turn out to be a poor sailor, stay away from the engine room"..
" off the record Brahmavamso had become a royal pain in the backside "..and I quote verbatim.
ahahahahha! I love Ajahn Brahm even more now
..
I've also yet to see an actual vinaya reason why Ajahn Brahm did something wrong. I need straight proof, not the whims of administrative monks or tradition.
The sangha in Thailand is setup no different then any government, and questioning them does a heart good, better then blind obedience. I can't believe there are people in Thailand who believe women cannot become awakened when it says right in the suttas by the buddha that they can. I don't trust any of those monks to be honest, as it should be, blind faith is dangerous.
I will agree with you, though, that he acted unilaterally and against the wishes of many Thai elders and the Mahatherasamakom (the Thai Sangha's governing body). I think it would have been better for him and everyone involved to at least have waited until after the planned WAM (i.e., the gathering of Western elders of the Ajahn Chah Sangha) meeting in December to talk about, among other things, the issue of bhikkhuni ordination. It may have been hasty on his part, but I'm not sure that I'd go so far to say that it was a "rejection of his Patimokkha vows."
It certainly seems to have caused pain to some good and sincere people...
And had he waited there might be more Bhikkhunis than is now the case...?
Maybe, but I doubt it. This is only speculation on my part, but left to their own devices, the Thai Sangha and the Western elders would drag this issue out forever, debating finer points of Vinaya and eventually deciding to do nothing because no consensus could be reached (the two nikayas in Thailand can't even agree as a whole to perform sanghakamma together, like just reciting the Patimokkha). I actually think Ajahn Brahm sped up the process by putting it into the forefront, forcing Thai Buddhism to deal with it, as well as the treatment of women in Thai Buddhism in general.
In some ways, I wish it was handled better and less divisively; but ultimately I'm glad that it happened. I think it's time.
Pardon me for being naive, but....
Could 'skilful pressure' not be brought to bear by laypeople in support of Bhikkhuni ordination?
I mean, would a petition or mass mailing not at least have some influence? or am I talking out of the back of my maxiprofundis again....?
Of course; and I think there's already a growing movement of lay-followers trying to do that. But it's a process like anything else. Many lay-followers, for example, are used to deferring to monks when it comes to the finer points of Vinaya, seeing it as an internal matter that lay-followers really have no business weighing in on. At the same time, however, I think they're also becoming more conscious of the important, symbiotic relationship between monastics and the laity, and are willing to push on this issue due to its importance in terms of promoting equality.
Is it such a stretch of the imagination to understand that most probably the ultra-conservative elder Monks of the Thai Sanghas were simply against allowing nuns to attain equal status in their Sangha and reacted thusly? And most probably Ajahn Brahm knew exactly how they were going to react and this was his very public protest?
But...the people who expelled him are mostly liberal western monks...which suggests that its not as simple as that.
I don't know if that's necessarily true. It's not clear what the percentage of elders in the Wat Pah Pong community who voted to delist Bodhiyana were 'liberal Westerners.' The only person named in the transcripts of the meeting besides Ajahn Brahm was the chairman, Ajahn Liem. It's true that the majority of monks present eventually agreed to delist Bodhiyana as an affiliate of WPP per Ajahn Liem's suggestion after no consensus could be reached after three hours of debate; but it isn't clear how many liberal Westerners were present, nor how many of those actually agreed to the delisting at the end via chanting 'sadhu' (a transcript of the event can be found here.)
I know several of the senior western monks and the impression I got was a good deal of sadness concerning the whole episode, but also a sense of the inevitability of the eventual outcome.
I think we can assume that the western monks were giving their feedback before that final meeting..and a number of them had requested that he pause for a while.
I think that there is clear evidence that AB was not flavour of the month with all of his fellow monks. And had not been for some time before all this.
As I indicated at least one of them was convinced that he had been looking for a cause...
Hopefully all this will one day be seen in a more equable light by all involved.
Sounds like the eight worldly winds of samsara praise/blame etc
At the very first meeting of the Elders soon after Buddha's death, the Monk Ananda was put on trial for the sin of convincing Buddha to allow women to be ordained.
None of the many women Arahants were allowed to attend this meeting.
Quite frankly, that entire Sangha over there should be ashamed of themselves. They have people begging to enter the stream, and they deny them their entitlement because the people are the wrong sex? Who are they, to deny anyone the blessing of the full support of the Sangha??
We should be better than that.
But that's just a Western liberal's opinion.
That's not entirely accurate. Ananda was questioned and rebuked by Kassapa re: a number of things that Kassapa found fault with, but he wasn't put on trial. The exchange seems rather odd and pointless; but I think it does serve to illustrate developing tensions between older/conservative and younger/liberal factions of the early sangha. Ananda essentially takes all of the elder Kassapa's shit and, while denying fault in any of the things he's rebuked for, confesses fault anyway based of his faith in the elder Kassapa, which to me illustrates the conservative and downright crotchety attitude of Kassapa while highlighting the more progressive and enlightened attitude of Ananda.
That said, I side with the Anandas of today in this debate; and I agree that the Buddhist community should be better than this and collectively embrace the revival of the bhikkhuni sangha. All the arguments against it are legalistic and petty, in my opinion. I can't imagine the Buddha wanted his monastic community to be dominated solely by men, nor can I imagine that he'd be so uptight about ordination procedures (you know, the whole 'not clinging to rite and rituals' thing) if it meant reviving the other half of the sangha at a time when women are breaking free from centuries of discrimination and now have increasingly more freedom to engage in both worldly and spiritual pursuits.
Jason where is the account of this? I had not heard this story before and I'd like to check it out.
In the Vinaya. See this.
They've recently released an online version on Sutta Central. The relevant section begins on pg 2387 of the pdf, and the conversation with Ananda starts on pg 2392.
[An Arahant on Trial]
(http://www.dharmadana.org/pdfs/11 Chapter 11.pdf)
I'm interested, @Jason in your opinion on whether or not this chapter accurately depicts the sutras?
@jason thanks im currently reading the vinaya by Thannisaro so ill check it out.
Yes and no. While much of the info is correct, I think it portrays the event in a way that's not entirely accurate, presenting a heavier bias against Kassapa than I think is warranted.
For example, it suggests that Ananda was put on trial, but there was really no trial. Kassapa simply criticizes certain things Ananda did or didn't do that Kassapa felt was blameworthy. And this, unlike how the book portrays it, was initiated by Ananda himself.
After being questioned about the Dhamma as Upali was the Vinaya, Ananda mentions that the Buddha told him that the Sangha could abolish the lesser and minor precepts if they wished. But when asked if he inquired as to which were the lesser and minor rules, Ananda says no, which engenders a debate as to what the lesser and minor rules are. Since no agreement can be made, Kassapa presents a resolution to the Sangha that all the rules should stand as they are, to which they consent.
It's here that Kassapa rebukes Ananda for not asking which were the lesser and minor rules, as well for four more things, and asks Ananda to confess his fault. For his part, Ananda says that he sees no fault to each, but confesses fault anyway out of respect. There's no punishment or penalty imposed; and for all we know, Kassapa might not have brought any of this up if Ananda hadn't mentioned the issue with the lesser and minor rules in the first place.
In essence, the book makes it out to be some kind of trial akin to that of Socrates (who's put to death by the Athenian assembly), but I think it's greatly exaggerating the event as it's described.
As I've mentioned before, I think Kassapa deserves much of the criticism he receives for being chauvinistic, overly conservative, legalistic, and somewhat shitty to Ananda at the first council, but I don't think he was quite the power hungry monk he's often made out to be. In addition, I worry that he's often made into a scapegoat to explain away everything in the suttas we don't like, from every 'unenlightened' attitude to every questionable rule. He probably deserves some of the blame, but not all.