Occupy America: Join the 99 percent

(occupythenation.com)

Ordaining nuns in Theravada Buddhism?

Nun Thong Nghi at Van Hanh Temple leads a procession during a celebration of the Buddha's birthday which drew hundreds to the Vietnamese nunnery, the only one in Washington, according to chief nun Giac Huong Le (Erika Schultz/The Seattle Times).

The topic of full ordination for Buddhist women in the oldest living Buddhist tradition (Theravada) remains controversial. Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana) never had such a tradition, although the Dalai Lama supports it. Chinese Buddhism (Mahayana) has nuns who have been able to offer ordination to Theravada and Vajrayana women. On one side is the Sangha's traditional view that it can no longer be allowed. On the other side, Buddhist women and Western monks look more deeply at the issue. Many traditional monks, including foreign elders, now support it. But they do so quietly. Background and Buddhist Nuns

(Harvard Divinity School/Rebecca Esterson)

Interpreting monastic discipline (Vinaya)

American Thai Vinaya expert Ven. Ajahn Thanissaro (Geoffry DeGraff, a prolific Internet writer and Abbot of Wat Metta near San Diego, California) opines on the ordination of nuns (Nov. 13, 2009):

He was sent a copy of the transaction statements used at the recent nuns' ordination ceremony in Australia and asked for his opinion as to their validity.

"After looking them over and rereading the relevant passages in the Canon and commentaries, I would like to focus on one aspect of the statements: the use of a form in which two candidates are mentioned in a single proclamation. This is a detailed technical point, and the discussion will have to be long, so please bear with me.

"First, to establish context: A striking feature of the Canon’s rules for the bhikkhunīs [nuns], when compared with its rules for the bhikkhus [monks], is how sketchy they are. Many procedures are mentioned without a detailed explanation of how they should be done; the Vibhaṅgas, or explanations of the Bhikkhunī Pāṭimokkha rules, omit many discussions that would be par for the course in the Vibhaṅgas for the Bhikkhu Pāṭimokkha rules; the Pāṭimokkha rules that the bhikkhunīs have in common with the bhikkhus are not listed in the Canon; and the narratives surrounding the stage-by- stage development of specific procedures contain large gaps. Thus the traditional approach in filling in these blanks has been to apply the Great Standards (mahāpadesa) given in Mahāvagga VI:

“Bhikkhus, whatever I have not objected to, saying, ‘This is not allowable,’ if it conforms with what is not allowable, if it goes against what is allowable, that is not allowable for you.

“Whatever I have not objected to, saying, ‘This is not allowable,’ if it conforms with what is allowable, if it goes against what is not allowable, that is allowable for you.

“And whatever I have not permitted, saying, ‘This is allowable,’ if it conforms with what is not allowable, if it goes against what is allowable, that is not allowable for you.

“And whatever I have not permitted, saying, ‘This is allowable,’ if it conforms with what is allowable, if it goes against what is not allowable, that is allowable for you.” — Mv.VI.40.1 More

Ten-precept Buddhist novices live as monastics but are not allowed full ordination in Burma and other Theravada Buddhist countries (Roulette404)

Nuns, Invisibility, and the Question of Buddhist Activism
Natalie Wendt (Tikkun.org)
Bhikshuni [full Buddhist nun] ordination is practiced frequently in Taiwan and some other parts of East Asia, but is unavailable in the Tibetan tradition and to most Theravada women.

Though the Tibetan tradition has novice nuns, bhikshuni ordination never reached Tibet, and a movement to introduce it has met with strong resistance from some Tibetan teachers.

[The 14th] Dalai Lama and some other prominent teachers support bhikshuni ordination, but they are a minority. Nuns who want to fully ordain are forced to go outside of the tradition, sometimes without support of their teachers. More

Nuns (center) at Santi Forest Monastery, Buddhist Meditation in Bundanoon, Australia

The nuns of Australia
Santi Forest Monastery is a Buddhist education and meditation residence for monks, nuns, and laypeople. Established by Bhante Sujato in 2003, it is set in the rugged bush ravines of the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, Australia. Santi offers accommodation, teaching, and support for study and practice in the Forest Tradition, with a special emphasis on the earliest teachings of the Buddha that are shared by all Buddhist traditions. Since 2005, the Sangha of Santi has performed ordinations each year and has become internationally recognized for its advocacy of full ordination for Buddhist nuns (bhikkhunis). Information

Where does Bhikkhu Bodhi stand?

The American monk (Sri Lankan-Theravada tradition), super scholar, author, and abbot of Bodhi Monastery (named prior to his arrival) also weighs in. Bhikkhu Bodhi is now in residence at BAUS in Upstate New York.

Letters on the ordination of nuns
The Buddhist Channel, Nov 11, 2009

He wrote to Ajahn Sujato regarding the full ordination of Buddhist "nuns" in Perth, Australia in September 2009. The first letter dated Nov. 3 was a letter of support, but on Nov. 6, Bhikkhu Bodhi issued a retraction. First published at sujato.wordpress.com

(Nov. 3 2009) Dear Ven. Sujato, Thank you for informing me of this event, a report of which I had already stumbled upon quite by accident on the internet last week... Please convey my congratulations to Ajahn Brahm for his courageous decision, and also accept for yourself my appreciation for spearheading this development. Also, if you can do so, please convey my congratulations to the new bhikkhunis, especially Ajahn Vayama, an old Dhamma friend from my Sri Lankan days. More

The Revival of Bhikkhuni Ordination in the Theravada Tradition (Bhikkhu Bodhi, 2007)

Full Buddhist nuns in California
Wisdom Quarterly 2010
Fortunately, through the bravery of elder Theravada Buddhist monks living in America (such as Bhante Gunaratana of West Virginia and Ven. Piyananda of Los Angeles, and Bhikkhu Bodhi of New York), it is possible for a woman to gain full admission into the Buddhist Monastic Order as a bhikkhuni (Theravada nun), not simply a novice.

• Women in Buddhism (Buddhanet.net)
• American, European nuns ordained in Taiwan
• Tibetan nun's ordination at Tushita Meditation Centre
  
• Thubten Chodron: Nuns in Tibetan Buddhism
  
• Thai monks oppose Western Australia nun ordination
  Back in October 2009 the Buddhist Society of Western Australia (BSWA) had sent a letter of support to the recently ordained nuns of Dhammasara Monastery. On Dec. 22nd an article about the controversy around this matter appeared in The West and on Dec. 30th 2009 a sector of the Thai clergy in Bangkok made an audacious claim on the sovereignty, property, and affairs of the BSWA.
• Ajahn Brahm expelled for ordaining nuns in Australia
• [Ajahn Chah's] Wat Pah Pong Temple official expulsion
• First bhikkhuni ordination in Australia (Facebook)
• Sakyadhita 2011 Int'l Conference on Women (Ven. Sujato)

Tibetan nuns and monks surrounding the 14th Dalai Lama (tushita.info)

Gay Marriage, Pandakas, and Kinnars

Wisdom Quarterly (ANALYSIS)

Philadelphia woman flies the gay-pride rainbow flag at a Washington, D.C., march for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender rights in 2000. Created in San Francisco in 1978, the flag grew in popularity after the murder of Harvey Milk (time.com).

How we as Americans will handle the ancient experience of having a third or mixed gender in society will show the world. But we have much to learn. There is nothing new about it. While there are many stories of how odd self expression is ostracized, stories of their acceptance and integration are buried.

On this ancient land, the indigenous people had a tradition called the berdache. Males who felt like women trapped in a female body (or presumably vice versa) were adopted into the female role and married off to a male. That male was not regarded as gay or a berdache for marrying a man because that biological male was now socially accepted as a female in the tribe.

Much to our Puritanical consternation as Westerners and some deep gender bias, which may be biologically-rooted or completely socially-constructed, this offends us. Gender-bending is unsettling enough if we ourselves are not bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, or questioning. But role reversal and flipping categories contrary to our birth-nature can be shocking.

In Buddhism as in Western science, gender may be fluid but biological sex is fixed. Long before the language of DNA and XX/XY chromosomes, Buddhist psychology understood that derived materiality had a sex/gender component. There is an element that determines one's biological sex at conception.

Apparently, due to karma, many things can cross wires after that. In gestation, before birth, hormones may not trigger sex stereotypical features, impulses, or reflexes. Men in India who displayed aberrant tendencies (cross-dressing, non-normative role displays, transsexuality) were labelled pandakas ("perverts," "eunuchs," "odd fellows"). We misunderstand this to mean our definition of "homosexual." But neither then nor now does this characterization fit.

It's not about homosexual, bisexual, or pansexual desires. It's about not feeling right. Rather than accepting our karmic inheritance -- which may seem very unfair (and who regards results of past actions as "fair" in subsequent lives?) -- we struggle against it. It often makes us miserable and society, being discomfited, can be very antagonistic.

The solution is not that everyone be bisexual. It is enough that people be accepting. No one needs to be gay, but it seems we do need to be fair and kind to one another. Is reserving marriage for some and not others "fair" or "kind"?

Gays (however we wish to define it, from LGBTQ to "freaks and weirdos") have been gay no matter what society has done to them. And the aberrant behavior, drug addiction, and acting out seem to be more a reaction to poor and unfair treatment forcing secrecy than anything inherent in gender-malleable expressions.

Molestation is post-conception. It can confuse many things -- sexuality, gender roles, rage, codependency, PTSD, and so on. Molestation and nonsexual childhood trauma is the great secret of our Puritanical culture from Europe to England to America. There is a taboo to ever talk about it or its lasting aftereffects. If it expresses itself as gender-aberrant behavior, it is squashed and secreted away as indicative of the unspeakable (molestation).

Although it seems that there is much more sexual molestation going on now than in the past (within families, not by strangers), it must not have been uncommon in the past. It often leads to promiscuity, shutting down, suicide, and flamboyant parades and displays.

Kinnar (pandakas) protesting for civil rights, Islamabad (wikipedia.org)

Pandakas in India

What does Buddhism have to teach us? The Buddha was not against gays. While they were not allowed to become monastics, which entails celibacy, there was no reason in the world they could not become Buddhists or members of the real Sangha. (The "real"community is the Noble Sangha, those who have entered upon the stages of enlightenment even as lay followers).

Murderers (Angulimala), vain and sexually promiscuous individuals (various ancient noble nuns come to mind, such as one of the Buddha's chief disciples, Ven. Uppalavanna), lepers (Suppabuddha), slaves and outcasts, prostitutes (Ambapali) -- the Path is open to all, and everyone is capable of attaining something unless so serious a karma absolutely frustrates their attainment. But even so, anyone is able to make a great deal of merit by practicing.

What Buddhist Psychology (Abhidharma or "Higher Teachings") has to say about the determination of biological sex -- or sexual dimorphism as a quality of the material particles that make up the body -- is fascinating but probably boring. It is explained as a characteristic of "derived materiality."

An examination of it needs more expert guidance than studying biology. It is on par with particle physics. The only living expert we are aware of, and with whom we have discussed these issues, is Ven. Pa Auk Sayadaw. But he is far more interested in leading meditators to see it directly for themselves than to speak of it in abstract or hypothetical terms. So if one seeks him out, be prepared to practice virtue, sit, attain absorption, and be ready to practice insight-meditation -- in that order.

His teaching students -- Sayalay (Ayya) Susila (Malaysia), Ven. Dhammadipa (Czechoslovakia), Tina Rasmussen and Stephen Snyder (California), Shaila Catherine (California) -- might respond to inquiries regarding. But they, too, are certain to prefer speaking to sincere spiritual seekers rather than theoreticians and speculators.

There were pandakas ("pansexuals," "perverts") in the past. There are pandakas today. The sexism that existed before the Buddha and reasserted itself in the male-dominated Sangha (who subordinated Buddhist nuns after the Buddha's passing but early enough to have made it seem as if the Buddha was on board and actually started that subordination by setting up extra rules, garudhammas, for bhikkhunis).

This gives Buddhism a black eye it does not deserve. Originally, the Dharma was not sexist. It was radically progressive in India. But the backdrop of oppression was not overcome. Males and females were segregated, and this segregation intensified in the Buddha's two Monastic Orders (male and female). Pandakas were not allowed because the goal of monasticism is to overcome sensual craving. And the promiscuity pandakas are infamous for meant people would not believe they could contain their impulses even to a normative human degree, which is hard enough.

Not only pandakas, many groups are not allowed to become fully ordained monastics in Buddhism. For example, certain diseases prevent one, even harmless and non-transmissible ones like vitiligo. So Michael Jackson would not have been able to become a fully ordained Buddhist monk -- even if his other aberrant behaviors (with drugs, with children, with flamboyant displays) would not have prevented him.

Wisdom Quarterly was talking to someone in India -- thanks to US corporations making so much use of customer care call centers. The operator had never heard the word "pandaka" and had no idea there was an annual Pandaka Parade in India. That is, until a description of this word was given. Then, perfectly familiar with that, yelled out, "Oh, you mean kinnar!"

Kinnar, as in kinnaras (garudas), the mysterious avian-hybrids of Indian mythology incorporated into Buddhist cosmology. Griffins, angels, serpent-hating-eagles, beautiful bird headed people capable of flight (in massive garuda aircraft).

The kinnar are of India and South Asia (hijra) are the kathoey of Buddhist Thailand.

Flighty "Fairies"

Wisdom Quarterly edit of Kinnar

In the culture of South Asia, hijras (in Islam a word related to flight and migration, Hindi: हिजड़ा, chakka in Kannada, khusra in Punjabi, kojja in Telugu are physiological males who have feminine gender identity, women's clothing, and adopt other feminine gender roles.

Hijras have a long recorded history in the Indian subcontinent, which was formerly Buddhist and now has a massive Muslim population (of over 100 million) from the Mughal Empire period onwards. This history features a number of well-known roles within subcontinental cultures, part gender-liminal, part spiritual, and part survival.

In South Asia, many hijras live in well-defined, organized, all-hijra communities, led by a guru or chief.[1][2] These communities have sustained themselves over generations by "adopting" young boys who are rejected by or who flee their family of origin (due to molestation, abuse, or rejection).[3] Many work as prostitutes for survival.[4]

The word hijra is Urdu, derived from the Arabic root hjr, has the sense of flying away, migrating, or "leaving one's tribe"[5]. It has been borrowed into Hindi, the dominant language of India.

The Indian usage has traditionally been translated into English as "eunuch" or "hermaphrodite," where "the irregularity of the male genitalia is central to the definition."[6] However, in general hijras are born with typically male physiology, only a few having been born with male intersex variations.[7]

Historically, ceremonial initiation into the hijra community is rumored to have involved removal of a boy's penis, testicles, and scrotum, without anesthetic, at or around puberty. However, according to the Mumbai (Bombay) health organization The Humsafar Trust, only eight percent of hijra visiting their clinic are nirwaan (castrated).

Since the late 20th century, some hijra activists and Western non-government organizations (NGOs) have been lobbying for official recognition of the hijra as a kind of "third sex" or "third gender," which is neither man nor woman.[8]

• Wikipedia: "Third Gender"

The Buddha was enlightened, not sexist

Ven. Anālayo Bhikkhu (Buddhist monk) in a letter to the nun Ayya Tathāloka

(Isharak) In the fifth year after his enlightenment, the Buddha spent the rainy season in Kutagarasala. It is the abbey where he most frequently stayed while visiting the great city of Vaishali. It was here that his stepmother, Mahapajapati Gotami, was ordained as the first Buddhist nun, creating the Bhikkhuni Sangha. (To visit: 1upindia.com)

Gender Discrimination and the Pali Canon

...In the case of the attitude towards women, we find contradictory positions and thus a lack of consistency in the Pāli canon [the oldest extant redaction of the Buddha's teachings].

One example is the account of the founding of the Order of Nuns.⁴ According to the "Great Final Nirvana Discourse" (Mahāparinibbāna Sutta), soon after his awakening the Buddha proclaimed that he would not pass away until he had nun disciples who are wise and learned.⁵

From this it would follow that right from the outset he wanted and intended to have an Order of Nuns. This impression is further supported by a closer perusal of the Pāli canon, which shows recurrent references to the importance of having four assemblies of disciples (monks and nuns and male and female lay followers) and to the significant contribution made by nuns to the prosperity and success of the Buddha's dispensation.

These passages stand in contrast to the impression created by the account of the foundation of the Order of Nuns, which reads as if the Buddha did not want to allow women to go forth.⁶

A comparative study of this account in the different collections of Disciplinary Rules (Vinayas), mainly extant in Chinese, shows clear signs of later additions and thus makes it probable that it does not accurately reflect the Buddha's attitude.

Another example would be a pair of discourses in the Collection of Numerical Discourses (Aṅguttara-nikāya) that compare women to black snakes -- as both are dirty, smelly, and betray friends, and so on.⁷

Would it be reasonable and coherent for an awakened teacher to make such derogatory remarks about women?

That enlightened teacher, according to other discourses, had nun-disciples that had reached full awakening and thus total freedom from any defilement,⁸ who according to the same discourse collection proclaimed various nuns and lay women as outstanding in qualities like deep concentration and profound wisdom,⁹ and who apparently placed such trust in women that he (in a twin monastic regulation found in all Vinayas) sanctioned acting on a trustworthy laywoman's report about a monk's breach of the rules?¹⁰

The comparison of women to snakes recurs in two parallel versions -- one in the Tibetan Vinaya, where a similar remark is headed by the qualification "some" (i.e., "some women are..."¹¹) and another in a late text in Uighur [a language in China], where this remark is not made by the Buddha, but rather by some Sakyan youths.¹² More plus footnotes

• The first all Sri Lankan nun's great almsgiving
• Buddhist nuns of Burma (allmyanmar.com)

Karma: The Royal Wedding Dress (photos)

Wisdom Quarterly

How better to make a splash than to employ a little shock value? It would not be the first time, as Kate's see through college dress (right) shows. Her official selection was see through but longer than expected:

The most photographed woman on Earth, the beautiful Princess Kate Middleton (not to be her official title due to House of Windsor technicalities), has to surprise the world. And what better way than following on the heels of her last runway modeling adventure? We predict that she will be showing off her youthful form. Not since Jackie O's , Jennifer Aniston's hair, or Princess Diana's dress has there been this much made of a fairytale wedding.

But "commoner" Catherine Middleton's story is better because she is descended from coal miners and her prince, combat-ready William, is second in line for the throne. He could actually become monarch of one of the world's great super powers. It is not the US alone but the Old World banking interests (along with Germany) that rule the world by proxy. Weddings are wonderful! Marriages, not so much. Kate Middleton will be the epitome of a British Berketex bride:

British pro-feminist punk mavericks, Crass, perform "Berketex Bribe"

PHOTOS: 1. Sexy, see through wedding dress (fashion-gallery blog); 2&6. Kate's St. Andrew's University fashion show see through dress used to first attract Prince William Spencer (celebritynewsandstyle.com & shinystyle.tv); 3. first view of the partially see through wedding dress by Sarah Burton for Alexander (SkyNews/telegraph.co.uk); 4. new wedding dress options (artndesigns.org); 5. sexy wedding dress (wedding-beginning.com); 7. Prince William and Catherine Middleton (AP); 8. "Love at first sight" (Lin Pernille); 9. official photograph of the wedding dress (telegraph.co.uk); 10. "Heartbreak" (sivgal.blogspot.com).

• Watch the Royal Wedding live on YouTube
  

Why Kate, Why Not Me?

Karma distinguishes beings -- high and low, beautiful and homely, rich and poor, smart and slow, long-lived and short-lived, coupled and alone, and so on.

In the "Smaller Exposition on Karma Discourse" (Culakammavibhanga Sutta), the Buddha states the following:

"Beings are the owners of their karma [their store of intentional deeds, whether physical or verbal or mental, both those ripening in happiness or suffering], heirs of their karma. They originate from their karma, are bound to their karma, have their karma as their guide."

The Buddha urged disciples to tear down the forest of defilements -- states and traits within the categories greed, hatred, and delusion -- the roots of all suffering. In their place, he encouraged them to cultivate such habits as generosity, compassion, and wisdom.

We reap what we sow: Karma
When we experience the fruits and results (states and circumstances) of seeds (actions) we planted, it is because what we planted is finally coming to fruition. Actions ripen opportunistically -- as soon as they meet the right causes and conditions, even tens of thousands of years later.

Without them as the basis, good things do not arise for us. When that good is exhausted, as it inevitably must be, pleasant and welcome circumstances fall away.

"Love at first sight" is no accident but the result of karma (Lin Pernille/Flickr.com).

Good karma is easy to accept, and we have no trouble accepting credit even if we do not remember what we did to deserve our good fortune (because it is usually not done in this life).

It is far more amazing and difficult to believe, but when a thief and criminal enjoys ill-gotten gains, it is only because of former good karma.

"Crime does not pay" because when this bad karma ripens, it will ripen in suffering. It is not ripening immediately. The good one is experiencing is not due to stealing!

It is impossible that it should be otherwise: All the good one is experiencing is being experienced due to good karma. All that we are doing is our present karma, the results of which will be experienced later.

(This clarifies the apparent contradiction that crime does obviously pay since criminals sometimes go a long time without meeting with the negative repercussions of their choices. It is only an apparent contradiction. In reality, good results in what is welcome and pleasant, bad in what is unwelcome and difficult to bear).

Understanding this, beings are wise to engage again and again in meritorious deeds (good karma, any actions motivated by nongreed, nonhatred, and/or nondelusion). It is not every world that one has the opportunity to make good karma -- whether by negligence in superior worlds of pleasure or preoccupation with pain in inferior worlds.

Like attracts like: Good begets good, and bad begets bad. "Good" and "bad" are very unfortunate translations since we have an aversion to oversimplifications. Skillful, wholesome, profitable are all translations for kusala, the opposite being akusala.

These actions are not "rewarded" and "punished" as such; they follow an impersonal law of attraction. They rarely ripen immediately but are able to lay dormant for aeons. Therefore, one should not judge another as "good" or "bad" based on circumstances. For we all have seeds of good and bad, and any ripening is burning that karma off (exhausting the good and lightening our load of bad). The potential we have is incredible. The opportunity we have to do good now, to plant seeds now, to make the most of what we have is even more incredible.

That one should become a queen is not unusual. It would not be possible if she did not deserve it. Envying her or being jealous is demeritorious karma for us. Rejoicing in her good fortune, the ripening of former well done deeds, profitable and ripening in pleasure, is good karma for us now. Sovereignty in the human world is not a very high thing relative to other possibilities: it is short-lived, often mixed with strife, and uncertain.

That same good karma could have ripened in superior worlds where it would last longer, be purer, and be more stable. It is, to give a simile, like being beautiful only in elementary school as opposed to blossoming in high school. We would all wish to be beautiful everywhere at all times for all the benefits it brings, but life becomes more important and significant. For all the good it does Kate Middleton to become a real life princess (actually Duchess of Cambridge), how much better might her good karma have ripened later on?

We do not want to wait, desiring immediate gratification. But waiting would often benefit us, whereas rushing soon leaves us disappointed, unfulfilled, and un-actualized.

Will I Ever Find My Prince/Princess?
An elderly couple once came to the Buddha. They expressed their love for one another, having been promised in marriage to each other from a young age.

Their wish was to meet again, to be reborn together, to be a couple again. The Buddha told them how they could accomplish this and thereby become "twin flames" or "soul mates" in a future life:

The "ideal couple," as they were called, once came to the Buddha and said, "Venerable sir, we married after being acquainted from childhood, and there has never been a cloud on our happiness. Please tell us if we can be married in the next life?"

The Buddha answered, "If you both have exactly the same faith, both receive the same teaching [regarding morality] in exactly the same way, and if you have the same wisdom, then you will have the same mind in the next birth."

Whether or not all of this is done, those bonded by the karma of love and hate (attachment and aversion), will meet again as they have met many times. The business started now is not finished now but rises like flames out of embers again and again. Far wiser is it to let go, forgive, and abandon these habits unless we wish to again meet one another with an instant attraction or animosity.

• A Buddhist Bible (hinduwebsite.com)