Liberating All Beings from Suffering, Women Included

By KARMA LEKSHE TSOMO MAY 7, 2015

The recent spotlight on sexual violence raises questions about gender injustice internationally, including in Buddhist societies. Some women may be included in meetings, a few may even get on stage, but patterns of male privilege remain strong. Standard policies acknowledged by universities, and NGOs internationally, are largely unknown in Buddhist communities.

Globally, gender equality is the new normal and sexist behavior has become taboo in polite company, but this memo has not reached most of the Buddhist world. Hundreds, even thousands of monks may be seated on stage without a nun in sight. A monk who dares to ordain a nun still risks censure or expulsion. How can a tradition dedicated to relieving suffering ignore the sufferings of women?

Women, with their first-hand experience and insight into the sufferings and indignities of poverty, war, and economic injustice, are key to eradicating social injustice, exploitation, and brutality. Development organizations have repeatedly demonstrated that addressing these problems depends on empowering women and girls.

The question is how can women exert a decisive influence? The challenge is to extend the benefits of gender empowerment to the millions of women in Buddhist societies who are politically, educationally, and economically repressed. Where to begin?

Why are most Buddhists still reluctant to admit that their cherished religious tradition has a gender problem? The patriarchal cast of ancient religions is not surprising. Buddhism was founded in a staunchly male-dominated environment. But that was 2,500 years ago.

What surprises is that so many Buddhists today continue to overlook the gender discrimination hidden in plain sight all around them. This is not only true of Asian Buddhism. North American temples and Dharma centers are also frequently imbalanced, with men at the microphone and women in the kitchen.

In the last decades of the 20th century, Buddhist women around the world gained new visibility as they became more socially active. Some of the most visible were Buddhist nuns in Taiwan, including Bhiksuni Zhengyen and Bhiksuni Chao-hwei, fearless advocates of human rights, women’s rights, and animal rights. An international socially engaged Buddhist women’s movement initiated by Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women is quickly gaining momentum.

Transforming sexist attitudes in Buddhist communities will require a revolution of consciousness, along with charity and meditation.

In 2009, Ajahn Brahm, a British monk, garnered international acclaim when he participated in the full ordination ceremony of four nuns in Australia and was subsequently expelled from the Ajahn Chah Forest Sangha. In 2014, he was invited to present a paper on Vesak Day in Vietnam, but his pre-approved paper on gender equality in Theravada Buddhism was summarily cancelled.

The irony of banning a paper on the empowerment of women at a conference dedicated to the U.N. Millennium Development Goals (#3 being the empowerment of women!) was not lost on the more than 5,000 people from 93 countries who signed a petition to protest the ban. As a consequence, the paper reached a far wider audience than intended.

A gender-balanced Buddhist society can no longer assume that supporting monks is more meritorious than supporting nuns. This ethical formula, shared by hundreds of millions of Buddhists worldwide, has had profoundly unethical religious, economic, and social consequences, including domestic violence and sex trafficking.

Donating alms to monks may be very meaningful and fulfilling for Buddhist women, but consigning women to the role of donor rather than beneficiary of the merit system has created deeply unbalanced societies.

Releasing the energy of hundreds of millions of Buddhist women in creative directions for the good of the world will unleash a powerhouse of human resources. There is nothing in the Buddhist scriptures against such a revolution and much to support it. Notions of gender equality may seem overly idealistic, but compassion is powerful.

Mobilizing hundreds of millions of women equipped with wisdom and awareness will provide a formidable force for global transformation. Buddhists could then go down on the right side of history. A recent announcement that Orgyen Trinley Dorje, the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, is taking steps to restore full ordination for women in the Tibetan tradition next year is an auspicious sign of good things to come.

Resources:

Jones, Charles B. “Modernization and Traditionalism in Buddhist Almsgiving: The Case of the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu-chi Association in Taiwan.” Journal of Global Buddhism 10 (2009): 291-319. http://www.globalbuddhism.org/10/jones09-2.pdf.

Tsomo, Karma Lekshe. “North American Buddhist Women in the International Context.” In Women Practicing Buddhism: American Experiences, edited by Peter N. Gregory and Susanne Mrozik, 15-32. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2007.

Peach, Lucinda Joy. “Buddhism and Human Rights in the Thai Sex Trade.” In Religious Fundamentalisms and the Human Rights of Women, edited by Courtney W. Howland, 215-28. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999.

Dalai Lama, The. “The Dalai Lama on full ordination for women.” Wisdom Blog: Classic & Contemporary Buddhism, February 4, 2015. http://www.wisdompubs.org/blog/201502/dalai-lama-full-ordination-women.

Ekachai, Sanitsuda. “Bhikkhuni don’t belong under clergy.” Bangkok Post, March 4, 2015, Opinion. http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/488322/bhikkhuni-don-t-belong-under-clergy.

Intathep, Lamphai. “SSC ban riles female monks.” Bangkok Post, December 15, 2014, News. http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/449843/ssc-ban-riles-female-monks.

Whitaker, Justin. “Ajahn Brahm’s Gender Equality in Buddhism petition nears 5000 signatures.” Patheos: Hosting the Conversation on Faith, September 29, 2014. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/americanbuddhist/2014/09/ajahn-brahms-gender-equality-in-buddhism-petition-nears-5000-signatures.html.

To read Ajahn Brahm’s banned paper, visit the website of the Buddhist Society of Western Australian Dhammaloka Centre. “Gender Equality paper by Ajahn Brahm.” Dhammaloka.org.au, May 21, 2014. http://www.dhammaloka.org.au/home/item/1684-gender-equality-transcript.html.

Kittelstrom, David. “History in the Making?” Go Beyond Words: Wisdom Publications’ Buddhist Blog, November 3, 2009. https://gobeyondwords.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/history-in-the-making/.

Buddhist Fellowship. “Bangkok Post Interview with Ajahn Brahm: The bhikkhuni question: Re-examining conventional wisdom on the issue of bhikkhunis in the Theravada Buddhist tradition.” October 28, 2009. http://www.buddhistfellowship.org/cms/index.php?/General-News/the-bhikkhuni-question.html.

Mohr, Thea and Jampa Tsedroen, eds. Dignity & Discipline: Reviving Full Ordination for Buddhist Nuns. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2010. http://www.wisdompubs.org/sites/default/files/preview/Dignity-and-Discipline-Preview.pdf.

The Karmapa, Official website of the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa. “Gyalwang Karmapa Makes Historic Announcement on Restoring Nuns’ Ordination.” Kagyuoffice.org, January 24, 2015. http://kagyuoffice.org/gyalwang-karmapa-makes-historic-announcement-on-restoring-nuns-ordination/.

Sakyadhita International Association of Buddhist Women. http://www.sakyadhita.org.

Alliance for Bhikkhunis. http://www.bhikkhuni.net.

Author, Karma Lekshe Tsomo, is Professor of Buddhist Studies in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of San Diego. Her research interests include women in Buddhism, death and dying, Buddhist feminist ethics, Buddhism and bioethics, religion and politics, and Buddhist transnationalism. She is the author of the monographs: Sisters in Solitude: Two Traditions of Buddhist Monastic Ethics for Women (SUNY, 1996) and Into the Jaws of Yama, Lord of Death: Buddhism, Bioethics, and Death (SUNY, 2008). @lekshetsomo

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Published by Martin Marty’s Sightings