Author: Luis Andres Henau
Associated Press
A bhikkhuni prays at the Songdhammakalyani monastery in Nakhon Pathom province. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit)
Born in England, Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo dedicated her life to enlightenment as a woman – at one stage isolated in a cave in the Himalayas, she followed the strict path of the most devout yogis. She later established a nunnery in India focused on offering women in Tibetan Buddhism some of the opportunities reserved for monks.
Venerable Dhammananda gave up her family life and prestigious academic career in Thailand to follow the path of the Buddha. She then traveled to Sri Lanka to become the first nun in Thailand to be fully ordained in one of the oldest forms of Buddhism, Theravada.
Born into a world of disparity, they were a respected group of female monks, or “bhikkhunis,” laypeople and scholars who challenged long-standing patriarchal traditions. In recent decades, they have blazed a trail for Buddhist women—from education to advanced degrees, to building nunneries, to becoming a monk.
Across the branches, however, many at the forefront of the movement say more needs to be done so women can have equal opportunities.
“It’s changing because there’s a lot more interest in women now. Not just in Buddhism, but around the world, why have women been so neglected and ignored for thousands of years?” Palmer said. About 100 nuns live and study at her Dongyu Gatsal Ling Nunnery in India.
Women have been included in Buddhism from the earliest times, and their ordination The ceremony dates back more than 2,500 years. But as monasticism spread from India to other countries, in those patriarchal societies, there were often additional requirements for ordination.
“Complete coordination for women is very difficult,” Simmer-Brown said of some branches. “Although Buddhist teachings always say that women are equally capable of enlightenment, and may even be more suitable for enlightenment than men.”
Over the past 25 years, as Buddhism has grown in the West and Asian Buddhist societies have been influenced by feminism, there has been a growing awareness of the importance of women’s leadership, she said.
In Buddhism, the status of women varies by country and branch following different traditions and customs.
In China, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam, women can be ordained as the equivalent of monks, largely dominated by the Mahayana Buddhist sect. There are no female monks in Tibetan tradition, Cambodia, Laos, or Myanmar.
In Thailand, where more than 90 percent of the population practice Buddhism, women are also barred from becoming monks.
Historically, women could only be the white-robed nuns who were often seen as glorious temple stewards. But dozens of people traveled to Sri Lanka to receive the Ordination.
Dhammananda was a pioneering Thai nun who was a respected Buddhist scholar and TV personality before becoming a monk. One day, she looked in the mirror and heard an inner voice asking, “How long am I going to do this?” She vowed celibacy, decided to live apart from her three sons, and went to Sri Lanka in 2001 to receive her novice ordination.
When she returned to Thailand with a shaved head and a saffron robe designed for men, she was criticized for flouting Buddhism’s male-dominated hierarchy. They would say, “Imagine a woman wearing a robe and she must be crazy,” said Dhammananda, who was fully ordained in 2003.
After 20 years, she said, people on the street are no longer “looking at you with doubts” because Thailand now has more than 280 fully ordained women across the country, although they and their monasteries are not legally recognized, nor are they State funding.
Dhammananda believes that the Buddha established religion as a four-legged stool – monk, nun, layman, and layman. “We are on the right side of history,” she said.
The women lived a simple lifestyle and were bound by 311 commandments, including celibacy. They and hundreds of aspiring people include former Google executives, Harvard graduates, journalists and doctors, as well as country noodle vendors.
Thai Buddhist women have always played a bigger role, said Kritsana Raksachom, a nun and lecturer at Maha Chulalongkorn Rajavidyalaya University in Bangkok. They are increasingly running meditation courses with male and female believers, teaching Buddhism and Pali to monks and novices at public Buddhist universities, and running charities.
In Sri Lanka, after Buddhism was introduced from India, the bhikshuni sangha was established in the 3rd century BC, but later disappeared due to factors such as foreign invasion. It wasn’t until the end of the 80’s and 90’s that the first Sri Lankan nuns in a thousand years received higher ordinances.
Peradeniye Dhammashanti, a nun at the Paramita International Buddhist Meditation Center in Sri Lanka, said that laypeople and bhikkhunis have made significant progress. But she regrets that they still lack adequate education and places to meditate.
Buddhist women in Japan focus on caring for the bereaved, the mentally ill, the elderly and their families, said Paula Arai, a professor of religious studies at Louisiana State University. Male and female monks are of the same rank, and women “have this ‘guts’ because when the tradition was introduced to Japan in the sixth century, women were the first to be fully ordained,” Arai said.
In Tibetan Buddhism, nuns have acquired many privileges historically reserved for monks. These include studying Geshema, the traditional highest and most demanding degree, which has been rejected by them for centuries.
“The balance is changing because now, of course in Tibetan Buddhism, nuns are highly educated and have the same degree as monks,” Palmer said. “They’re also teaching, so their confidence levels have gone up a lot.”
Despite this, she still lamented that in Tibetan tradition, women can only become new nuns, not fully monks.
“They were kind of standing at the door, but they didn’t get in,” Palmer said. “It’s a shame there is such resistance.”
Author and author Michaela Haas praises Tsomo and other women she describes in her book “The Power of the Dakinis: Twelve Extraordinary Women Who Shaped the Spread of Tibetan Buddhism in the West” . But she was disappointed by the lack of progress.
Venerable Thuden Drolung, who first traveled to India in the 1970s to study with the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan Buddhist masters, said she has seen “huge” positive changes in nuns since then.
In 2003, she opened Sravasti Abbey in Washington State, the only monastery in the United States that provides Tibetan Buddhist training to Western monks and nuns.
“I’m training all those who have a sincere drive and want to follow the precepts we have here,” said Choudron, who wrote a book with the Dalai Lama and author of “Buddhism for Beginners.”
