Female monks (bhikkhunis) embarrass Thai Buddhism

Female monks who wanted to pay their respects to the remains of King Bhumibol Adulyadej at the Grand Palace tried to use the passage reserved for monks and were turned away.

Before 2003 there were no female monks in Thailand, it was Chatsumarn Kabilsingh , professor of religion and philosophy who started this movement.

Reviving the community of women monks

This mother of three had her own TV show on a Thai channel where she discussed Buddhism , women and ecology. One day she noticed a void in her life:

“Like every morning, I was putting on my makeup and I thought, 'How long am I going to have to keep doing this? Enough!'”

She decided to fill this void by devoting herself to her Buddhist faith . But in Thailand, the law prohibits the ordination of women.

No matter, Chatsumarn left her native country for Sri Lanka, which, unlike Thailand, has several bikkhunnis ( ordained women in Sanskrit). She was ordained there in 2003.

Dhammananda

Back in Thailand, Chatsumarn – who now calls himself Dhammananda – faces hostile public opinion and a conservative clergy who oppose his status as a nun.

Since then, female monks have been trying to gain acceptance in the country.

Women monks face Thai traditions

On December 9, Dhammananda Bhikkhuni , wanted to pay homage to the remains of King Bhumibol Adulyadej at the grand palace with 71 other bhikkhunis and novices from his monastery in the province of Nakhon Pathom.

But an official guarding the entrance to the palace refused to let them pass through the gate reserved for Thai monks , accusing them of illegal conduct.

And the bhikkhunis had to turn back, because they did not want to use the entrance reserved for lay people.

Bhikkhunis, a growing movement

Currently, about a hundred bhikkhunis live in Thailand, in monasteries in the provinces of Nakhon Pathom, Chiang Mai , Sakhon Nakhon, Yasothorn and Songkhla.

But they are not legally recognized as religious, neither by state authorities nor by the religious hierarchy (the sangha ).

Historically, the Buddha , after much hesitation, allowed women to become nuns on an equal footing with men. In a world steeped in Indian social values, this decision was revolutionary.

Buddhism is in fact the first religion in the world to recognize that women could achieve spiritual enlightenment just as well as men. But the lineage of bhikkhunis appears to have broken down in several countries where Theravada Buddhism spread.

In Thailand, there is no historical evidence of the existence of bhikkhunis.

The first controversy took place in the 1920s. Narin Phasit, a former provincial governor with an unusual personality, had his two daughters ordained by a monk in 1928.

The case caused a scandal, and the Supreme Patriarch himself – the administrative head of the Thai monastic community – ordered that Narin's daughters be forcibly defrocked by the police.

In the same year, the Supreme Patriarch issued a decree prohibiting monks from ordaining women.

Currently, the legal status of bhikkhunis is ambiguous. The sangha continues to invoke the 1928 religious decree, but all constitutions since the abolition of the absolute monarchy in 1932 stipulate that Thai citizens enjoy "full freedom of religion."

Due to the lack of legal recognition, bhikkhunis cannot establish real wats (temples) recognized by the sangha , but simply meditation centers under the aegis of a foundation.

They are also not eligible for state financial support (all temple superiors in Thailand are state-paid), nor are they issued with an identity card specifically intended for religious figures with a photo in religious attire.

These disadvantages have not prevented the ranks of bhikkhunis in Thailand from growing steadily (there were 25 in 2011), nor from being active in helping women in difficulty and propagating the teachings of the Buddha ( dhamma ).

Due to Buddhist discipline (which prohibits physical contact between a woman and a monk and forbids a woman from being alone with a monk), male monks cannot advise and guide lay women on a range of issues – from marital and childcare problems to specifically female problems.

The role of bhikkhunis therefore has a clear social utility. However, many question the doctrinal validity of the resurgence of the order of women monks in Thailand.

In Theravada Buddhism , having an unbroken lineage in the monastic community—each new monk being ordained by a prescribed number of monks of at least ten years' seniority, and this going back centuries—is paramount.

It reflects the long-term transmission of the Buddha's dhamma by the sangha. The lineage seems to have been clearly interrupted for bhikkhunis in Thailand and even in many Theravada countries.

Supporters of the bhikkhunis , however, point out that Dhamananada Bhikkhuni , who revived the order of female monks in Thailand, was ordained in Sri Lanka in 2003 by bhikkhunis who themselves had been ordained in 1998 by female monks from the Theravada order in China.

According to them, the lineage would therefore have been preserved.

Aware that the issue remains very sensitive in Thailand, Dhammananda and his coreligionists are careful not to wage a noisy campaign to demand legal recognition of their status, and they have managed to gain acceptance among the local populations around their monasteries: the villagers offer them food every morning during the offering rounds and come to listen to the sermons.

A petition was also launched several years ago asking the authorities to bhikkhunis in the "other sangha" category, defined by the 1962 monastic law, which already includes Chinese and Vietnamese Mahayana monks (the first "sangha" category including Thai monks).

Source: eglasie.mepasie.org; information.tv5monde.com/ ; Photo by bhikkhunis: newmandala.org ; Dhammananda Photo: Gakuro