Public Lecture: Jim Placzek on the Bhikkuni Ordination Issue

Fully Ordained Nuns in Theravada Buddhism

by Jim Placzek – placzek66 [at] gmail.com

There are no fully ordained nuns, or Bhikkhunis, in Theravada Buddhism. Last year, after 35 years in the West, the Theravadin Thai Forest Tradition found that the ordination of nuns had become a flashpoint. The Western monks are willing to adapt, but require consensus with senior conservative monks in Thailand. In the end, the issue of nuns’ ordination may be decided by senior Canadian monks.

When a senior Western monk in Australia, Ajahn Brahm, supported a Bhikkhuni ordination, the issue exploded into a media-fed controversy throughout 2010. Ajahn Brahm was expelled from the lineage, during a meeting of seniors, as he kept the plans secret. Canadian monks attending the meeting advised media restraint, but a Thai monk commented to the press that the lineage should “take back” the property in Australia. The Australian press painted Ajahn Brahm as a victim of “medieval” Thai institutions.

Illustrating the issue’s international reach, any photos or recorded sermons of the excommunicated Ajahn Brahm were duly removed from the tradition’s three Canadian monasteries. Most Western monks are caught in the middle. On one hand, the senior Western monks trained directly in Thailand with the late Ajahn Chah. They became acculturated to Thai monastic life and abandoned deeply-held but ego-laden personal and social convictions. On the other, they accept gender equality, and one recently participated in a nun’s ordination in the United States.

Scripturalism and nationalism may account for rejecting nuns’ ordination. Theravada Buddhism sees the rules for monastics as given by the Buddha, and therefore, as unalterable scripture. The rules emphasize validity of ordination and seniority, making Theravada very “preservative,” as one senior Canadian monk says. Thais also believe that they have never had a nuns’ lineage, and non-Theravada ordination is seen as invalid.  Thus Thai Bhikkhuni ordained elsewhere are not recognized, and the low-prestige mae chii is the only monastic option for women in Thailand.

But the lineage is now international, and the three most senior Western monks, highly respected Canadians. They will play a key role in the adaptation of the lineage to its new context and will seek to maintain transnational consensus – no more excommunications, but no clear answer on nuns’ ordination either.

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Links:

• Opening talk Bhikkuni seminar (Video) by Ajahn Brahm, April 2008.

• The Bhikkuni Controversy, Bhikkhu’s Blog, December 2009.

• Glimmers of a Thai Bhikkhuni Sangha History, Ayya Tathaaloka’s Blog, December 2007.

• The Gathering of Elders, forestsangha.org, December 2009.

• A fuller discussion of this issue is contained in, “Delineating the Edge of Diaspora: A Case Study of Sitavana Birken Forest Monastery.” It was presented at the Buddhism and Diaspora conference hosted by the Tung Lin Kok Yuen Foundation at the University of Toronto, Scarborough, May 14-16, 2010. The paper has been submitted to the editors of Wild Geese for possible future publication in a follow-up volume.