Sunday, November 27, 2011
Jain and Buddhist traditions
Now, to really understand the female ordination issue, one may consider the long history of the Jains (there are about 3 million Jains in the world mostly around Gujerat, India) whose founder was Mahavaira who was a contemporary of Siddhartha Gautama who is the historical Buddha. In ancient times the Jains split into two sects; the Svetasambra (white sheet clad) and the Digambra (sky-clad... i.e. bare naked). The Digambra are far more strict, conservative whereas the Svetasambra are liberal. Among the Digambra only MALES may become ascetic monks. Females must wait until they are reincarnated as a male (no I am NOT joking). The Svetasambra do allow female renunciates (nuns if you will.) Now lets look at Siddhartha Gautama. He starts off as a wealthy prince living a privileged life of luxury. He abandons the luxury and begins to practice every known religious teaching moving from guru to guru and sect to sect. Finally he is at the point of starvation when he sees a boat pass by on the river and hears the master musician instruct the apprentice who is stringing an instrument "Do not make it too tight or it will snap BUT do not make it too slack or it will not sound its note." From this Siddhartha realized that "the middle way was best" ... then he experienced enlightenment... then I went about preaching far and wide but ordained ONLY MALES to his religious order. After some years one woman complained and so he founded an order for women. BUT, there was no role for the married laity other than to give alms of food. As the centuries passed there was a schism between the way of the elders, the Theravadin, and the Mahayana or Great Vehicle. To this day there are orders of women whose ordination (sampradaya) lineage traces back to Siddhartha. At a certain point in history, all the Theravadin convents were destroyed. Theravadin women continued to practice renunciate life in viharas (convents) BUT they could never take ordination BECAUSE the lineage had been disrupted. During the 19th or 20th century one Mahayana order of nuns with a valid lineage offered to ordain the Theravadin women and let them continue in their Theravadin practices and beliefs but the Theravadin women declined because they felt the Mahayana lineage was too tainted. I know some LGBT people who gravitate to Buddhism because they do not perceive any negative criticisms of same sex love in Buddhist teachings. What they fail to realize is that the origins of Hindu and Buddhist religious practice ASSUMED ascetic renunciation and so no mention is made about sexuality. Only gradually over the centuries was some practice carved out for the participation of laity.
