Bhikkhunis - Restoration

[cooran]

Hello all,

This may be of interest to some members:

Seminar on Bhikkuni Ordination for Nuns in the Thai Tradition:

Ajahn Sujato, the Abbot of Santi Monastery, NSW., will be in Perth, Western Australia, on 19th & 20th June 09 for the:
"Bhikkuni Ordination for Nuns in the Thai Tradition" Seminar.

On Friday 19th June, Ajahn Sujato will be at B.S.W.A. Dhammaloka Hall from 7.30 pm - 9.00 pm for a:
"General Talk on the Bhikkuni Ordination"

On Saturday 20th June, he will conduct the seminar from 2pm - 5pm:
Venue: Dhammaloka Hall
Time: 2pm - 3pm
General Introduction (To find out more info. about Bhikkuni)

3pm - 4pm
Meditation Class (continuation of Saturday Meditation class)

4pm - 5pm
Questions & Answers
http://www.bswa.org/modules/news/articl ... toryid=708

metta
Chris

[David N. Snyder]

Thanks. It will be interesting to read the transcript of the talks, if available next month.

[gavesako]

Sara Patton, a student filmaker at the famed Prescott College for Liberal Arts and the Environment, made an historic documentary related to the revival and development of the Theravada Bhikkhuni Sangha East & West - in California. Interviews in the film deal with a series of popular and sometimes controversial questions posed to the interviewees related to:

- differences between bhikkhunis and other forms of Buddhist nuns
- reasons for becoming a bhikkhuni
- differences between the bhikkhu and bhikkhuni discipline in the Vinaya
- the establishment of a bhikkhuni vihara
- responses from the Bhikkhu Sangha
- responses from Thai and Western lay friends and supporters
- how the future appears for the fledgling, newly reborn Theravada Bhikkhuni Sangha

Answered in their own words

The film is now out and posted to the web. Because of the wonderful response to the documentary Sara Patton was selected to be baccalaureate presenter at Prescott...






Rebirth:

A Story of Theravada Bhikkhunis



A Film by Sara Patton

Sponsored by the Center for Peace & Justice




http://www.veoh.com/search/videos/q/bud ... 74x6j9xDCQ





Featuring Interviews with



(in order of first appearance)



(then) Anagarika Suvijjana (now Samaneri)

Ayya Gunasari Bhikkhuni

Phra Chaokhun Vitesdhammakavi (Ajahn Maha Prasert)

Ayya Poonsirivara Bhikkhuni

Ayya Tathaaloka Bhikkhuni

Kim Allen

Sutsinee Kumalarjun

Taumgporn (Peach) Mahakumajivaleul

Chaiwat Pattanapong

Pannee Clark

Vipassana Teacher Ruth Denison

Meryl Landy

Phra Ajahn Maha Somchai

Phra Kru Vorasitthivitey

Phra Kumreon Kumpaeng

&

Darlene Fung

[appicchato]

The link doesn't work (for me)...any chance of an alternate?...

[David N. Snyder]

Hi Bhante Appicchato,

It worked okay for me. Maybe the site was down temporarily when you went to it?

[David N. Snyder]

Hi Bhante Gavesako,

Thanks for posting this. It sounds great! I looked at the 5 minute preview and it looks good! I will check out the full two hours when I get the time.

[phalanyani]

dear Gavesako,
This is worth a separate post.
Thank's for sharing
phalanyani

[phalanyani]

intresting, checking the side again, I received this message instead of access to the videos:

***Veoh is no longer available in THAILAND. If you are not in THAILAND or think you have received this message in error, please go to veoh.com and report the issue.***

is there another way to watch the film?
greetings
phalanyani

[gavesako]

Veoh does not work in several countries (some legal issue I guess). I hope they will put the film on another site soon. Have not seen it myself yet.

[David N. Snyder]

intresting, checking the side again, I received this message instead of access to the videos:
***Veoh is no longer available in THAILAND. If you are not in THAILAND or think you have received this message in error, please go to veoh.com and report the issue.***

Oh no! Sorry to hear that. I hope it is just some issue with Veoh and not because the film is about bhikkhunis!

Hopefully, someone will put that in a different format, such as Google videos or youtube. I will check and see if my son could do that.

[David N. Snyder]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dioF2i4CxdY

I uploaded it. It's only the first part, not the entire thing. YouTube can't handle the whole thing.

[cooran]

Hello all,

This website may be important to those who wish for the complete acceptance and restoration of the Bhikkhuni Sangha. The articles are very interesting.

http://bhikkhunicommittee.googlepages.com/articles

metta
Chris

[MMK23]

Thanks for the updates, Chris.

It really grinds my gears that we can be flexible with the vinaya enough to allow monks to receive money in envelopes and go flying all over the world and have websites and whatnot, but when it comes to gender equality we have to be as strict as possible. Bunkum and shame.

[jcsuperstar]

i had a discussion once with my girlfriend who is thai and with some american girls who live in thailand about gender inequality in thailand and i put forth that part of the problem is that this is an idea that seems to be being thrust onto asian women, as asian women have never really fought for equality the way american women did, and i wonder if some of this isnt a western idea being pushed onto asian minds, do they want the same sort of liberation western women have, or have we made this choice for them and in a sense been just as insensitive to their wants as we say their cultures have been?
maybe they are not yet ready for the fight?

[Fede]

This is nothing to do with women's lib or granting the same kind of equality to Asian women as western women have.
it's about re-instating and maintaining a rightful lineage and tradition of Buddhist nuns.

[mikenz66]

I'm certainly supportive of Bhikkhuni ordination.

However, JC does have a point about the pitfalls involved in trying to figure out the dynamics of other societies, and who exactly is or isn't "liberated". There are clearly serious gender-inequality problems in all countries and, as JC alludes to, women in different countries appear to have different priorities when it comes to addressing them.

Metta
Mike

[jcsuperstar]

This is nothing to do with women's lib or granting the same kind of equality to Asian women as western women have.
it's about re-instating and maintaining a rightful lineage and tradition of Buddhist nuns.

oh but it does as this topic isnt one asian women seem to keen on bringing up, it's mainly one taken up by western monastics and western female buddhists and the main oposistion seems to come from asian monastics. though i have met thai monks who are in suport of the bhikkhuni movement it seems a topic they only discuss with westerners. make all the nuns you want but as long as the western lay buddhists keep not being the main suporters of monastics and asian lay buddhists are, we are pretty much left up to their cultural wants and needs.

[jcsuperstar]

p.s. Ajahn Sujato is pretty awesome in my opinion and i wish i could be there for this.

[David N. Snyder]

This is nothing to do with women's lib or granting the same kind of equality to Asian women as western women have.
it's about re-instating and maintaining a rightful lineage and tradition of Buddhist nuns.

oh but it does as this topic isnt one asian women seem to keen on bringing up, it's mainly one taken up by western monastics and western female buddhists and the main oposistion seems to come from asian monastics. though i have met thai monks who are in suport of the bhikkhuni movement it seems a topic they only discuss with westerners. make all the nuns you want but as long as the western lay buddhists keep not being the main suporters of monastics and asian lay buddhists are, we are pretty much left up to their cultural wants and needs.

Maybe it just appears that Asian women are not bringing it up, but it may have more to do with that they feel they cannot bring it up for fear of being ostracized by family or community. Or maybe they are bringing it up, but there are not enough reports about it.

I know that in Thailand it is virtually impossible to fully ordain as bhikkhuni. Only Dhammananda Bhikkhuni and a few others have done so. The Thai government has allowed her and a few other nuns at her temple, but I heard that they placed a limit (at least for the moment) of no more.

There are currently several hundred fully ordained bhikkhunis and most are Asian, not "Western" born, with the most probably being from Sri Lanka and living in Sri Lanka. But admittedly there is a sizeable percentage (though not majority) that are Western born.

[David N. Snyder]

make all the nuns you want but as long as the western lay buddhists keep not being the main supporters of monastics and asian lay buddhists are, we are pretty much left up to their cultural wants and needs.

This is true. We "Westerners" need to learn to support the bhikkhunis in full and in every way. I visited a bhikkhuni monastery in the San Francisco Bay area and the supporters were American born and the Thai immigrant community. By far, the vast majority of their support came from the Thai immigrant community, including food dana and other forms of dana.

Convert Buddhists are not used to the idea of going to the temple on an almost daily basis for providing food dana and other support. It is something we need to learn to do or possibly make other arrangements.