Ven Dr. Yifa’s
Response to the Bhikkhuni
Ordination at Perth
Thirty years ago, I visited a Buddhist
monastery for the first time in my life. Two weeks later, I decided
to shave my head and become a nun. At the time, I was a student at
the law school of National Taiwan University, and wanted to be a
lawyer or even a politician. I had felt, since I was a child, great
sympathy toward the suppressed classes in society and was attracted
to fairness and justice. These have been the guiding values in my
life.
The monastery I visited is called Buddha Light
Mountain (Fo Guang Shan). Three decades ago, most of Fo Guang
Shan’s members were women and most of them were young, in their
twenties and thirties, and with a college education. The whole
community was very dynamic and energetic, full of hope and life.
The founder of the order, Venerable Master Hsing Yun, called for
young and educated people to join the Sangha. During those two
weeks, I myself had a personal transformation, and changed my path
as a lawyer into that of a monastic.
I was very dedicated to learning
and practicing the precepts (the Vinaya). One day, we
students were invited by a devotee to stay in a hotel, where the
bed in the room was high-up and large. One of the ten precepts is
to restrain oneself from sleeping on such a bed. I asked the
Venerable Master what I should do. “You need be able to sleep on
either the small one or the big one,” he said. “Both are fine.”
That was a wonderful lesson, because the reason I came to Buddhism
was to look for liberation and not bondage, for the ultimate truth,
and not just rules—and some rules in the Vinaya seemed to be
unfair, especially the many ones for women.
Later, Venerable Master Hsing Yun
encouraged me to go to abroad for my advanced education. With his
support and Fo Guang Shan’s sponsorship, I finished a Master’s
degree in philosophy from Hawaii University and the Ph.D. in
Religion from Yale within eight years. For my dissertation, I
decided to study the Vinaya and the monastic codes of India and
China. When I finished my dissertation, I cried out, “Gotama! This
old man was so wise and kind.” I felt this to be so, because the
Buddha left so much flexibility with the rules, so there were
exceptions to particular rules whenever they created inconvenience
in the Sangha.
The Buddha set up the rules after he attained
enlightenment, and then proclaimed one after another; but he also
responded to the thoughts of the benefactors of monks and nuns, and
modified the rules he initiated. He was so wise, because as he kept
reminding monastics to adapt to local customs, something that is
repeated in the Vinaya texts again and again.
The Buddha’s most precious teaching concerned “causes and
conditions.” Every day, I am aware that the temporal and special
conditions where I live are different. The Internet, media, and
transportation have reshaped the world and the younger generation
is different from my time. As the Buddha taught, the world is
changing.
It is hard for us to imagine today that a
spiritual institution such as the Church initiated the Christian
Inquisition beyond; it’s hard to believe now that
suicide bombers carry out their
brutality in the name of religion. Buddhism has been viewed as
nonviolent; however, its suppression of women’s rights has caught
Westerners’ attention. I believe that Buddha left his palace
intending to find a solution to the suffering of all human/sentient
beings, and not to build a religion called
“Buddhism.”
In the twentieth century, Buddhism came to the
West. Now, in the twenty-first, it is flourishing. But Buddhism is
still strange to the West; those Westerners who leave their native
faith to step into an Asian culture must have courage and face
tremendous challenges. The system of sponsorship has yet to be
built for the Western Sangha; many Westerners who seek the monastic
life are still like orphans, with no parents (few teachers who
understand they are different) and no home (few monasteries fit
their culture). We need to adopt a forgiving and inclusive attitude
to welcome them to the Sangha.
I attended a lecture given by one
of my best friends, William Ury, co-founder of the Harvard
Negotiation Project and author of the bestseller Getting to
Yes. At the end of his talk, he quoted the American Poet Edwin
Markham. I think there are no better words to fit this
situation:
They drew a circle that shut me
out,
Heretic, rebel, a thing to
flout!
But love and I had the wit to
win
We drew a circle that took them
in.
There is a simplistic impression that all
Theravada monks are against women’s ordination. That is not true.
Fo Guang Shan has given several international ordinations; they
were all supported by different groups of Theravada monks. Is it
possible to use a “humane” way to reconsider this issue rather than
focusing on the letter of the law?
Bhikkhuni Yifa
Fo
Guang Shan, Taiwan
Now based His Lai Temple, Los
Angeles, USA
hi bhikkhuni yifa , we really would like you to preside as the
religious counsel here in wisdom bliss :)
with full time clergy around .the sentient beings here will be
rejoiced :)