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1 Introduction, context and method
On the 21st June 2016, during an uncharacteristically balmy evening in Chorlton, a leafy suburb of Manchester, north-west England, a group of about 40 men and women are gathered in front of an imposing Buddha rupa to meditate, chant, and listen to a dhamma talk. They have met in an adapted Christian spiritualist church, now the home of a Thai TheravÄda lay Buddhist group. At the front of the room, to the right of the Buddha, is a British bhikkhunÄ«, a fully ordained TheravÄda Buddhist nun, dressed in the brown robes of her Forest tradition. She is visiting this Manchester group from Dhammasara Monastery in Perth, Western Australia. She had arrived here at the culmination of a week of tudong spiritual walking practice originating in Derbyshire, some 50 miles away, with a female lay companion, herself a former nun. It is the first time that the bhikkhunÄ« has addressed this audience and she is talking fluidly and precisely about compassion and what it might mean for contemporary Buddhist practitioners. Three days prior to the UK referendum on membership of the European Union, this topic provides a moment of calm in a climate of national political turmoil and uncertainty.
Yet, this was not simply a routine dhamma talk, the like of which might take place at any of the Buddhist centres or temples that are now well established across the British Isles. This bhikkhunÄ«, Venerable CandÄ, was on a homecoming with a mission: to establish the first TheravÄda bhikkhunÄ« monastery in the UK, under the auspices of the Anukampa BhikkhunÄ« Project. She has been encouraged in this endeavour by Ajahn Brahmavamso, another British Buddhist monastic living in Australia. He was catapulted to global notoriety in 2009 when he was, in his words, āexcommunicatedā from the Thai Forest Sangha hierarchy following the controversial bhikkhunÄ« ordinations that took place at his monastery, Bodhinyana, in Perth, Western Australia. Although Ajahn Brahmavamso, or Ajahn Brahm as he is more commonly known, was not the preceptor at this ordination ceremony (this role was taken by the American bhikkhunÄ« Ayya TathÄlokÄ), he was criticised by the Thai Forest Sangha authorities for not publicly repudiating the newly ordained bhikkhunÄ« when asked to do so. In taking this stance, Ajahn Brahm stood in open challenge to the Thai monastic hierarchy. They maintain a restriction on bhikkhunÄ« ordination, arguing that as the female lineage had become extinct it is impossible to revive authentically in line with the conservative Thai TheravÄda tradition. Despite this breaking of formal bonds with the Forest Sangha, Ajahn Brahm continues to give vocal support to the idea of gender equality within Buddhism alongside practical help for the Anukampa Project by raising funds through annual talks and retreats. His commitment and personal backing for the project is clear in a YouTube video clip, posted on the Anukampa website in May 2016, calling for people to āget off their arsesā to support the fledgling bhikkhunÄ« community.
As someone with nearly a decade of interest in female ordination within British Buddhist groups, witnessing the quiet dhamma talk in Manchester was a powerful reminder of the gender politics that influence the shape of Buddhism in the contemporary world. This unassuming event, noticed perhaps by only a handful of Buddhists in Britain, nevertheless raised critical questions for me. Who are the women who might want to ordain and live at Anukampa? Where do they come from, and what paths led them to Buddhist practice in Britain, and later to ordination? Where do these women stand in relation to Buddhist hierarchies and nexus of power, both within and without the UK? How do they relate to issues of gender inequality raised on the global Buddhist stage, and how will their spiritual practice be shaped by the contemporary British context? What can British womenās practices and experiences tell us about the varieties of religious translation and adaptation within contemporary Buddhist communities in the West?
In seeking to answer these questions, this book weaves together a narrative that is principally about relationships and intimate connections. I use the term intimate, not with any sexual overtone, but in the sense of the close, the local, the personal and the meaningful. This might seem unusual given the popular conception of Buddhist practice as austere, world-transcendent and attachment-rejecting. In one sense this is true, but as I will show throughout this book, intimate local connections and relationships are vitally important in the lives of British Buddhist women, particularly when they have made formal commitments to Buddhist groups through ordination. The specific and particular focus of this book are the personal dhamma stories of 25 convert Buddhist women, across seven different Buddhist traditions and groups based in England, Scotland, and Wales. Each of the women had taken āordinationā (as it is variously conceived by the groups they affiliate with) and had made a formal, sometimes life-long, commitment to Buddhism. In detailing strategic points of relation and connection that include their initial contact with Buddhist teachings, the decision to take ordination, and their dynamic engagement with Buddhist disciplinary practices, womenās voices are woven closely into the theoretical analysis in each of the chapters. Ultimately, this book provides a critical examination of the trajectories of womenās engagement with Buddhism in Britain in conversation with wider inter-related themes of modernity and tradition, individuality and community, locality and transnationalism, and innovation and continuation. In paying close attention to the stories that ordained Buddhist women tell us about their lives, motivations, concerns, and inspirations, we gain insight into the significant contribution that women have made to the establishment of Buddhism on British shores and begin to more fully understand the meaning of ordination in this context.
This book is the first multiple-tradition study that gives concentrated and sustained consideration to the experiences of ordained Buddhist women in Britain. Despite their growing numbers, women who have taken Buddhist āordinationā in Britain have received limited academic attention, often only from the perspective of one or two Buddhist groups or as a small part of wider scholarly work looking at the development of Buddhism in Britain more generally. As I show in Chapter 2, some of these studies are now several decades old, and while they provide useful historical evidence of the development of traditions and lineages in Britain, an updated examination of the contemporary experiences of women and the contributions that they continue to make in shaping British Buddhism is now timely. Although ordained men, such as bhikkhu Ananda Metteya (born Henry Allan Bennett), have dominated the pages of history books in relation to the formation of Buddhism in Britain, women, too, have played central roles in establishing and maintaining Buddhist traditions. They have helped to pioneer unique forms of ordination, such as the sÄ«ladharÄ in the Forest Sangha tradition, and they have established new lineages and orders, including the Order of Buddhist Contemplatives spearheaded by Reverend Master Jiyu Kennett (born Peggy Kennett). Behind these high-profile movements and figure heads, women have, quietly and conscientiously, renovated dilapidated buildings and helped to develop and support Buddhist communities, successfully teaching the dhamma in monasteries, centres and hired rooms and halls all across the British Isles. They have weathered tense storms and scandals in relation to gender inequality in their respective traditions but their voices are still not adequately represented in the principal studies of British Buddhism on our bookshelves.
Of course, one of the reasons why ordained women may perhaps have had less attention in studies of Buddhism in Britain relates to their comparatively low numbers in relation to the population of Buddhists. Bluck (2006: 194) states that āonly 2 per cent of the convert British Buddhist community is ordainedā and this figure includes both men and women who have taken monastic ordination and those who have taken other types of ordination, for example the Triratna dharmachari/dharmacharini. Yet, ordained Buddhist women warrant greater focused attention in this context, not least because ordination (particularly monastic ordination) has a highly salient role in Buddhist history, remaining deeply meaningful for those who choose this path and the communities which surround them. According to the 2011 census, in England and Wales there are proportionally more female than male Buddhist adherents, reflecting broader sociological expectations about womenās increased religiosity (Trzebiatowska and Bruce, 2012; ONS, 2012). Equally, the number of ordained practitioners has been growing, albeit not to the same extent as lay adherents. An investigation of their experiences will contribute directly to complexifying and adding much needed nuance to our picture of the adaptation and expansion of Buddhist practice in the British context. Furthermore, giving focus to the experiences of ordained Buddhist women illuminates issues that are of scholarly interest far beyond the localised study of Buddhism in Britain. In particular, understanding wider patterns of religious change, adaptation and belonging in super-diverse and religiously plural contexts. As will become clear throughout the chapters of this book, the paths taken by ordained Buddhist women Britain are intimately shaped by, and in turn shape, global social and cultural forces, and they are part of a history of womenās engagement with Buddhist practice that stretches back to the time of the Buddha. As such, it is necessary to first give some attention to the broader context within which they are a part, including the developments surrounding ordination for women in Buddhism, as well as the ways in which āWesternā Buddhist women are typically represented.
Women and Buddhism: a focus on ordination
Following his journey to spiritual practice and his enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, SiddhÄrtha Gautama (known as the Buddha) was encouraged to teach what he had discovered by the god, BrahmÄ Sahampati (Harvey, 1990: 22). His first teaching (the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, or the Setting the Wheel of the Dhamma in Motion) was delivered to five male ascetics, former acquaintances of the Buddha. Each of the five attained enlightenment on hearing these and subsequent teachings and they were ordained by the Buddha into the first monastic community (saį¹
gha). Although these early ordinations occurred, in Rupert Gethinās (1998: 87) terms, āwithout much ceremonyā, as the saį¹
gha grew, the method and process of ordination was made more elaborate. Following the Buddhaās death, ordination (for men) or āgoing forth into homelessnessā (pabbajjÄ), consisted of a preliminary novice ordination (samanera) and then later the āfull ordinationā (upasampadÄ) of a bhikkhu (monk). To āgo forth into homelessnessā involves relinquishing marriage and sexual relationships, ceasing working for money and instead being reliant on alms donated by lay supporters ā ultimately, āleaving the household lifeā (Tsomo, 1999: 5).
The instigation of the bhikkhunÄ«/bhikį¹£uį¹Ä« (fully ordained nuns) order is thought to have occurred several years after the enlightenment of the Buddha and his initial ordinations of male monks. This origin story has been well documented within scholarly literature (Harvey, 1990: 221ā224; Sujato, 2006; Tsomo, 2006; Bancroft, 1987; Murcott, 1991; Schuster Barnes, 1987; Wijayaratna, 2010; Williams, 2005 ā to cite just a few examples). The Buddhaās step-mother, MahÄpajÄpatÄ«, seeing the growing male saį¹
gha and along with 500 of her female followers, is said to have asked for ordination as bhikkhunÄ«. The Buddha is portrayed as being reluctant and initially refusing, requiring his assistant and cousin, Änanda, to convince him to accept MahÄpajÄpatÄ«ās request. After his agreement, the vinaya (monastic code) texts depict the Buddha stating that with the addition of a womenās order, the length of time in which his sÄsana (or teachings) would be extant would be shortened. At this point, in order to ameliorate this, the Buddha was said to have initiated a set of additional rules for the bhikkhunÄ« (variously known as the ā8 Heavy Rulesā, the ā8 Special Rulesā or garudhamma/gurudharma). These rules arguably placed the nuns as inferior to the monks and even the most senior nun would have a lower position in the hierarchy than a novice monk. This has continued to cause some anxiety within contemporary Buddhist communities, including those connected to Britain. As I explore in more detail in Chapter 6, some bhikkhunÄ«/bhikį¹£uį¹Ä« agreed to the garudhamma on ordination, and others did not. This has an impact on how some perceive the legitimacy of their ordination.
It is said that when MahÄpajÄpatÄ« agreed to the garudhamma, an order of bhikkhunÄ« was thus initiated by the Buddha, later to be transmitted from India to Sri Lanka, to China and beyond. Yet, although the bhikį¹£uį¹Ä« ordination continues to exist in China, Taiwan, Korea and Vietnam within the MahÄyÄna school of Buddhism, a female order was seemingly never transmitted to Tibet, Thailand or Cambodia, and the TheravÄda bhikkhunÄ« lineage died out in Sri Lanka from the eleventh century and in Myanmar from the thirteenth (Kawanami, 2007: 229).1 Despite this, there have been high-profile moves to reinstate the TheravÄda bhikkhunÄ« saį¹
gha, with, in the early days, MahÄyÄna bhikį¹£uį¹Ä« assisting in the conferral of ordinations (for example, in the United States in 1988, India and Sri Lanka in 1996, Bodhgaya in 1998, and in the United States again in 1997).2 However, these ordinations, sometimes referred to as āfullā or āhigherā ordination, have inspired consternation and dispute from within some quarters.3 Critics argue that the bhikkhunÄ« lineage is impossible to (re)establish in accordance with the TheravÄda tradition with assistance from MahÄyÄna bhikį¹£uį¹Ä«, even though ordinations can now be officiated by TheravÄda monastics alone (HĆ¼sken, 2018: 261). They see these bhikį¹£uį¹Ä« as following a different vinaya (monastic code) and valid ordinations cannot be held unless there are the requisite numbers of both bhikkhu and bhikkhunÄ« presiding over the ceremony, connecting back to the Buddha through a continuous lineage of monastic inheritance. What is the most commonly available religious options for women within the TheravÄda tradition is either to remain a committed lay-woman, or to take between eight and ten precepts and become a mae chi/chee/ji (Thailand), a thilĆ”shin (Myanmar), a don chee (Cambodia), a dasa sil mÄtÄ (Sri Lanka), or a maekhao (Laos). As bhikkhunÄ« follow 311 precepts (and lay Buddhists generally follow five), these women have been described as holding a āmarginalisedā or āambiguousā official position by a number of scholars (Kabilsingh, 1988: 228; Tomalin, 2006: 387; Lindberg Falk, 2007: 8; Tsomo, 2010: 87; Salgado, 1996: 62). Some have even asserted that women taking eight to ten precepts within countries such as Thailand are akin to āservantsā within monastic institutions (Williams, 2005: 199). Others indicate that these institutional circumstances have the potential for a deleterious effect, both on the opportunities available for women, in terms of religious education, prospects for practice and study, and in their broader social standing (Tomalin, 2006; Khuankaew, 2002; Tsomo, 2010: 103; Kabilsingh, 1991). Although the rationale given by individual women for wanting to re-establish āf...
