Dignity and Discipline

Reviving Full Ordination for Buddhist Nuns

Thea Mohr, Jampa Tsedroen, Thea Mohr, Jampa Tsedroen

• Publisher: Wisdom Publications
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9780861715886
• eBook ISBN:
  9780861718306
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Eastern Philosophy

When the Buddha established his community over twenty-five centuries ago, he did so upon a foundation of radical equality among women and men. And indeed, the earliest Buddhist scriptures celebrate the teachings and inspiring influence of these path-blazing female renunciants. Nonetheless, through much of the Buddhist world, the order of nuns has disappeared or was never transmitted at all.

Dignity & Discipline represents a watershed moment in Buddhist history, as the Dalai Lama together with scholars and monastics from around the world, present powerful cases, grounded in both scripture and a profound appeal to human dignity, that the order of Buddhist nuns can and should be fully restored.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Female Ordination in Buddhism: Looking into a Crystal Ball, Making a Future
• The Vinaya Between History and Modernity: Some General Reflections
• Sects and Sectarianism The Origin of the Three Existing Vinaya Lineages: Theravāda, Dharmaguptaka, and Mūlasarvāstivāda
• Some Remarks on the Status of Nuns and Laywomen in Early Buddhism
• Women’s Renunciation in Early Buddhism: The Four Assemblies and the Foundation of the Order of Nuns
• The Revival of Bhikkhunī Ordination in the Theravāda Tradition
• The Eight Garudhammas
• A Need to Take a Fresh Look at Popular Interpretations of the Tripiṭaka: Theravāda Context in Thailand
• A Lamp of Vinaya Statements: A Concise Summary of Bhikṣuṇī Ordination
• A Tibetan Precedent for Multi-Tradition Ordination
• A “Flawless” Ordination: Some Narratives of Nuns’ Ordinations in the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya
• Buddhist Women’s Role in the Saṅgha
• Preserving Endangered Ordination Traditions in the Sakya School
• Presuppositions for a Valid Ordination with Respect to the Restoration of the Bhikṣuṇī Ordination in the Mūlasarvāstivāda Tradition
• Creating Nuns Out of Thin Air: Problems and Possible Solutions concerning the Ordination of Nuns according to the Tibetan Monastic Code
• Bhikṣuṇī Ordination: Lineages and Procedures as Instruments of Power
• Human Rights and the Status of Women in Buddhism
• Gender Equity and Human Rights
• Appendix
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• About the Contributors
• About Wisdom Publications
• Copyright