The Five Points

A couple of days ago I wrote a blog entry on the ‘Five Points’ that the English bhikkhus had imposed on the nuns there. In that entry, I emphasized that my information was uncertain, but that since I had no response to my requests for details, I would publish what I had.

I’ve just received some new information, and am revising the blog accordingly. While the gist of the five points is the same, there were some serious mistakes in my previous post. In particular, the previous information that I had was that Ajahn Sumedho was to be made personally responsible for the ordinations, and I was strongly critical of this. But my source here was confused, and the situation is exactly the opposite: the actual Five Points shift responsibility for ordination from Ajahn Sumedho to the bhikkhu Sangha as a whole. I apologize for this mistake, retract my previous statements, and ask forgiveness for my incorrect criticisms.

The other major mistake was that I said that the appointment of a ‘liaison bhikkhu’ was one of the Five Points, whereas in fact it is a recommendation outside of the Five Points. (See the end of this post for details.)

As I have said so many times, I have been completely unable to get responses for my questions, and this is why I have made the choice to go public. I knew that this would draw out some response. Many will criticize me for ‘airing the dirty laundry of the Sangha in public’; but surely it’s better than sticking your dirty laundry in a basket and shoving it in a cupboard to go fetid. I have tried to play by the rules for many years, and it doesn’t work. Those in power set the rules, and the rules somehow always favor them. Now, perhaps, we will start to see some real movement.

Anyway, below please see the revised version of the Five Points, based on my most recent and accurate sources. As usual, the source does not want to be named in public. I hardly need to add that it is all still uncertain, and that this will not be the final word on the matter. But you may be sure that whenever I get better information, i will share it with you.

When the Perth bhikkhuni ordination happened, we started to hear reports of a certain ‘Five Points’ that had been imposed by the monks on the nuns in the English communities. Before this, we had heard nothing, and even since that time we have no ‘official’ statement from the English Sangha.

There have been ongoing problems in the relationship between the monks and nuns in the two main English monasteries, especially Amaravati, and to a lesser extent Chithurst. There have been several events that have shaken the communities in recent years, including the disrobal of Ajahn Thaniya, one of the most respected of all the nuns; the attendance at the Hamburg conference on bhikkhunis, which allowed the question of bhikkhuni ordination to be discussed for a brief window before being squashed again; and the planned departure of several senior nuns to set up a new monastery in California, out of the direct sway of the English Sangha.

We’ve heard reports of how the nuns have been criticized in public during Dhamma talks by Ajahn Sumedho, who told them that they will have to submit to the patriarchy, give up any rights, and so on. It is a central platform of Ajahn Sumedho’s teachings that submission to ‘the form’ is an essential part of one’s Dhamma practice. Some of the monks at Amaravati have been openly calling for the nuns to leave. In November of 2008 Ajahn Sumedho withdrew his support for siladhara ordination, effectively throttling the growth of the community.

It was over two months ago that Ajahn Sumedho came up with the idea of the ‘Five Points’. He drew the list up together with his assistant, Thai monk Paññasāro, and they presented them to the English Council of Elders.

The Council of Elders is an unelected body of senior monks and a couple of nuns in the Amaravati circle of monasteries (Amaravati, Chithurst, Ratanagiri, Devon, Santacittarama in Italy, Dhammapala in Switzerland, Bodhinyanarama in New Zealand… Abhayagiri? – I’m not sure.) It does not include any monks from outside the Amaravati circle. They meet behind closed doors and no-one knows what they discuss. Such a body has no authority or precedent in the Vinaya, which always requires openness, and always requires the involvement of the whole Sangha in a particular monastery.

The Ajahns assented to the Five Points on the authority of Ajahn Sumedho. They were presented by two bhikkhus from the Elders Council to the siladharas in August 2009. The siladharas were told that ordination would not be reinstated until they agreed to the Five Points. Remember that the approximately 15 sīladharā have no status in the Vinaya and no sense of communion with the wider Sangha, and hence no-one to turn to. The nuns did not want to accept the Five Points, but there was no negotiation or opportunity for dialogue or compromise. By October 2009, each of the siladharas had decided to accept the Five Points.

The nuns had been told that once they accepted them the list would be made public as soon as practical. Even though the nuns have kept their side of the deal, this has not happened. It would take, oh, about two minutes to publish them on the web: apparently the monks have been just too busy to get this done.

Here are the five points.

1.The most junior bhikkhu is senior to the most senior siladhara. This structural relationship is defined by the Vinaya and cannot change over time.
2. In public situations such as giving a blessing, leading the chanting, or giving a talk, leadership always rests with the most senior bhikkhu present. He may, if he chooses, invite a siladhara to lead, but this in no way establishes a new standard of shared leadership.
3. The Bhikkhu Sangha will be responsible for the ordination and guidance of the siladharas, rather than Ajahn Sumedho. Candidates should receive approval from the Siladhara Sangha, and acceptance from the Bhikkhu Sangha, as represented by the members of the Elder’s Council.
4. The Siladhara Sangha should invite (pavarana) the Bhikkhu Sangha at the end of the Rains Retreat, in accordance with the Vinaya.
5. The siladhara training is considered to be a vehicle respected in our tradition as suitable for the realization of liberation. It is complete as it stands, and is not an evolution towards a different form such as bhikkhuni ordination.

Okay, so first off take a deep breath and have a think. What is going on here? How could this be happening? How far has a community drifted that it has to draw up such a charter of domination to regulate the relations between the sexes?

Now let’s look more closely at each rule.

1. The most junior bhikkhu is senior to the most senior siladhara. This structural relationship is defined by the Vinaya and cannot change over time.

This follows the pattern of the first garudhamma for the bhikkhunis, but greatly expands the scope of that rule. Instead of merely making it a requirement that all nuns must bow to monks, now nuns are junior in all things. And we must just keep bearing in mind that since the siladharas were invented as an entirely new order, any reference to the Vinaya is entirely ad hoc. There is, in fact, not one single word in the Vinaya that dictates the relationship of the bhikkhus to the siladharas, as the siladharas did not exist. The monks can simply make up any rule they like. If they want to find inspiration in the Vinaya, then great: but why focus on those things that are specifically about controlling nuns?

It is clearly untrue to say this relationship is ‘defined in the Vinaya’. Yes, there are some passages that might be taken to suggest such a relationship between the bhikkhus and bhikkhunis in the Vinaya, just as there are many to suggest a quite different relationship. The Vinaya texts are not complete or cut and dried in all respects, but they offer us a template that we can use for guidance. It is curious that the English Sangha, which is well known for its aversion to study, and its doctrine that the Suttas are merely an opportunity for reflection, should adopt such a hardline attitude when it comes to the relation between the genders. Compare the wise words of Ajahn Sumedho in his introduction to Maurice Walshe’s translation of the Digha Nikaya:

The Suttas need to be studied, reflected on, and practiced in order to realize their true meaning. They are ‘Dhamma discourses’ or contemplations on the ‘way things are’. They are not meant to be ‘sacred scriptures’ which tell us what to believe. One should read them, listen to them, think about them, contemplate them, and investigate the present reality, the present experience with them.

To which all good Buddhists should say ‘sadhu!’ and take to heart as a guide for penetrating the teachings. But why is the Vinaya any different? If anything, the Vinaya should be more open to interpretation, as it is more closely tied to specific cultural conditions at the time of the Buddha, and because by the universal judgment of the scholars the Vinaya is much later and less authentic than the Suttas.

And if we compare with the first garudhamma, there the Buddha is said to specifically cite the cultural pressures of his religious environment in laying down that rule. This is a poor excuse, and it seems obvious to me that someone much lamer than the Buddha was really behind it. Still, one could at least argue that there was a prima facie expectation that the nuns should bow to monks in that culture, and that the first garudhamma was a minimum requirement allowing the monks to save face, while granting the nuns freedom in all important matters.

The first of the five points does not even have such a shoddy excuse. It goes well beyond anything that is required in the culture, and clearly contravenes the spirit of the international charters on the equality of women that England (and Thailand for that matter) is a signatory to.

2. In public situations such as giving a blessing, leading the chanting, or giving a talk, leadership always rests with the most senior bhikkhu present. He may, if he chooses, invite a siladhara to lead, but this in no way establishes a new standard of shared leadership.

For many years in the past the siladharas have been taking a leading role in such things as giving the blessing chant at meal time; now this is withdrawn.

There’s a Sutta in the Majjhima Nikaya (MN5 Anangana) where the Buddha speaks of the ‘evil unwholesome wishes’ of a monk who thinks, ‘May I give the blessing after the meal, and not some other monk!’ To an outsider it must sound silly – what kind of spiritual practitioner would get caught up in such trivial desires? But here we have it, exactly the same wish, not merely a thought of a sloppy monk, but formulated as a rule governing the relations between the genders in a modern Western monastery.

This rule tells us nothing about the Vinaya, but quite a lot about the anxieties of the monks.

3. The Bhikkhu Sangha will be responsible for the ordination and guidance of the siladharas, rather than Ajahn Sumedho. Candidates should receive approval from the Siladhara Sangha, and acceptance from the Bhikkhu Sangha, as represented by the members of the Elder’s Council.

The wording here suggests that the ‘approval’ of the siladharas is needed, but the ‘acceptance’, i.e. the ordination itself, is from the bhikkhus.

The bhikkhus who do the ordination are not the actual bhikkhu Sangha in a monastery, as is required in every formal Act of the Sangha, but the Elder’s Council. Notice how the Vinaya is invoked when it can be read as giving more power to the monks, but is ignored when power is given to the Elder’s Council, which has no legitimacy under Vinaya.

It hardly needs remarking that this rule has no precedent in Vinaya. In fact, if the sīladharās are to be considered as similar to sāmaṇerīs, then it should be a bhikkhuni who does the ordination, and there is no call for the monks to be involved at all. In the case of bhikkhuni ordination, it is the bhikkhunis who play the important role in the ordination, with the monks merely placing their seal of approval on the event.

As I have argued in detail in my Bhikkhuni Vinaya Studies, the earliest strata of texts in the Vinayas suggest that the bhikkhunis originally did their ordinations by themselves, and the idea of the two-fold ordination was a later imposition by the bhikkhus. When I was researching this point, I was originally just following a line of inquiry that was suggested to me by the texts, and only much later did the political implications become clear. Little did I imagine how quickly a graphic example of this power-play by the bhikkhus would show itself.

4. The Siladhara Sangha should invite (pavarana) the Bhikkhu Sangha at the end of the Rains Retreat, in accordance with the Vinaya.

This follows on from another of the garudhammas, which requires that the bhikkhunis ask for admonition (pavāraṇā) at the end of the annual rains retreat (vassa). A similar rule is also found in the bhikkhuni pācittiyas and the Bhikkhunikkhandhaka.

Of course, we must keep repeating, the sīladharā are not bhikkhunis, and the Vinaya does not apply to them. The monks are simply selecting rules ad hoc according to their own preference and imposing them, shorn of the protections the nuns would have had if the communities were operating according to Vinaya.

This rule, while found in the Vinaya, nevertheless contradicts a basic principle of Buddhism as expressed in the Code of Discipline: ‘For this is how there comes to be growth in the Buddha’s following, that is, with mutual admonition and mutual rehabilitation.’

As it stands, it is clearly sexist, and should be rejected or reformed. Why, since the texts offer us both cases, is the principle of mutual admonition rejected and that of discriminatory admonition enforced?

It seems that in practice this rule was implemented in a symbolic form, as the bhikkhunis would appoint a representative to take their invitation to the bhikkhu Sangha as a whole. And as I have shown elsewhere, there are many examples in Buddhist texts of nuns admonishing monks, and this is never criticized but is regarded as a normal part of Sangha life.

There is no rule that forbids the monks from inviting the nuns to admonish them right back, and this is exactly what we have done for several years at Santi FM. The world has not caved in, and our heads have not split in seven pieces. Instead, we have exactly the outcome that the Buddha wanted when he urged the Sangha to open themselves to admonishment from each other: a warm, understanding, and harmonious community.

We have received a textual tradition which, while magnificent in so many ways, has undoubted flaws from a modern perspective. The very least we can ethically do is to work with these texts so as to ameliorate and balance the few inequities they contain, not to reinforce and exaggerate them. While the community who supports bhikkhuni ordination has tackled this issue head on, and has produced volumes of outstanding research that substantially improves our understanding of Vinaya, the opponents to bhikkhuni ordination have produced nothing of substance. Instead, they have invented their own rules that go well beyond the mild forms of discrimination found in the ancient texts.

The background to this rule was that one of the senior English Ajahns invited admonition from the nuns, and for that he was criticized by other monks. In addition, one of the senior nuns refused to invite the monks for admonition one year. In this she was following a precedent in the Vinaya, which allows that the nuns do not have to accept teachings from a monk who is not ‘dear and pleasing to the nuns’. It is not clear to me whether this option is open to the siladharas under the new ‘Five Points’.

5. The siladhara training is considered to be a vehicle respected in our tradition as suitable for the realization of liberation. It is complete as it stands, and is not an evolution towards a different form such as bhikkhuni ordination.

This one has to be my personal favourite. When Ajahn Brahm announced that his community would perform bhikkhuni ordination, there was one consistent, universal response from the Ajahns: you should have consulted us first. Many of them expressed dismay that they thought bhikkhunis were to be discussed at the upcoming WAM in December, and that the Sangha was indeed moving towards acceptance of bhikkhunis.

Meanwhile, the English Council of Elders had imposed this rule on their reluctant nuns, without informing anyone, not even the monks in their own monasteries. While pretending to go ahead with dialogue, they were actually clamping down on any possibility of bhikkhuni ordination.

To be sure, most of the Ajahns who said that they thought dialogue on bhikkhunis was progressing cannot be blamed for this: they were just as much in the dark as the rest of us.

In secret, with no consultation and no reference to the Vinaya, the Council of Elders led by Ajahn Sumedho have decreed against bhikkhuni ordination. No wonder there was such a hysterical outcry when Ajahn Brahm said he was going ahead, and dared to say he was relying on the Vinaya.

There is no need to analyse in detail how this rule has no basis in the Vinaya, because it is purely intended to deny the possibility of an actual Vinaya-based approach in favour of one invented by the English monks.

As an addendum to these Five Points, a few relevant issues are raised. It is made clear that the absolute power that the bhikkhus hold in decision making will only apply in dual communities. If the nuns live separately from the monks (which does not happen at the moment) they will make their own decisions, just as in the present day they make their decisions how to run their own internal affairs. However in matters that affect the whole community, while there should be reasonable consultation, the Siladhara Sangha will defer to the Bhikkhu Sangha.

In addition, Ajahn Sumedho has proposed that in dual communities the bhikkhus appoint a representative other than the abbot to liaise with the nuns. The monk should be liked and respected by the nuns, and his appointment should have their approval. While having a liaison is a good idea, there is no reason why it should be a monk alone. Given that the power structure so obviously discriminates against the nuns, they should be able to appoint their own representative on an equal footing to the monk liaison.

In the past there has been some debate on the margins as to whether the attitude of the Western Ajahns of the WPP Sangha should be regarded as sexist, or whether it is an accommodation to the expectations of the Thai community. That debate is now over. These five rules are abundantly sexist, and have not been imposed for any cultural reason, but purely to keep the nuns under control and stop them from taking bhikkhuni ordination.

Because that would be a very dangerous thing.