Crusading for nun's rights

By SANITSUDA EKACHAI

Thai women who want to practise the teaching of Buddha can enter the nunhood but must be prepared to face a lige of low status and discrimination if they choose to do so.

This is exactly what Khunying Kanittha Wichiencharoen is doing. The 76-year-old former feminist, lawyer, and social worker who took up the sisterhood in 1992 is lobbying for a bill which will give nuns legal status and entitle them to financial assistance from the government.

For the nun community, this is bad news. As in exchange for this legal status, they must sacrifice the present equality of their sisterhood and their work flexibility and be governed by an autocratic bureaucracy. And under the proposed bill, punishment for dissents is severe - disrobement.

Are nuns blind to women's rights? They say they are not. It is only that they believe this official recognition comes at too high a price.

"Such laws will hurt, not help us," said Arun Pet-urai, 63, secretary of the Thai Nuns Institute, echoing other nuns' sentiments.

More importantly, however, the proposed bill violates the Dhammavinaya: the code of conduct set by Buddha which determines the self governing status and democratic participation of monks and nuns in their communities.

"We cannot allow secular laws to distort Buddha's teachings," agrees Sansanee Sthirasuta, 43, a nun leader.

Discrimination

The Nuns Institute believes there are between 4,000 and 5,000 nuns nationwide but other estimates put the number as high as 20,000.

Whatever the figure, the head-shaven, white-robed mae chi as they are called are looked down upon and suffer discrimination wherever they go.

Monks oppose the ordination of women on the grounds that, as ruled by Buddha, women can only be ordained by senior bhikshuni, the female equivalent of monks in Theravada Buddhism, Thailand's dominant sect.

But since this lineage of female priests died out long ago, there is no one who can now ordain them properly. And it is absolutely unthinkable that bhikshuni could simply be reintroduced.

Therefore, Thai women who want to lead a religious life have to settle for the status of mae chi who subscribe to only eight precepts compared to the 227 monks follow, giving them an inferior status.

Outside religious circles, it is widely believed that young nuns have entered the sisterhood because they are broken-hearted while old nuns living at monasteries are perceived as mere temple hands. And beggars posing as nuns only worsen their already lowly image.

Unlike monks, nuns get very little social support and must work, usually in menial jobs, to support themselves. Many nunneries grow their own food to cut expenses.

Despite their religious commitment, nuns have an ambiguous legal status and state policies towards them are inconsistent.

For example, the Interior Ministry bars them from voting because they are categorised as clerics. But other state agencies legally regard them as lay women.

Finally, due to its low status, the sisterhood rarely attracts urban, educated women, leaving its ranks to be filled by chao ban - villagers who have long been a voiceless group.

Despite discrimination, many nuns excel in dhamma practice and in social work, especially in rural areas.

Nuns' Bill - Wrong Model

It is against this background of discrimination that Khunying Kanittha is lobbying for better recognition for nuns.

"Can you imagine? There is not even a single word in Thai law that recognises the existence of mae chi . This needs to be changed," said the outspoken nun, who has already enlisted the legislative support of Deputy Education Minister Chaowarin Latthasaksiri who is in charge of religious affairs.

"I'm sure the female MPs will also help lobby for the passage of the bill," added the pioneer of women's rights.

In a bid to head off any opposition, Khunying Kanittha chose the 1962 Monks' Bill as her blueprint - a strategy that may backfire.

The notorious bill was imposed on the monk community by the late military strongman Marshal Sarit Thanarat. It centralised the clergy's hierarchical and feudal administration, and entrusted absolute power to the Ecclesiastic Council.

But according to the Dhammavinaya, any group of five or more monks can operate as an independent monk community, or sangha .

Apart from self government, Buddha also ruled that sangha decisions must be democratic and participatory with the Dhammavinaya as the sole code of conduct and seniority determined by years in the monkhood, not position.

Although the authoritarian Monks' Bill violates these democratic principles, no monk dared to challenge the all-powerful Ecclesiastic Council whose rigidity and inefficiency is often blamed for the current weakness of the clergy which is obsessed with materialism and ruled by favouritism.

But Khunying Kanittha argues that she only kept the positive parts of the Monks' Bill, adapted and adding to it as necessary.

After discussions with other leading nuns, it was agreed that the nun community should not be ruled as monks are under a feudal system with an aristocratic council and a royalty-like figure head.

And aware of possible opposition from monks who may see nuns as rivals, the proposed bill also states that mae chi are not the same as bhikshuni which were equal to monks.

But, this is about where the main differences end.

Criticisms

Like the Monks' Bill, the nun's legislation would make the nun's governing body all powerful with the absolute authority to appoint and disrobe members, and to allocate budgets.

"What will happen if this power is in the wrong hand," asked mae chi Sansanee Sthirasuta, a nun of 15 years.

"Any laws concerning nuns or monks should aim to provide a favourable environment for dhamma practice," she continued.

"These laws must help each member to learn from the others and to constantly improve their minds through self discipline, meditation and the development of insight into the laws of nature.

"But the draft Nuns' Bill is control-oriented, thus stimulating rather than thinning greed, anger, and delusions," she added.

While most opposition to the bill from nuns is on religious grounds, renowned Buddhist thinker and reformist Professor Prawase Wasi, attacks it from an organisational point of view.

Power-centred bureaucracies, he claims, be it a government or a clergy, cannot cope with the complex and rapid changes of the modern world.

"There are 30,000 temples and 300,000 monks in Thailand. But like the government, the clergy is paralysed by bureaucratic inertia and inflexibility," Prof Prawase says. "Why should the nuns copy this failure?"

The severity of this modern malady, he claims, begs for a new way of thinking and more flexible organisations that can come up with new and timely initiatives.

The Nuns Institute, set up in 1969, was an attempt to form a networking centre while maintaining independence for individual nunneries.

Prof Prawase believes nuns will lose the potential that comes with their freedom if they are governed by a tight bureaucracy as monks are.

Instead of building chains around themselves, he suggests nuns empower themselves through networking.

And though most nuns are from poor rural backgrounds and lack confidence and money, confidence will come through work and money is never lacking for worthy projects.

Santisuk Soponsiri, a former monk and Buddhism expert, says nuns need not fear losing their freedom as "it will be definitely be shot down by monks" anyway as loopholes in the proposed bill offer the clergy more than enough ammunition to crush it.

For example, monks can always cite the Buddhist Tri Pitaka Canon to argue that there are only four kinds of clerics, or nak buat , in Buddhism: monks, bhikshuni, male novices, and female novices.

And as even novices subscribe to at least 10 precepts, nuns, who only practise eight, can never be considered clerics, Santisuk explained.

The Nuns' Bill's rationale that it will prevent imposters is also weak, he went on, for there are other laws which can be used to arrest these people.

Alternatives

Secular laws for nuns invite too many problems, Santisuk says adding that he believes a first move is for nuns to increase the number of precepts they practise to at least 10.

In Sri Lanka, which also practises Theravada Buddhist, women can live a strict religious life as female novices. Although they cannot become bhikshuni, upon reaching the age of 20, they can continue being a cleric and are called 10-precept nuns.

"Thai nuns can do the same," he said.

Mae chi Arun and mae chi Sansanee agreed that it is the nuns' own purity of dhamma practice which will eventually win them public faith and respect.

"It is true that we nuns want recognition of our existence," said mae chi Arun. "But this proposed bill goes too far.

"We have been working for our own spirituality and society without legal status. If it limits our ability to work, then we certainly don't need it."