Rev. Danny Fisher

Many thanks go to my dad for letting me know about a cool article in the latest issue of the Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide. The piece, entitled “Buddhism and the Gender Continuum,” is authored by Walter L. Williams, an anthropologist at the University of Southern California. Unfortunately, it is not (yet?) archived online at the journal’s website, so you’ll have to make do with my telling you about it.

Earlier this year, Williams was one of a very, very small handful of Americans invited to participate in the Fourth Annual International Buddhist Conference, which was held at the United Nations Conference Center in Bangkok, Thailand, from May 26th-29th. He writes about being struck by the hypocrisy around the position of nuns in Thai Buddhism.

In countries like Taiwan and South Korea, nuns and monks are virtually equal in status and power. Nuns in many other nations, like Nepal and China, are making great strides toward equality. In sharp contrast, Thailand is way behind the times on the issue of gender…This is justified as being due to the fact that the lineage of nuns from the time of the Buddha to today was broken many years ago in Thailand, and so a Thai nun cannot be ordained in Thailand. She can go to another nation and be ordained, and then come back to Thailand as an ordained nun, but that is not seen as [being as] legitimate as the ordination of a male monk.

Nuns have the reputation of going into the nunneries for reasons of being able to attract a husband, or of being broken-hearted by a man, or other reasons that imply a less than honorable motivation. As a consequence, most young women do not feel inspired to become a nun in the same way that young men are inspired to become a monk. [1]

Williams also makes the observation that “Thai monasteries are much more accepting of gay monks than they are of female nuns,” but offers no qualification for the remark. [2] I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt since I’m sure he knows more about Thai Buddhism than I, but more information on this point would be nice.

Williams ultimately spoke up at the conference, delivering a sort of progressive call to action for Thai Buddhists. Here are some of the choice bits:

[The] commitment to total equality is crucially related to the theme of this conference on good governance. Good governance is impossible if fifty percent of the population is shut out of the ability to participate in government on an equal level.

[...]

…[The Buddhist ethic is] committed to happiness for all people and holds that every sentient being has a sacred Buddha nature and deserves respect. And yet, even here in Thailand the position of nuns is hardly equal to the position of monks. Becoming a nun needs to be made just as attractive for young women as becoming a monk is for young men.

A genuine commitment to the absolute equality of all humanity also means equality within Buddhism for youth, for the elderly, for ethnic minorities, and for sexual minorities…[And this commitment] needs to be made explicit. If this is done, I predict that we will see a sharp increase in the numbers of Buddhists in the world.

In many cultures, women and girls are oppressed. In even more cultures, homosexuals and transgender people of all ages are subjected to discrimination, extreme violence, and even murder…Buddhists have to be the most prominent in standing up and saying this kind of mistreatment of people is wrong and has to stop.

ENDNOTES:

1. Walter L. Williams, “Buddhism and the Gender Continuum,” The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide (September-October 2007): 24.
   
2. Ibid.
   
3. Ibid., 25.
   

While he’s at the Elijah Interfaith Summit in northern India, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet is making quite a splash. First, there are his comments about the future of the institution of the Dalai Lama:

Talking to reporters in the northern Indian city of Amritsar, he emphasised his desire to make the Tibetan leadership more democratic.

“As early as 1969 I made clear the very institution of the Dalai Lama is up to the Tibetan people,” he said.

He outlined other methods to appoint his successor as well, such as one similar to electing the Pope where senior lamas would choose the next Dalai Lama.

The Tibetan spiritual leader also raised the possibility of himself naming a new Dalai Lama while he is still alive, a proposal he outlined in Japan last week.

As the B.B.C. notes, this is by no means the first time His Holiness has made radical proposals, observations, or predictions about the institution of the Dalai Lama. It does represent a “stepping up” of his rhetoric, however.

Ten years ago he announced that if Tibet was still occupied when he died then his reincarnation would not be born under Chinese control but in the free world.

But with monasteries in Tibet under increasing pressure, his rhetoric appears to be strengthening.

In addition to his comments about the future of Tibetan leadership, His Holiness also strongly condemned the Myanmar junta for its actions against the nonviolent demonstrations led by Buddhist monks earlier this fall.

“When I saw pictures of people beating monks I was immediately reminded of inside Tibet, in our own case, where just a few days ago monks were beaten by Chinese forces,” the Dalai Lama said.

“I am fully committed and I have full support and sympathy for the demonstrators”…

[...]

The Dalai Lama urged the military junta in Myanmar–a staunchly Buddhist country–to heed the Buddha’s teachings.

“They should be Buddhists. Please act according to Buddha’s message of compassion,” he said.

[Thanks go once again to my pal Phil, this time for sending me the latter piece.]

From Reuters:

Hundreds of Buddhist monks, nuns and students marched against Myanmar’s military regime in eastern India on Monday, urging Buddhists around the world to unite against the junta, officials said on Monday.

At least 1,000 monks and nuns, draped in yellow robes, sang religious hymns and walked through the Buddhist holy town of Bodh Gaya in Bihar state, witnesses said.

Buddha is believed to have attained enlightenment in Bodh Gaya in southern Bihar in the 6th century BC.

“The military rulers are killing Buddhists, torturing our community and destroying Buddhist statues and religious emblems,” Kyaw Than of the All Burma Students League said by phone from the town.

A monk-led protest was crushed by Myanmar’s ruling junta in September, and at least 10 people, possibly more, were killed.

The military regime is facing unprecedented pressure to move away from decades of army rule that has crippled a once-promising economy.

India is home to hundreds of Myanmar nationals, many of them pro-democracy activists, who have staged sporadic protests since September in Delhi, Bodh Gaya and some other cities.

New Delhi, which has close links to the junta, says the generals should pursue national reconciliation and return to democracy but opposes tough measures like sanctions saying the country should not be isolated.

The monks in Gaya will hold marches for three days and sit indefinitely outside the famous Bodh Gaya temple, Than said.

[Thanks to my good buddy Phil for passing this along.]

Earlier this week, the Washington Post ran a provocative (and dare I say essential) opinion piece by Michael Maniates, a professor of political science and environmental science at Allegheny College. His argument: the environmental movement is “glorifying” that which is “easy,” and to questionable effect.

Several best-sellers offer advice about what we must ask of ourselves and one another. Their titles suggest that we needn’t break much of a sweat: “It’s Easy Being Green,” “The Lazy Environmentalist,” or even “The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time.”

Although each offers familiar advice (“reuse scrap paper before recycling” or “take shorter showers”), it’s what’s left unsaid by these books that’s intriguing. Three assertions permeate the pages: (1) We should look for easy, cost-effective things to do in our private lives as consumers, since that’s where we have the most power and control; these are the best things to do because (2) if we all do them the cumulative effect of these individual choices will be a safe planet; which is fortunate indeed because (3) we, by nature, aren’t terribly interested in doing anything that isn’t private, individualistic, cost-effective and, above all, easy.

This glorification of easy isn’t limited to the newest environmental self-help books. The Web sites of the big U.S. environmental groups, the Environmental Protection Agency and even the American Association for the Advancement of Science offer markedly similar lists of actions that tell us we can change the world through our consumer choices, choices that are economic, simple, even stylish. Al Gore himself isn’t immune. His recent Live Earth concert featured a who’s-who lineup of celebrities who said that if we all do our little bit to recycle and conserve–the simple things, mind you, because that’s all we’ll need (translation: that’s all they think we’ll go for)–we can together rescue the world for our children and grandchildren.

Never has so little been asked of so many at such a critical moment.

The hard facts are these: If we sum up the easy, cost-effective, eco-efficiency measures we should all embrace, the best we get is a slowing of the growth of environmental damage. That’s hardly enough: Avoiding the worst risks of climate change, for instance, may require reducing U.S. carbon emissions by 80 percent in the next 30 years while invoking the moral authority such reductions would confer to persuade China, India and other booming nations to embrace similar restraint. Obsessing over recycling and installing a few special light bulbs won’t cut it. We need to be looking at fundamental change in our energy, transportation and agricultural systems rather than technological tweaking on the margins, and this means changes and costs that our current and would-be leaders seem afraid to discuss. Which is a pity, since Americans are at their best when they’re struggling together, and sometimes with one another, toward difficult goals.

Maniates is right on here in his assessment, I think. In addition, he goes on to end the piece with a crucial reminder:

Throughout our history it has been the knotty, vexing challenges, and leaders who speak frankly about them, that have fired our individual and communal imagination, creativity and commitment. Paul Revere didn’t race through the streets of Middlesex County hawking a book on “The Lazy Revolutionary.” Franklin Roosevelt didn’t mobilize the country’s energies by listing 10 easy ways to oppose fascism. And it’s unlikely that Martin Luther King Jr.’s drafts of his “I Have a Dream” speech or his “Letter From Birmingham Jail” imagined a practical politics of change rooted in individualistic, consumer-centered actions.

Indeed, one of the ways I think our country has gone soft with regards to social engagement is by allowing activism to take root in “individualistic, consumer-centered actions.” This is an astute and well-articulated bit by Maniates.

All that said, Bill Maher, comedian and host of H.B.O.’s Real Time, takes advantage of the Thanksgiving holiday and acidly reminds us of something we can do that is “not hard” but nonetheless makes a huge impact environmentally: vegetarianism.

Former Vice President Al Gore should be the first to take the meat-free Thanksgiving pledge. Since raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined, is it too much ask Mr. Gore to stop gazing at his Oscar and his Nobel Prize long enough to read the United Nations report that calls the meat industry “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global”?

The issue that Maher raises is something that I’ve blogged about before–here and here.

Maniates may or may not have had it in mind when he wrote his piece, but it seems to me that vegetarianism is one of those changes we will have to make if we want to “avoid the worst risks of climate change.” Though “not hard,” it may not be an “easy” thing for some of us. But, hey, it’s not easy being green.

For the last five days, I have been in San Diego at the American Academy of Religion 2007 Annual Meeting. The meeting, held at the city’s way cool-looking convention center and its surrounding hotels, was my first. I must say that I enjoyed myself immensely–much more than I think I was expecting. The panels I participated in were, generally speaking, very exciting intellectually; the experience of spending time with students and faculty doing Buddhist Studies at other universities was invaluable; and the entire event was certainly star-studded, which is always fun. (Among my sightings: the great Cornel West, Stephen Prothero, and Diana Eck!)

Of all the papers I heard at the panels I attended, the most memorable to me were the following:

• José Ignacio Cabezón‘s “Is Homosexual Sex Sexual Misconduct?: Critical Reflections on Some Classic Indo-Tibetan Sources” for the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies. (Full disclosure: I am a member of this organization.) In the paper, Cabezón argues that (1) moralizing about homosexual sex makes its first appearances fairly late in the history of Indian Buddhism, and (2) it must be properly understood and contextualized as the product of monastic scholars in a particular cultural milieu.
  
• I thought that both Claire Wolfteich and Peter R. Gathje gave great papers at the Practical Theology group. Wolfteich’s was particularly excellent: in her paper she looked at the use of prayer by religious activists on both sides of the abortion debate in the United States. Gathje, tackling a similarly divisive issue, talked about building community in the struggle to abolish the death penalty.
  
• I completely geeked out at the Religion, Film, and Visual Cultural sections. Far and away my favorite paper was “‘But It Did Happen’: Sound as Deep as Narrative in P.T. Anderson’s Magnolia” by Liverpool Hope University assistant chaplain Theodora Hawksley. Magnolia is a film dear to my heart, and Chaplain Hawksley’s paper was overflowing with insight into its richness–cinematically and spiritually.
  
• As a Buddhist theologian of the practical variety, I must say that I was thrilled to take part in all the sections of the Buddhist Critical-Constructive Reflection Group. The first section revolved around the theme of “Methods for the Study of Women and Buddhism.” My favorite of the papers presented there, entitled “Ethnology and Activism: Reassessing Methodologies for the Study of Women and Buddhism,” was given by Karma Lekshe Tsomo, and it asked vitally important questions about the (possible) responsibilities of scholars to the people they study. The second section, on the subject of “Current Trends in Ethical Reflections,” featured a wonderfully lively conversation/Q&A on a range of issues–too much to go into here. Finally, the last section, co-sponsored with the Academic Teaching and the Study of Religion Group, addressed the theme “Contemplative Studies: Something Old and Something New in the Academy” and featured presentations from panelists including John Dunne and Anne Klein. For a Naropa alumnus like me, this was a cool section to sit in on.

Sunday night was a banner night for my esteemed institution, the University of the West: UWest hosted a formal reception at A.A.R. I’m happy to report that our little brouhaha was very well attended by Buddhologists and others from various institutions. (In fact, eagle-eyed Buddhist Studies nerds will notice both Kenneth K. Tanaka and A. Charles Muller sitting together at a table near the center of the above photograph.) What’s more, quite a few of our guests expressed excitement about UWest’s Digital Sanskrit Buddhist Canon Website, which my roommate and good pal Miroj Shakya has put much hard work into. Anyway, I think I speak for everyone when I say we were very pleased with how the reception went.

One of my colleagues from UWest who attended A.A.R. was my friend Somya Malasri. I’ve written about him a few times now at the blog–here, here, and here. Somya is currently a chaplain candidate in the United States Army, set to become the very first Buddhist chaplain in that branch of the armed forces. The two of us have been classmates at UWest now for almost a year, but we’ve gotten to know each other a little better this semester. I so admire Somya’s dedication to the men and women he serves, and his personal kindnesses to me have meant an awful lot. While our strong difference of opinion on the issue of a “just war theology” in Buddhism have been blogged about here and elsewhere, I really do respect Somya a lot and am appreciating all the opportunities to get to know him better. (Thanks to my fellow Naropa alumnus Jenny Lamb for taking the above photo of Somya and me.)

I must say I’m delighted to find myself hoping that more A.A.R. meetings are in my immediate future.