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Comment by mudita | Hacker News Reader

My own personal experience differed from yours. In a retreat in Burma I observed a lot of traditions, which made it very clear that men had a higher standing than women. When forming a line for going to lunch, the monks were first, then the laymen, then the nuns and then the laywomen; only the monks ate on a raised platform, but not the nuns or laypeople etc.

This was not just old books, which nobody cared about, but pervasive everyday practice.

I very much believe that you had different experience and am happy for it. There’s a lot of Buddhists and different traditions and it’s very difficult to generalise. I myself also practiced in - more western - communities, where there was no noticeable gender imbalance. But I am also sure, that there are Buddhist traditions and communities, which are sexist.

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The reason why you saw what you saw is twofold.

1) You did not see nuns. Formal lineage of nuns died in Theravada lineage hundreds of years ago. Women were wearing white robes right? Those are the robes of novices. You need 5? female nuns to ordain a new nun. Sri Lankan monk, Bhante Henepola Gunaratana (aka Bhante G) asked Tibetan nuns so bootstrap the tradition in Theravada, but it's just starting and there is resistance.

2) Women are considered less than men in Asian cultures (equality of sexes is new in the West too). Religions are not separate from the culture around them.

>But I am also sure, that there are Buddhist traditions and communities, which are sexist.

Yes there are and that is to be expected. (Unless you believe that Buddhism makes people somehow perfect. "After the Ecstasy, the Laundry: How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Path" by Jack Kornfield is a good book that explains how full of shit Buddhists are no matter how much they train.

Buddhism is not about creating perfect world in this world or in afterlife.

> Women are considered less than men in Asian cultures (equality of sexes is new in the West too). Religions are not separate from the culture around them.

Sure - but aren't monks and priests also supposed to be a model, demonstrating what a really dedicated, pious follower of the religion should look like?

You're begging the question. Why should monks and priests be a model, rather than a reminder of human nature?

For the same reason I'd expect the pope to be catholic :)

Wouldn't you expect a full-time professional footballer/dancer/poet to be better at football/dance/poetry than the average person on the street?

How does one measure "better" when it comes to philosophy or spirituality?

The notion that priests and monks should be holier than the common folk strikes me as very Abrahamic. This forms a hierarchy in the mind.

I'm not a Buddhist, but if I were, I would interrogate (and probably reject) such hierarchies.

Buddhism is not some progressive movement to change the world.

Ethnic Buddhist traditions are usually among the most conservative forces in the society. They try to be conservative models. In Burma and Sri Lanka many of the politically most active monks favor ethnic cleansing and preach religious intolerance.

Yes, thank you for this explanation. I didn’t know that they were not fully ordained, I learned something from you today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thilashin (although one could argue whether to call them nuns or not in English. The wikipedia article still calls them “Burmese Theravada Buddhist nun” and they were called nuns in English where I practiced - I’d say their culture’s concept of “nun” does not map perfect to the Western concept, so details get lost in translation, but your explanation is fundamentally correct and very helpful. )

This definitely makes clear again my lack of deeper understanding of their culture and the hubris of me judging their culture after having been in Burma for only a month.

That being said, there definitely were signs of sexism, women did not have the same standing and we should not close our eyes to this part of Buddhism. I don’t mean “and therefore Buddhism is bad”, but “as a Buddhist I think we can and should strive to do better”.

When Buddhism supports and reinforces misogyny, racism or jingoism from the surrounding culture, this is also a failing of Buddhism.

There are many Buddhist teachers (including Jack Kornfield) who absolutely do emphasise more virtuous and emphatic living as a core teaching and result of Buddhist practice. As a simple example, metta meditation is often advertised as actually helping you be more compassionate in “real life”.

> When Buddhism supports and reinforces misogyny, racism or jingoism from the surrounding culture, this is also a failing of Buddhism.

Buddhism as a religion has constantly and reliably failed throughout history. "This is not true Buddhism" is putting head into the sand. Buddhism that is deeply embedded into culture and tradition carries the baggage of the culture. Often when it transfers to a new culture there is a nice break from the tradition.

>There are many Buddhist teachers (including Jack Kornfield) who absolutely do emphasise more virtuous and emphatic

Yes. The wisdom of Jack Kornfield is taking western secular values adopting them into Buddhism and getting rid of the bad. Buddhism like any religion can be changed to anything you like, good or bad.

There is sexism in Buddhism. I stayed at a Buddhist temple in Germany and there where way more rules for the nuns than the monks.

> "It is extremely important to note that world religions [...] are, naturally and inevitably, in large part compendia of rules for managing daily life." - John A. Hall, Ideas and the Social Sciences, 1993

This is why I think it's a good thing that western Buddhism exits. It gets rid of all the bad stuff. And there are really interesting insights in Buddhism, like the concept of non-self or the four noble truths.

> It gets rid of all the bad stuff.

That’s laughable. Who decided what “the bad stuff” was? The early adopters were people who rejected western religions but projected western, individualistic culture onto eastern traditions.

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