Wherever women are the vegetation will wither, wild beasts will go hungry and the springs will dry up. Women have 84 ugly forms and 84,000 unpleasant forms. A 100-year old bhiksuni who has been ordained for many years still has to bow to a newly initiated male bhiksu. Women becoming Buddhist nuns will shorten the lifespan of Buddhism by 500 years; women cannot achieve Buddhahood, unless they first transform into men.

Can women achieve Buddhahood? Isn't Mother Buddha, through the illusion of sex, telling us that vimukta awaits both men and women? （from The 53 Faces of Mother Buddha）

Buddha said that "all creatures are equal," so why does Buddhism belittle women and treat men and women so differently?

As a woman I can no longer represent a religion that regards women as inferior," says Jacqueline Mandell, an American women, who researches Theravadin Buddhism and who is planning to resign her position as meditation teacher at a Zen Buddhism school. She believes that the Buddhist tradition and the spirit of Buddhism are not the same and that she is not preparing to give up Buddhism but only leaving behind Theravadin Buddhism tradition.

Rita Gross, who teaches at Wisconsin State University in the US, has written a number of books on enlightenment for Buddhist women. She says "I hope that followers of Buddhism can realize that a patriarchal society is incompatible with an enlightened society."

In the book The Turning of the Wheel, written by Sandy Boucher, the author interviewed many followers of Theravadin Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Chinese Buddhism and Zen Buddhism to examine how, with an outlook that is different to that of people brought up in Asian patriarchal societies, they came to lead the way in questioning the inequality with which Buddhism treats men and women, searching for the core of Buddhism in the hope of finding a balance between Buddhist tradition and women's awakening.

Women are unclean

Looking through Buddhist scriptures, it can be seen that practically all the words possible have been used to stress the utter filthiness of women. The Maharatnakuta says that "although people despise rotting dead dogs and snakes and the smell of burning feces, women are even more disgusting."

There are also the "84 ugly forms" which refer to the undesirable traits of women like jealously, a penchant to be critical, revengefulness, greediness, pettiness, two-facedness, suspiciousness and lustfulness.

Taiwan has Buddhist places of learning where the bhiksu in charge require the nuns to recite the "84 ugly forms" and walk with a piece of polystyrene on their heads, an activity which is intended to cleanse them of all "female forms." The explanation of the director of Fo Kuang Shan Domestic SupervisoryCouncil, Venerable Si Hui, is that in Indian society five centuries ago women were restricted to the courtyard and this oppressed lifestyle easily gave rise to these types of ugly forms. Today, women in society or women who become nuns can use the "84 ugly forms" to remind oneself not to let the undesirable habits of the old society make a return.

If bhiksu use the Buddhist scriptures to belittle nuns and tell them they are the cause of disaster, Sakya Chao-fei, who has debated the ethics of the relationship between male and female followers of Buddhism on TV several times, says that "Women should be modest, but not regard themselves as inferior."

Scared of the self

"In all religions, women are both sacred and evil; dark and evil are often represented by women. From a man's point of view women are indeed both lovely and frightening," says Fo Kuang University's Principal Kung Peng-cheng.

For early male-dominated Buddhism, women were the main stimulator of lust in monks and cause of straying by monks into sexual indulgence or departure from their group, so it is no wonder that the scriptures say that women should be seen as rotting snakes, dogs, feces and dirt. Buddhism even tells its monks to see women as containers full of urine to suppress any sexual urges. Sakya Chao-fei explains that this was because most of the targets of Buddhist teachings were men. If they had been mainly women, perhaps men would have been given "84 ugly forms."

In her book Women of Good Family in the Path of Bodhi, Heng Ching Shih who teaches in National Taiwan University's Philosophy Department, meticulously relates the ideas of Buddhism regarding women in various ages. She asks why the scriptures have no negative portrayals of men to reduce the temptations to women practicing Buddhism. One reason, she says, is that this kind of direct criticism of men's faults was not allowed in male-dominated Indian society and that this perhaps also illustrates that, when practicing Buddhism, men's problems with lust are more serious than women's.

Concerns 2500 years ago

2500 years ago, a number of years after Buddha had established the religion, the Aunt who had raised him, Mahaprajapati, led 500 women on a long trek to where Buddha was preaching to ask if they could become nuns, a request that was denied.She asked three times and each time was refused. Then, Buddha's servant, Venerable Ananda, stood up and spoke in favor of the women. He asked Buddha if women could achieve Buddhahood. "Yes," replied Buddha.

Thus the tradition of male domination, in a society which at that time required that a woman kill herself if her husband died, was broken and monks and nuns enjoyed basically equal positions. In contrast, even 2500 years on, the Islamic and Catholic religions are run, and preaching and religious ceremonies conducted, exclusively by men.

Buddha established the "Eight Chief Laws" for women to follow. This requires that even a vastly experienced 100-year-old bhiksuni has to bow to a newly initiated bhiksu and, no matter who is right or wrong, a bhiksuni cannot curse or report the mistakes of a bhiksu. The place where bhiksuni study Zen must also be close to bhiksu so they can be supervised.

"Eight Chief Laws" not necessary

The making of these rules was probably intended to protect the religion from splitting as a result of excessively rapid change and also offered protection to bhiksuni who could not safely wander far and wide. However, unavoidably, it also put the bhiksuni in a subsidiary position vis-*-vis the bhiksu. In countries which still follow the "Eight Chief Laws" the numbers of nuns have declined and they have even disappeared completely in some.

"In the Buddhist religion in Taiwan, bhiksuni and bhiksu respect each other and enjoy a harmonious relationship. "'The Eight Chief Laws' have never been implemented and there really is no need to talk about them in relation to Buddhism in Taiwan" says Venerable Si Hui. In 1965 the much-respected Venerable Yin-shun said in a letter replying to a query from Venerable Sheng-yan that there was no longer a need to place too much stress on the "Eight Chief Laws" and that equality should be stressed. Venerable Sheng-yan also believed that the "Eight Chief Laws" were too restrictive of women and he hoped that in the future China's nuns could form their own groups.

All-embracing Chinese Buddhism

Today argument concerning religious discipline revolves mainly around the problem of "Absolutely no change" or "Change with the times." Since its arrival in China, Buddhism has absorbed the rich native philosophy, and requirements of religious discipline have been continually changed by the emperor or senior monks. It can thus fairly be said that Chinese Buddhism is not unchanging and there is not just one school of thought regarding religious discipline.

Buddhism stresses the law of mutual causation of all actions: this means that when something happens, rules are made according to the incident, not before it happens. Therefore, today, when looking at religious canons we should also think back to the intentions at the time they were made. Buddha also said that regulations could be made according to the characteristics of different places and that religious discipline did not have to be rigidly adhered to.

However, if each school of Buddhist thought insisted on questioning the practices of other schools, then wouldn't Theravadin Buddhists questions the validity of Chinese Buddhist monks for not leading a mendicant lifestyle and eating after noon, and not wearing a robe which leaves their right shoulder bare and Chinese Buddhist followers question Tibetan Buddhists for eating meat.

Ordination by both sexes

What, then, are the things that can be changed to meet the needs of the times and what are unchangeable principles of Buddhism? The Dalai Lama encourages Western bhiksuni to be ordained in Taiwan and is interested in introducing the ordination of women into Tibetan Buddhism. It is reported that this has met with the opposition of conservative lamas.The reason for the opposition is: in the early days Taiwan lacked fully qualified bhiksuni, and bhiksuni were only initiated by monks which does not meet the regulations on ordination that require that nuns are initiated by both bhiksuni and bhiksu.

This controversy occurred in the very early days of the initiation of Buddhist nuns in China. According to the Biographies of Bhiksunis China's first bhiksuni was Bhiksuni Ching-chian who was initiated in AD 357, during the Western Jin Dynasty. However, at that time there were no nuns in China, so she was only initiated by bhiksu monks which caused a storm. In the Song Dynasty, 11 senior bhiksuni from present-day Sri Lanka went to China and began the first ever ordination of bhiksuni by bhiksu amf bhiksuni.

Looking back into the history of Buddhism, the first batch of bhiksuni were initiated by monks. Buddha also said that if there were insufficient numbers of monks with the seniority to teach in the border areas then it was not absolutely necessary to have 10 bhiksuni or bhiksu. It can thus been seen there is nothing "illegal" about Taiwan's nuns.

However, it is not only men who question bhiksu-only ordination of bhiksunis. Taiwan's nuns also question it. What exactly is the significance of ordination by both bhiku and bhiksuni?

Venerable Wu Yin says that initiation is a kind of assessment and certification. After a woman becomes a nun she first spends two years with a group of nuns and is approved by a nun group that understands her before moving onto a monk group for full ordination. However, Taiwan's bhiksuni, to this day, use the convenient ordination method and are directly ordained by a monk group. This is not the correct procedure and it also misses out the important assessment function. Therefore, the Luminary Nunnery insists that qualification as a bhiksuni only comes after observation and assessment by nuns over a long period of time.

Whether or not bhiksunis sent from Taiwan or S. Korea to assist with the ordination of bhiksuni will be accepted by Tibetan or Theravadin Buddhist bhiksu and wider society will decide whether these schools begin ordination of bhiksuni. "The reason that there are no bhiksuni in Tibet today is that the whole society does not recognize bhiksuni. In a country like Tibet, where state and church are one, perhaps only the Dalai Lama has the authority to break the canons that have been handed down," says Lee Yu-chen, who is researching into Buddhist women's issues for her doctorate at Cornell University.

Who wrote the Buddhist texts?

Looking at the rules of religious discipline for Buddhist nuns, in addition to thinking back to the time when the rules were set to gain an understanding of their basic spirit, it is also necessary to ask "Who wrote the Buddhist scriptures?" Buddhist women in the US have in the past asked Theravadin Buddhism's bhiksu why there are no records of great nuns in the scriptures?

Most Buddhist religious doctrine was compiled by his followers after he left the river of rebirth. Not only were they all men, unfortunately, most of the scriptures that survive were "selectively" recorded by the schools that are the most conservative regarding women, the Theravadin and Mahisakah schools. Whether this type of "tradition" fulfills the spirit of Buddhism has been a point of controversy since ancient times. In Buddhist history it seems that the most controversial question stemming from the inequality of men and women has been "Can women achieve Buddhahood?"

"Can women achieve Buddhahood?" The most conservative Mahisakah faction believed that women are the embodiment of lust and, no matter how hard they try, they will never be able to achieve Buddhahood. More moderate schools leave an opening and believe that although women have filthy bodies, if they work hard at studying Buddhism they can transform into men and then achieve Buddhahood.

The Lotus Sutra frequently mentions the story of Dragon Girl's transformation. The 8-year old Dragon Girl understood all that Buddha said with ease. Manjusri said that she could quickly achieve Buddhahood, words which were questioned by a bhiksu. Suddenly Dragon Girl conjured up into a jewel worth 3000 times more than all the things in the world, which she gave to Buddha and said "the speed that I achieve Buddhahood will be faster than this." Upon saying this, she turned into a man and went south to Paradise.

Man, woman, or neither?

Transformation gets a whole different interpretation in later Mahayana Buddhism. Their scriptures are the most supportive of women studying Buddhism and say that they can achieve Buddhahood in their own bodies. In the Vimalakirti-nirdesa Sutra, Sariputra, who always doubted that women could achieve Buddhahood, was discussing the question with Devakanya (Heavenly Lady). Devakanya turned herself into Sariputra and, him into her, to let him understand that focusing on an illusion of sex is a mistake and thinking that changing an illusion of a woman into an illusion of man is a mistake built on a mistake. Buddha told Aksaya Buddha that there was once a "Fiery age" when the only people were women. These billions of women were all followers of Buddha who understood the truth of the pain of life and were all able to achieve Buddhahood as women.

What has sex got to do with it?

Buddha said "there is no difference between men and women."

The spirit of transformation is perhaps using sexual transformation to teach that Buddhism's essence is total freedom, regardless of sex. Sakya Chao-fei says that scriptures that belittle women in the extreme can, without the need to carry out intellectual assessment, be regarded as "false' because they are basically at odds with Buddha's fundamental idea that all creatures are equal.

In Taiwan Mother Buddha is one of the most popular gods. In the Kuanyin Temple worshippers pray with incense clasped in their hands. Is the "man's body, woman's face" Mother Buddha a man or a woman in the minds of worshippers? Or neither? An old lady says "I don't know either. It's not important". Yes, what is important is not sex, only the benevolence that Mother Buddha gives.

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(above) The ordination of nuns began in Taiwan in 1953. From a contemporary photograph, it can be seen that Buddhism in Taiwan has traditionally been male-oriented-monks can be seen sitting and standing in the front. (courtesy of Chiang Tsan-teng)

From an early register of student nuns it can be seen that in the past most were middle-aged. Many of these were "vegetarian women"-nuns who retained their hair. (courtesy of Chiang Tsan-teng)

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Can women achieve Buddhahood? Isn't Mother Buddha, through the illusion of sex, telling us that vimukta awaits both men and women? (from The 53 Faces of Mother Buddha)

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"When black hair falls, all troubles are left behind." Why does Buddhism treat men and women differently? (photo by Pu Hua-chih)

"When black hair falls, all troubles are left behind." Why does Buddhism treat men and women differently? （photo by Pu Hua-chih）