In March of 1997, on the first day of his visit to Taiwan, the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, said that he hoped to come to understand the heritage and status of Buddhist nuns in Taiwan and the regulations pertaining to them. In November, the Dalai Lama's special envoy-- the Tashi Tsering Lama, who is the Assistant Secretary of the Tibetan government-in exile's Cultural Research Department--arrived in Taiwan from India. In Taiwan he attended the Conference on Female Sangha in Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism. The Tashi Tsering Lama hoped to apply the "Taiwan Experience" to begin the establishment of an organization for Tibetan Buddhist nuns.

Enthusiastic debate was carried on in a mixture of Mandarin Chinese and Tibetan first at the site of the convention and then in a restaurant. The next day, discussion was continued in a tea house. On the table in the tea house Buddhist classics such as the Vinayana of the Four Catagories lay open while the Ven. Heng Ching Shih, one of the organizers of the conference, and two of the participants, Sakya Chao Fei, a director of the Life Conservationist Association of the ROC and the Tashi Lama, spent the after noon comparing texts. "If the Dalai Lama could build a system for Tibetan bhiksuni in his lifetime, it would be no less of an accomplishment than achieving independence for Tibet," feels Sakya Chao Fei.

A men's Shangri-La

Buddhism originated in India and later divided into three strands: One traveled south to southern India, Sri Lanka, Burma and Thailand where it became Theravadin Buddhism; another strand went northward to Tibet, Nepal and Bhutan where it became Tibetan Buddhism; that strand which ventured northeast to China, and thence to Japan, Korea and Taiwan became Chinese Buddhism.

To most people in Taiwan, women who leave their home to follow the path of the Buddhist ascetic are known as nigu, or nuns. These nuns are divided into two kinds, sramanerika and bhiksuni. After entering on this path and taking their novices' vows, women become sramanerika, novices who might be said to have "observer status" in the Buddhist world. After about two years of study, novices may undergo full ordination. At this ceremony, the skin at the front of their scalps is burned, leaving small circular scars. (It is only Chinese Buddhism which has this scalp-burning rite.) When the ceremony is complete, they are bhiksuni, initiates who at last have the right to participate in Buddhist ceremonies, take disciples, hold the position of abbess, vote on Buddhist affairs, continue with their education and proselytize their faith.

At the Sino-Tibetan Buddhist conference, there sat two Western women wearing the red cassocks of Tibetan Buddhism, quietly listening to the debate. The two were Australian disciples of the Dalai Lama, Ven. Hsin Hai and Ven. Hsin Ming. However, because Tibetan Buddhism has no system for bhiksuni, they have only been ordained as sramanerika, remaining, still, Buddhist "apprentices."

In the Eighth Century, both Indian Buddhism and Chinese Buddhism existed in Tibet. However, in the Ninth Century, after a conference between these two different Buddhisms failed to resolve their differences, the Chinese monks left Tibet.

With the introduction of Buddhism into Tibet, why wasn't the system for female initiates also introduced? The Tashi Lama says, "The road was very long." The ordination ceremonies for males novices, bhiksu and sramanerika require at least 10 experienced initiates who have been ordained for at least 10 years to preside. The ordination ceremony for bhiksuni, on the other hand, requires a two level ordination. What this means is that in addition to the 10 male initiates, there must be 10 or 12 experienced bhiksuni (bhiksuni who have at least 12 years of experience) presiding. There have never been enough experienced foreign bhiksuni in Tibet to start a bhiksuni system in Tibet. In the same way, Theravadin Buddhism, which at one time was able to ordain bhiksuni, lost its ability to do so when there was a break in the system. Since that time, there have never been the 10 bhiksuni necessary to restart the system.

Coming to Taiwan to learn

The Tashi Lama's answer is not a very convincing one to Buddhist nuns, however. The reason is that China is even further from India than is Tibet and yet was able to over come this problem. It seems that the reason that there are no bhiksuni in Tibet may lie more in the standing of women in Tibetan society.

In Tibet proper, very few women who become nuns dare to fight for their rights. When the Dalai Lama fled overseas and Tibetan Buddhism began to accept women from all over the world into its ranks, how ever, Western women, possessed of a "feminine self-awareness," began to wonder why Buddhist doctrine favored men. They wondered why Tibetan Buddhism had only male initiates and no female initiates. These have become questions that Tibetan Buddhism must address whether it would like to or not.

Faced with the questions of Western nuns, 12 years ago the Dalai Lama established a committee focused exclusively on the task of creating bhiksuni. Unfortunately, the committee's efforts have been obstructed by traditionalists and it has yet to produce a proposal. For this reason Ven. Hsin Hai and Ven. Hsin Ming came to Taiwan to be ordained in 1982 at the direction of the Dalai Lama.

In fact, Ven. Hsin Hai and Ven. Hsin Ming are not the only nuns who have come to Taiwan from distant lands to be ordained. At the Buddhist college administered by the headquarters of Kaohsiung's Fo Kuang Shan Temple, there have always been a number of women who have come from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Thailand to study Buddhism and realize their long held ambition to be fully ordained. Taiwan has become the most popular place in the world for Theravadin Buddhist and Tibetan Buddhist nuns to come and receive teaching.

Taiwan is Kuanyin's nunnery

Looking at the numbers of Buddhists or dained in Taiwan over the years, since 1953, when the first ordination ceremony in Taiwan was held, in every year but one, the number of women ordained has far exceeded the number of men. The one year in which the number of men surpassed the number of women was in a year in which a large number of men were released from the military and chose to become monks. Even at Ven. Hsing Yun's Fo Kuang Shan Temple and Master Sheng Yan's Fa Ku Shan Temple, nearly all of the assistants under the temple directors and heads of the two sects are women. This is especially true of the huge Fo Kuang Shan organization wherein the heads of all five councils are female bhiksuni. Homemaker Mai Shu-ying, who has been attending Buddhist camps and following Buddhist dietary practices for 10 years, says that based on her observations, women always make up more than 80% of the attendees at such activities.

It is therefore not strange that the Ven. Ching Hsin, a director of the Chinese Buddhist Studies Association, would state, "The future of Taiwan's Buddhsim belongs to the nuns.

Small burdens, easily set aside

What is it that makes so many more women than men in Taiwan become ascetics?

Kung Peng-cheng, President of Fo Kuang University, says, "There are more fe male Buddhists than male so naturally the pool from which potential nuns are drawn is larger than the pool from which monks are drawn. It's just that Buddhism generally rejects women. Not only are they subject to more rules as an ascetic, the regulations concerning their return to secular life are stricter than those for men." There are some Buddhist sects that allow a man to move from a secular to a monastic life and back again as many as seven times, whereas if a woman once re-embarks upon the secular path, she may not again become a nun.

Besides the greater number of female Buddhists, many bhiksuni have noted that women have a more emotional disposition and are thus more easily drawn to becoming ascetics if they encounter difficulties in their lives. "I think the idea that women have a lot of bad karma comes from the fact that the physical and mental suffering they undergo and the difficulties they face in their lives are greater than those of men," says the Ven. Kuan Chien, a scholar of Buddhist architecture.

"The inequality of the sexes actually encourages women to become ascetics," says Kung, giving voice to a paradoxical view of the situation. He explains that in most societies there are few expectations that women "succeed" or achieve great things in their careers. After getting married and having children, they devote themselves to their families. These women have less space to develop themselves than modern nuns, who have the opportunity to improve themselves and serve others.

In contrast, society has greater expectations of men that they fight to get ahead in their careers and support their families. In becoming an ascetic, the familial and personal obstacles they face are difficult to overcome. "Even if they hope to become monks while they are still in school, once they complete their military service, they give up the idea," says Ven. Ming Chia, head of the Luminary Temple.

Not just a refuge for the disappointed

If the phenomena of nuns in Taiwan were simply a matter of numbers, then it wouldn't simply a matter of numbers, then it wouldn't attract so much attention from the Buddhist community. "Today it is not just a case of outstanding individuals, but of an outstanding system," says Sakya Chao Fei.

Chiang Tsan-teng, who has studied the development of Buddhism in Taiwan for many years, feels that the ability of Taiwan's bhiksuni to handle major tasks on their own has emerged in the last 20 years. He feels that there are three reasons for the modern female Buddhist's break with the past. First, levels of education are higher. Second, social values have become more liberal. Third, the ability of nuns to support themselves financially has improved.

Certainly from the perspective of educational background, today's nuns are different from their predecessors.

In the Qing dynasty there was a folk song whose words were to the effect that out of every 10 nuns, nine were former prostitutes and the tenth was mad. The 40-something Ven. Ming Chia remembers, "When I became a nun in the 1970s, people thought that becoming a nun was something for grand mothers and women who couldn't support themselves, widows and abandoned wives. My father thought it a huge loss of face that I wanted to be a nun and slapped me. I had to run away from home to do it."

"Everybody has their own reasons for taking this path. The bark of mercy carries all. Taking care of these fragile, disappointed people is something that we must do. But most of the more than 1000 nuns currently at Fo Kuang Shan are virgins; not one of them became a nun because of problems with a relationship or marital frustrations," says Ven. Tse Hui, head of the Domestic Supervisory Council, the most powerful council at Fo Kuang Shan.

At Fo Kuang Shan, there are also many entire families who made a joyful decision to become ascetics together. For example, there is the 50-something year old Ven. Tien Ching and her four daughters who came to Fo Kuang Shan one after another. "Today's nuns come to Buddhism full of ideals and enthusiasm. They themselves are highly independent and they haven't been pushed to become nuns by some unpleasant events in their external lives," feels Ven. Wu Yin.

People usually think of becoming an ascetic as a negative means of escaping from life's responsibilities. However, a huge majority of nuns explicitly state that they have not become nuns to escape a disappointment in love or a bad marriage. They are very clear in expressing that they wanted to follow a different path in life, a path they had dreamed about following.

Ven. Tse Kuan, a member of the LIBS, says that from the time she was young, she had the feeling that life was an ever-changing illusion. Although her elder brothers and sisters were happily married, she always asked herself if the devotion of her whole life to a husband and children was the only path available to a woman. The answer came to her when she encountered Buddhism. At the same time, another question was answered. She explains that when you become an ascetic, you do not cut all your family ties. For example, if a good friend is getting married or a parent is sick, you can go home to visit. "Becoming an ascetic is like getting married; it just means going to live with a different family," she quips.

The right moment

Ven. Kuan Chien, who was originally an outstanding architect, feels that her becoming a nun was fated in a previous life. In an old picture belonging to her family, she discovered that her father, the recently de ceased Taiwanese master sculptor Yang Ying-feng, was carving a large Buddha figure at the time her mother was pregnant with her. From high school onwards, she was possessed by the dream of becoming a Buddhist nun, but she wished to become one when she was in the best of situations. So it was that she first completed her studies and then worked for two years before very contentedly becoming a nun.

Now most female ascetics have a high school or college education and there's nothing astounding about a nun with a master's degree or PhD. Of the nuns of the LIBS, a group whose primary goal is the education of female religious teachers, 80% have a college degree and many even have a master's degree or PhD. At Fo Kuang Shan, many of those nuns who have a graduate degree actually had their education overseas paid for by the temple.

Even though an ascetic's status is independent of his or her educational back ground, the enthusiasm of individuals and the support of the Buddhist societies have not only improved the talents of the nuns, but have also been gradually reflected in the Buddhist community as whole.

No more "men first"

In the past, Buddhism had its "above, before and center principles" which stated that regardless of educational level, men's status was above that of women; when walking, men walked before women; and when being photographed, men stood in the center. However, not long ago the Sakya Chao Fei attended a feast. Although most of those seated at the front were very senior monks, the organizer had also kept a front row seat for her.

"With the liberalization of society, female Buddhists no longer need to play a secondary role," says Chiang.

"If a society represses women, then even women who take the Buddhist path will be repressed by patriarchal authority. In the same way, when a society has such a great number of outstanding women, a great number of outstanding bhiksuni will also appear. This reasoning explains why in the Chinese Buddhism seen in Japan and Korea, nuns do not have the status that they do in Taiwan." Sakya Chao Fei also affirms that in the last few years the liberalization of society has provided more space for Taiwan's bhiksuni to develop.

Taught by the times

Generally speaking, Taiwan's Buddhism has no rigid structure. It only requires that a few people get together to form a new Buddhist society. "Someone has said Taiwan's Buddhism is like a plateful of loose sand. The fact that it is as free as loose sand, I think, has allowed both male and female ascetics to have the room to develop their own abilities in their own ways," says Sakya Chao Fei.

"The traditional Buddhist rules of conduct most definitely include rules that discriminate against women, but they are not very strictly enforced in Taiwan. You could say that the system places constraints on bhiksuni, but in practice, they have a lot of freedom," says Ven. Heng Ching Shih.

Why is it that Taiwan's Buddhism doesn't seem to be very concerned about these inequalities in the rules of conduct for men and women? in Chiang's opinion, to understand this you have to look back at the particular characteristics of Buddhism in Taiwan around the time of its retrocession from Japan to China.

Before retrocession, Buddhism in Taiwan consisted of Japanese style Buddhism wherein ascetics can eat meat and marry, or a kind of mixed form which allowed ascetics to keep their hair but required that they follow a vegetarian diet. After the mainland fell to the communists, the Chinese Buddhist Association and a few ascetics came with the Nationalists to Taiwan. After they began to ordain local Buddhists, they began to change Taiwan's Fujianese-Japanese style of Buddhism.

Invaluable assistants

At that time, the power of those varieties of Buddhism present in Taiwan was waning. The bhiksu who began to proselytize and guide the development of the Chinese Buddhist Association of Taiwan were mostly from the mainland. Because they were few in number, had limited resources and spoke a different language, they naturally depended on local monks and nuns for assistance. The large number of potential nuns and female believers also became invaluable assistants to the bhiksu in proselytizing Buddhism.

An example is the Ven. Tzu Hang, a mainland monk with a great number of disciples. In 1949, when the Nationalist government had just arrived in Taiwan, he was arrested on suspicion of being a communist spy. At the appropriate time, Ven. Hsuen Kuang, Ven. Ta Hsin, Ven. Hsiu Kuan and Ven. Tzu Guan traveled all over the island to help him. When he was released from prison, he joined his 10-odd mainland monks, and at the invitation of Ven. Ta Hsin and Ven. Hsuen Kuang, both abbesses, they settled down in the Ching Hsiu Yuan which was originally a nunnery.

In the past, Buddhism kept men and women strictly separate. Not only were men relegated to their monasteries and women to their nunneries, male and female ascetics were not even allowed to be alone together under a tree or on a boat. For this reason, if a bhiksu were to make a trip to another place, he had to conscientiously avoid visiting nunneries. These traditional regulations have not, however, been strictly enforced in Taiwan, as the above example makes clear.

In order to encourage more women to become nuns, it was naturally also necessary to raise their status and give them more room to develop themselves. For example, many years ago, Ven. Hsing Yun lived in Ilan and attracted a number of female high-school graduates as disciples. Today, several of these disciples, such as Ven. Tzu Hui, Ven. Tzu Chuang and Ven. Tzu Jung all manage important councils within Fo Kuang Shan. Fo Kuang Shan has established its own sort of "Buddhist system" in which nuns are no longer required, as in traditional Buddhism, to bow to monks regardless of their own seniority.

Nuns take the stage

"Today, with the help of bhiksu, the status of Buddhist women has improved to the point were it is more or less equivalent to that of men," says Kung. "In Taiwan, bhiksuni have room to develop and make a contribution. We really must thank the Buddhist elders for their willingness to give bhiksuni this opportunity," says Ven. Wu Yin.

The effect of this situation has been that ascetic organizations that are at least nominally run by monks are filled with women in important positions. Chiang states very directly: "Today's Buddhist organizations are run by women. If the bhiksuni were to go on strike, Buddhism in Taiwan would face an immediate collapse."

Looking back at the development of Buddhism in Taiwan, even in its "vegetarian stage" there were several times more women than men. After retrocession, with the pains taking aid of the mainland bhiksu, female ascetics became Buddhism's army. And with the social liberalization of the last 20 years, it is women who are handling major tasks and holding leadership positions.

At a recent demonstration against the fourth nuclear power plant, Sakya Chao Fei, who is more typically seen demonstrating for animal rights, marched through the streets from dawn to dusk with anti-nuclear activists Lin Yi-hsiung and Lin Shuang-pu, wearing her cassock and broad-brimmed farmer's hat. In the past, Sakya Chao Fei has also protested against snag-fishing, catching and killing spring chickens as sport, and a circus performance--in this last case, holding a public hearing at which she decried the cruel use of animals for entertainment by the circus's organizers.

Responding to cruelty

The 85 year-old Ven. Hsiao Yun excels at both painting and the writing of poetry and studied with the Lingnan painter, Kao Chien-fu. In her youth, she was a teacher in Hong Kong and Guangdong. In 1967, she was asked to teach Buddhist art at Chinese Culture University, becoming the first Buddhist ascetic to hold the position of university professor. In her life, Ven. Hsiao Yun has stuck to three principles: not building her own temple; being selective about the disciples she accepts; and not becoming an abbess. Her whole life and energy have been devoted to education. When the Ministry of Education (MOE) allowed private individuals to establish MOE-accredited schools in 1987, she founded the Huafan Institute of Technology (now Huafan University), becoming the first Buddhist in the 2000 years of Chinese Buddhism to establish an MOE recognized school.

The several million member strong Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation is led by Dharma Master Cheng Yen. The foundation was established in 1966 at a time when Taiwan's economy was not yet developed and most charity work on the island was done by foreign churches.

At that time, Dharma Master Cheng Yen witnessed a hospital refuse care for a pregnant aboriginal woman because the woman didn't have money to pay a deposit. The woman's blood covered the floor. It was then that the dream of founding a hospital in the Hualien-Taitung area took root in her heart. Her hospital would not demand the payment of such deposits before treatment. However, it wasn't until 1979 when both society and the foundation had more developed financial resources that she formally sent out her holy appeal for aid in realizing this dream. It was an appeal which moved all segments of society. Six years ago, Dharma Master Cheng Yen was awarded the Ramon Magasaysay Award, the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize. Today, the esteem in which she is held by society is second to no monk.

The comfort of the holy mother

The Tzu Chi Foundation has some four million members of whom almost 7000 participate in its activities. Of these 7000, most are qipao-wearing female disciples. "Women have a gentleness that is especially comforting to those who are undergoing some difficulty," says Sakya Chao Fei. Kung also feels that female religious teachers have a way of putting things in terms that female believers can understand.

Chen Hsiu-mei, a member of the Tzu Chi Foundation, remembers a time when she at tended a conference on donations of corpses at the Hualien Medical College. When she was preparing to ride away on a motorcycle after the conference, Dharma Master Cheng yen quickly rolled down the window of the car in which she was sitting, saying softly to Chen, "Be sure to put on your helmet and be careful when you ride, okay?" Chen says that she felt "like a baby receiving warmth from its mother."

The monotheistic Catholics originally believed in only one god, a male one. Later, however, the Holy Mother Mary gradually became an object of worship. In China, the originally bearded Bodhisattva Kuanyin was also gradually transformed into a motherly figure. Nearly every race has an earth mother which it worships. The existence of goddesses and female religious teachers satisfies an ancient human need for mothering.

Individual vs. collective action

In the past in the mainland, monastic organizations such as those at the Shaolin and Tiantongyuan temples typically pulled together 500 or 1000 individual monks. In today's Taiwan, however, with the exception of the 300 or so bhiksu at Fo Kuang Shan, there are almost no large groups of monks. Monks, regardless of the monastic organization to which they belong, tend to roam and to live alone. Women, on the other hand, tend to live together in groups as in the cases of the 70-odd nuns at Chiayi County's Luminary Temple, the more than 100 nuns at the Lunghu Nunnery in Kaohsiung's Ah lien village, and the more than 1000 bhiksuni at Fo Kuang Shan. Living together like this, these nuns can devote themselves to tasks requiring many hands such as social welfare or consolidating scriptural research.

The Ven. Wu Yin feels that such living arrangements are related to the female character. Women feel more comfortable being a cog in the machine; they are willing to make sacrifices behind the scenes to aid a leader and have less interest than bhiksu in titles such as abbot/abbess or director of the Supervisory Council.

It's certainly true that a name list of those holding high positions in the Chinese Buddhist Association would be dominated by senior bhiksu. And at Fo Kuang Shan, even though the heads of its five councils are all women, it is always a bhiksu who is elected to be the head of the sect. The Ven. Tzu Hui, head of the Domestic Supervisory Council at Fo Kuang Shan, feels that the women at Fo Kuang Shan don't like to stand out and that it is very likely the next several heads of the sect that are elected will be bhiksu.

A cradle for religious teachers

With monastic organizations fading from the scene, Chiang predicts that in the future it will be more difficult to produce famous paternalistic bhiksu like the Ven. Hsing Yun, the Ven. Sheng Yan and the Ven. Wei Chuei. Bhiksuni are also changing their focus with their support of other nuns instead of monks making them stronger still. An example of this is the LIBS in which it is not individuals but the excellence of the entire organization that attracts attention.

The Ven. Wu Yin, founder of the LIBS, says that in Buddhism there used to be the idea that, "If the three excesses are not excised, Buddhism will not flourish." These so called "three excesses" were unrestrained and indiscriminate tonsuring of disciples, indiscriminate ordination and indiscriminate proselytization. In Taiwan, the age at which one may become an ascetic and the observation period are not subject to any rules. But at the Luminary Nunnery, those women with a desire to become nuns must first pass through a six month period as untonsured novices. They then undergo a three to six month evaluation by the organization before they are allowed to become ascetics.

After becoming ascetics, they enter the training stage and study Buddhism for two years. Once accredited by the organization, they finally undergo full ordination and become bhiksuni. They then must study for an other five years at a Buddhist college. It is such careful training that produces female religious teachers with the ability to discuss scripture and spread Buddhism.

Buddhism comes full circle

At Fo Kuang Shan's Buddhist college, there are many nuns who come from lands in which Theravadin Buddhism or Tibetan Buddhism are the prevalent forms. Some of these have been ordained as sramanerika, others are tonsured, but are not yet even sramanerika. The 29-year old Ven. Penjih from Sri Lanka has been ordained as a bhiksuni in Taiwan. She had been a nun for ten years before she discovered that women could undergo full ordination and become abbesses who can accept disciples. The Ven. Jutao, who also underwent full ordination in Taiwan, is from India. She says happily, "After being ordained, you are a real ascetic. I am very happy that I will be able to go back to India and spread Buddhist teachings."

With its fully developed and vigorous bhiksuni system, Taiwan has gained the strength to send help overseas. Next year, Fo Kuang Shan will hold an ordination ceremony in India to help the local Buddhist societies reestablish their own bhiksuni ordination. The Dalai Lama has also invited the world's Buddhist nations to put on a Thera vadin Buddhism monastic conference to discuss the problem of maintenance of a bhiksuni system. Because Tibetan Buddhism doesn't have a bhiksuni tradition, the Tibetan equivalent to sramanerika do not have the right to speak at the conference. Therefore the Dalai Lama has also invited 15 to 20 bhiksuni from Taiwan to attend the conference and debate with the monks from other nations.

In the fifth century, the bhiksuni of Sri Lanka were very active, even traveling as far as China to help the Chinese Buddhists establish bhiksuni ordination. Now in India, the birthplace of Buddhism, the bhiksuni or dination no longer exists. In the last few years, Korean bhiksuni have traveled to Sri Lanka to help the Sri Lankans reestablish bhiksuni ordination. Those who were once the masters must now study under their former students to relearn what they have forgotten. Buddhism has come full circle.

It is only after being fully ordained that an ascetic becomes a bhiksu or bhiksuni, able to accept disciples and serve as an abbess. （courtesy of Fo Kuang Shan）

The Dalai Lama's special envoy--Tashi Tsering Lama--came to Taiwan to di scuss the "Taiwan experience" with Venerable Heng Ching Shih, who is a professor at National Taiwan University, and Venerable Hui-ming of the Chinese Buddhist Research Institute.

Sakya Chao fei, more usually seen participating in animal rights activities, joins a group demonstrating against the fourth nuclear power plant. Today's nuns are not just full of benovolence and compassion; they can also take on an intimidating aspect.

Amidst the hustle and bustle of the Lantern Festival, a nun quietly begs for donations to establish a temple. In Taiwan, nuns are the "foot soldiers" of the large temples. （photo by Hsueh Chi- kuang）

At Chiayi's Luminary Temple, a group of ascetics are taking a class on monitoring one's own spiritual development. Modern nunneries are sparing no effort to train female religious teachers.