The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia: Second Edition

Women and Buddhism

190 part iii Zen monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, and H. H. the Dalai Lama. He also admires Christian liberation theologians and especially the spiritual activism of the American Catholic Trappist monk, the late Thomas Merton. Sulak’s outspoken criticism of the Thai government and Thai society has brought reprisals. In 1984 he was arrested on charges of lese majeste, but after serving four months in prison, he was released. In September 1991, the military government, stung by his attacks, again issued a warrant for his arrest on the same charges. Sulak, fearing for his life, fled the country and lived in exile for a year, lecturing in Europe, the United States, and Japan. In August 2006, Sulak was acquitted of the charges that were brought against him in March 1998 for obstructing the construction of the Yadana gas pipeline between Myanmar and Thailand. While Sulak was told that the Royal Household instructed the chief of police to remove the accusation of lese majeste against him, pursuant of his criticism of the Thaksin Sinawatra government, he has not been informed officially nor has he received a written reprieve. Sulak has been attacked not only by military and government leaders, but also he has come under criticism from his own sympathizers who contend that his outspoken style has blunted the effectiveness of his work. Others argue, however, that Sulak’s biting sarcasm has allowed other Buddhist social critics speaking in a more moderate voice to be heard. Even his critics acknowledge that S. Sivaraksa has been an effective agent in promoting idealism and public service, revived Buddhist values, and has built cooperative networks of religiously committed and motivated people—clergy and lay, Buddhist and non-Buddhist. Women and Buddhism In Buddhist texts authored by male monastics, women appear positively as female renunciants who attain arahantship and renowned lay women who give generously to the sangha, but negatively as a threat to the stability of the male renunciant order and as greedy, weak in wisdom, and inferior to men.130 buddhism and modernization 191 Alan Sponberg has examined a wide range of classical Indian Buddhist texts and gleans from them four diverse attitudes toward women, which he labels as soteriological inclusiveness, institutional androcentrism, ascetic misogyny, and soteriological androgyny.131 In general, Sponberg opines that while the early Indian Buddhist tradition acknowledged gender differences, it saw them as soteriologically insignificant (i.e., soteriological inclusiveness ). As the Buddhist movement became larger and cenobitic monastic traditions became the norm, women’s renunciant lives became more and more carefully regulated (institutional androcentrism). As class and caste differences came to be determined by constructions of purity and pollution, women were defined as a threat to the purity of the male monastic vocation (ascetic misogyny). Finally, in the Vajrayana tradition Sponberg contends that gender differences become insignificant relative to the goal, and that ultimately they are perceived as unreal or mutually complementary (soteriological androgyny). While Sponberg’s analysis presents only a broad thematic overview, his schema suggests the complexity of the place of women in the Buddhist worldview and the cultural society it reflects. The Buddhist women’s movement in Theravada Buddhism, especially in Thailand and Sri Lanka, has assumed an increasingly important place in the changing role of the laity in the contemporary period. The traditional role of women in Southeast Asian society reflects the values of a patriarchal society. Women’s roles were defined primarily by men in relationship to men.132 The ideal woman was portrayed as a loyal wife and devoted mother. When this portrayal is translated into the Buddhist monastic context, women are seen as mothers who produce sons who become monks, and as homemakers who prepare the food donated to monks. In the legendary story of the life of the Buddha, this latter role is valorized in the person of Sujata, who offers milk and honey-sweetened rice to Prince Siddhattha after he breaks his ascetic fast prior to his enlightenment. In the same legendary life of the Buddha, the earth is portrayed as a goddess who bears witness to the accumulated virtues of the future Buddha. By her witness, she foils the attack by the evil Lord Mara, thereby becoming an instrumental cause of the Buddha’s awakening. Other stories in the Pali texts uphold female exemplary donors like Visakha, 192 part iii as well as men like Anathapindika. These differing images of the feminine in the Pali texts are...