CuriosityKills

I'm not entirely sure if I want to be part of any religious group yet, but so far the one religion that really appeals to me is Buddhism. I find that the Buddhist perspective matches my own quite closely, however, I do have one problem.

In the encounters that I have had with Buddhist Monks, I have noticed that they seem to be quite averse to women. In one of the temples that I have visited the monks won't take something handed to them by a woman. Yet, if the object is handed to them by a man they will gladly accept it. They often lay an affectionate hand on the lay men but won't do the same if the person is female.

I understand that the monks do not do this out of hostility and that they merely trying to avoid feelings of lust. It is true that the easiest way to deal with a temptation is to remove the tempter. To me, this seems like a little bit of a cop out. Wouldn't it be a better method of longterm cultivation to actually face the temptation instead? I think this projects the problem of lust off of the monk and onto the woman. She is seen as the root of the lust. The actual root of the lust I would think is the mind. The monk acheives his celibacy, but the woman is treated as second class in the temple.

On one occasion I was given a chance to have dinner with a monk from a different temple, his master and a nun. I was told that it was custom to serve the monks first and the nuns were to eat last. I was also told that it was custom to bow to the monks but not to the nun. You would think that this might be because the males were senior to her. Nope. I have read that the most junior monks in temples will eat before the most senior nun.

This makes me a little angry and ambivalent about getting involved with a group of people who don't view women as equals. As woman I cannot abide by the fact that women are seen as "temptations" ready to lure the monk away from his vows. I have been raised with the idea that I am equal to a man. In every area of my life I am recognized as having the same potential as a man. Is it too much to ask that I be given the same consideration in religious matters?

As far as I know, this sort of inequality is not an original idea in Buddhism so there is still hope.

Does anyone know of any schools of Buddhism that treat women the same as men? <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

[ October 29, 2002: Message edited by: CuriosityKills ]</p>

sakrilege

This might do better in the Non-Abrahamic Religions forum.

Marduk

<a href="http://www.buddhanet.net/" target="_blank">http://www.buddhanet.net/</a>

Steve K

The way I understand it, the Buddha was himself somewhat of a misogynist, at least in the beginning. For example, he did not admit women into his monastic order and only under persuasion did he create an order for women. Women also made more rules to follow in their order than the men did. (Although since the oldest source we have is ~500 years after he died, its possible that these restrictions were actually added by others.)

That said, I think there are groups that treat women equally. Pure Land groups (e.g. Jodo Shinshu and the such) perhaps? The encounter you describe sounds very Theravadin, and that's one of the things that bothers me about their group in general.

- Steve