Sisters in Buddhist spirituality

Has the clergy's stern frown on female ordination stopped women's determination to pursue a monastic life?

If you drop by the Sathira Dhammasathan nunnery-cum-dhamma centre this weekend, you will realise how the clergy's attempts to keep women down are ineffective and irrelevant.

For one whole week starting this Sunday June 12, the lush greenery of the dhamma centre will be enlivened by different shades of the saffron robes of female monks interspersed with the white robes of nuns. The soothing sounds of their chants will also fill the atmosphere with a message of peace and sisterhood.

They will be coming from around the world - female monastics, scholars in Buddhism, social activists - for the Sakyadhita International Conference, where they will discuss practical uses of Buddhism in contemporary society, review the barriers Buddhist women face in developing their full potential, and share recent studies of interest for Buddhist women.

The pursuit of knowledge is definitely not the sole reason why they are travelling across the globe to attend this once-every-two-years meeting.

Female ordination for women in the Theravada Buddhist tradition was unthinkable three decades ago. It is now a reality. The Bhikkhuni or fully-ordained female equivalent of the monk, may still face many obstacles while Buddhist women routinely face institutionalised gender discrimination. But there has also been progress.

Working against the odds in this male-dominant world, you need a lot of inner strength. The Sakyadhita meet is where they come together to celebrate the possible. And to fortify their determination through connecting with the positive energy of others in the same cause.

Interestingly, a meeting that is rooted in the pursuit of gender equality in Buddhism is taking place at a nunnery. The mae chee or white-robed nuns, are not even considered clerics under Thai law. More interesting is that Mae Chee Sansanee Sathirasuta, the nunnery's founder, has never showed interest in female ordination, although many nuns have discarded their white robes to become fully ordained in saffron.

In a society obsessed with hierarchy such as ours, female ordination does pose a potential conflict. Nuns are inferior to monks, and now do the mae chee have to be inferior to bhikkhunis, too?

Fear of persecution by the clergy has also prevented many white-robed nuns to venture onto the bhikkhunis' path.

The clergy is often criticised for using the mae chee as temple hands. But there must also be women who are perfectly happy just to serve. Are they not to be counted as equals among monastic women?

Any system which opens only one sole answer to spiritual development is oppressive. The male clergy has been monopolising spirituality within men's domain while nurturing authoritarianism through strict hierarchy. There is no reason why the female clergy should repeat the same mistake.

Sakyadhita means daughters of the Buddha. If they really are so, they must realise the hollowness of form and label, whatever the colour of their garb and whatever name they are called. This is what is refreshing about this Sakyadhita meet. It is not only to celebrate the possible, but also the diversity of women on the spiritual path.

This does not mean that we should dismiss the problems the majority of bhikkhunis and nuns are facing. Nor should we overlook the need to tackle structural gender oppression so as to unleash women's potential on all fronts, not only their spirituality.

Once men are ordained, they get all kinds of support from the Buddhist public. Not women. Unlike Mae Chee Sansanee who has media skills to spread the dhamma and money to support her good work for women, most nuns are struggling on their own to live a monastic life and to be of service to society.

It is all right to discuss what the white-robed nuns have been doing to improve their sisters' condition. But it is also important to uncover and tackle the root cause of gender oppression.

This will not only make life easier for bhikkhunis and mae chee. Monks' spiritual life will also benefit if they can eventually transcend their gender prejudice.

Beggar beaten at pagoda

Photo by: Pha Lina

A tuk-tuk parks outside Wat Ounalom in Phnom Penh yesterday.

A monk at Daun Penh district’s Wat Ounalom attacked a female beggar with a stick on Friday night after the woman allegedly cursed him at the pagoda.

Monk Sao Saroeun, 50, said yesterday that the curses had been so offensive that he lost control of his temper.

“I could not control my anger, so I beat her about four or five times when she did not listen to my suggestions,” he said. “She hurt my feelings and cursed me in front of many people.”

Chhuon Savoeun, director of the Ounalom pagoda committee in charge of monk discipline, said yesterday that pagoda officials did not see the attack as a serious transgression.

“It was wrong and against the monks’ rules, but it was not serious,” Chhuon Savoeun said, comparing the assault to the corporal punishment occasionally employed by teachers and parents.

“Patience has limits, and even I sometimes cannot contain my anger,” he added.

The woman who was attacked could not be reached for comment yesterday, though local media outlet DAP News reported that the woman was beaten on her back and torso and was later taken to Calmette Hospital for treatment. Chhuon Savoeun said Wat Ounalom, located on the tourist-heavy riverfront, is often disturbed by beggars and drug addicts. Local authorities, he added, “do not seem to take action effectively” against such intrusions, forcing the pagoda to police itself.

Sok Chhorn, chief of police in Daun Penh district’s Chey Chumneah commune, confirmed that the incident had taken place but declined to comment further.

Multinational monk march

A Japanese Buddhist monk marches past the memorial stupa at the Choeung Ek Killing Fields on the outskirts of Phnom Penh yesterday. About 150 Buddhist monks from Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and Japan congregated at Choeung Ek yesterday for a ceremony in remembrance of those killed at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. The monks also offered prayers for world peace and the alleviation of all forms of suffering.

Monk flees pagoda over fears of arrest

Photo by: Will Baxter

The venerable monk Loun Souvath sits with residents of the Boeung Kak lake area during a demonstration outside City Hall earlier this month in Phnom Penh. Loun Souvath has been forced into hiding.

A monk at Wat Ounalom in Phnom Penh on Monday fled the pagoda out of fear of arrest by authorities for his participation in protests held by Boeung Kak lakeside residents and villagers embroiled in a land dispute in Chi Kraeng commune.

The venerable Luon Savath, ordained in 1990, went into hiding after returning from a protest in front of City Hall at the weekend, he said yesterday, adding that police have threatened him with arrest on four previous occasions over his involvement in protests.

“The authorities have not only warned me that they would arrest me, but have tried to get me defrocked by calling me a fake monk who violates Buddhist rules of conduct,” he said.

Luon Savath said that a police truck followed him back to the pagoda on Sunday and that he saw police stationed near the pagoda before fleeing in a car driven by staff at the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

“I am not involved with Boeung Kak villagers. I do not make problems. I was just observing the protest to find justice for the people,” he said.

Touch Naruth, chief of Phnom Penh Municipal Police, declined to comment yesterday. Chuon Narin, head of the municipal penal police department, said he did not know anything about the issue.

However, Phon Davy, director of the municipal cults and religions department, said that Luon Savath had not only joined with Boeung Kak lake protesters but others at Wat Botum and in Siem Reap.

“That monk has violated the rules to such an extent that the Great Supreme Patriarch of Cambodia Tep Vong issued a warning letter to ban all monks from joining protests,” he said yesterday.

Am Sam Ath, a technical supervisor for local rights group Licadho, said Luon Savath has only monitored villager protests to encourage them and blessed them for good luck.

“Targeting him is a serious violation of human rights,” Am Sam Ath said.

Monk on the run plans his return

Photo by: Sreng Meng Srun

The venerable monk Loun Savath sits with residents threatened with eviction from the Boeung Kak lake area during a demonstration outside City Hall last month in Phnom Penh.

At protests staged by the embattled residents of the Boeung Kak lakeside against their impending eviction, Loun Savath cuts a distinctive figure. The 31-year-old is a tall man with a round face and a wide smile, but more than anything else, it is his orange robes that stand out from the crowd.

The venerable monk has served primarily as an observer of the protests, yet this limited role has been enough to draw harassment from local authorities and religious officials. Police, he says, have threatened him with arrest on multiple occasions, and last month, after being followed back to his home at the capital’s Wat Ounalom by a police vehicle, he fled Phnom Penh for fear of arrest.

He will not be out of action for long, however. Speaking by phone yesterday from Siem Reap province, Loun Savath said he planned to return to Wat Ounalom next week, resuming a push for social justice from which many members of the monkhood have been conspicuously absent.

“He’s unique,” said Naly Pilorge, director of the local rights group Licadho. “Now most monks spend a long time in the pagodas – some of them work with HIV-AIDS and other kinds of development projects, but I can count on one hand how many monks get involved in social issues, political issues.”

Loun Savath has played an active role in a protracted land dispute in his home village, in Siem Reap’s Chi Kraeng commune, which has seen 12 villagers jailed and three still in custody. In March of 2009, military police fired on a group of Chi Kraeng villagers attempting to harvest rice on the contested land, the most infamous incident in the long-running dispute.

Four people were injured in the shooting, including Loun Savath’s brother and nephew. Undeterred, he has continued his involvement in the struggle, at one point leading local villagers in an attempt to walk the 90 kilometres to the Siem Reap provincial court to observe a hearing in the case after police blocked the road and warned local taxi drivers away from transporting the group.

Outside another court hearing in October 2009, Loun Savath was confronted by senior monks who ushered him into a van and drove him to a nearby pagoda. There, they attempted to force him to sign a letter stating that he would stop “inciting” villagers, though he refused and was later released.

“Although the authorities have tried to threaten me many times, I have no plans to stop my actions observing people in land disputes,” Loun Savath said yesterday. 

“Not only will I continue, but I will do this more, because the people’s issues are my issues.”

Loun Savath moved from Siem Reap to Daun Penh district’s Wat Ounalom in 2009, where he was initially joined by some 100 villagers from his home in Siem Reap. Here in the capital, he has continued his involvement in the Chi Kraeng saga while also working with local rights groups and branching out to other land disputes, earning the nickname “multimedia monk” for his efforts to document these cases on video.

There is no shortage of such disputes – a poll released in January by the International Republican Institute said seven percent of Cambodians had reported someone attempting to steal their land within the last three years alone – and as Loun Savath’s efforts have expanded, his profile has increased. In December, he appeared at a gala event in New York City for the human rights documentation group Witness alongside celebrities including musicians Peter Gabriel and Sheryl Crow. 

At demonstrations against the evictions at Boeung Kak lake, where rights groups say over 4,000 families ultimately stand to lose their homes at the hands of a joint development project run by a Chinese firm and a ruling party senator, Loun Savath typically plays a subdued role. Even so, Pilorge said, his “moral” and “spiritual” authority make him both an important source of support for protesters and a concern for local officials.

“Aside from his videos and cameras … the only weapon he has is to start questioning people about why they want to defrock him and why they want to arrest him,” Pilorge said. “He’s really there as a monk should be, supporting people.”

While monks in Burma, for example, played key roles in mass anti-government demonstrations there in 2007, Loun Savath has received little backing for his efforts from religious officials here. Following protests against the lakeside evictions last month, Phon Davy, director of the municipal cults and religions department, said Loun Savath had in fact drawn the ire of Tep Vong, Cambodia’s highest-ranking monk.

“[Loun Savath] has violated the rules to such an extent that the Great Supreme Patriarch of Cambodia, Tep Vong, issued a warning letter to ban all monks from joining protests,” Phon Davy said. 

Boeung Kak community representative Tep Vanny said, however, that she considered Loun Savath “an example for other monks” in the Kingdom.

“If there were many other monks doing the same thing as this monk, it would be good for society, because it is the obligation of monks to always take care of the people,” she said. 

Loun Savath himself has taken little heed of official criticisms, saying his activism is in fact motivated by his Buddhist beliefs.

“I am a Buddhist who sees injustice in society and the sorrow of people suffering from the loss of their land … and no one helps find justice for them” he said. 

“I depend on food offered by the people, so their suffering is like mine and I have to share it with them.” 

Chuon Nath: Guardian of Cambodian culture

Cambodia’s famous monk, Samdech Chuon Nath.

In a search for Khmer identity, given the arrival of traders from India and China over the last few centuries and more recently the French Protectorate and the arrival of the Vietnamese Army during the liberation from the Pol Pot regime – one Buddhist monk stands out as someone extraordinary – a visionary Khmer lexicographer and leader of Cambodian Buddhism Samdech Chuon Nath.

Chuon Nath (1883-1969) lived during a time when Cambodian cultural traditions were being threatened by foreign influences. He headed a reformist movement in the Khmer Buddhist Sangha (community or association)  which developed a rationalist-scholastic model of Buddhism, rooted in linguistic studies of what is known as the Pali Cannon. Chuon Nath’s movement influenced a great many young Khmer monks during the early 20th century. Cambodian nationalism was enhanced by the movement which helped identify a unique Khmer identity and culture through the language.

The translation of the entire Buddhist (Pali cannon) texts into the Khmer language and the writing of the Khmer language dictionary were important accomplishments.

With French cultural influence moving in through the vehicle of the protectorate, Khmer scholars joined with Choun Nath to work on preserving the Khmer language and identity.

The son of a farming family, Chuon Nath’s life can be seen as dedicated to Buddhism and Khmer identity during the period of strongest French influence. He used his great knowledge of the Khmer language to encourage “Khmerization” in religion and education.  He thus invented Khmer words from their roots in the Pali and Sanskrit to describe modern inventions such as the railroad train.  Choun Nath took the word Ayomoyo which means something made of metal and combined it with the word Yana which means vehicle and created the Khmer word in use today Ayaksmeyana.

There was opposition to his Khmerization program including Franch-oriented scholars Keng Vannsak, who took another route for language in which they transformed French words into the Khmer vocabulary using the same pronunciation as much as possible with the Khmer alphabet.

In spite of the linguist tug-of-war, Chuon Nath’s work prevailed when he became a member of the original committee granted a royal order to prepare a Khmer dictionary in 1915.
His first edition of the dictionary was finally printed in 1967.

Cambodia’s national anthem Nokoreach has been mostly credited to Chuon Nath. It was written to correspond to the motto of Cambodia:  Nation, Religion, King.

The Cambodian National Anthem translates into English thus:
All Khmers, please remember the root and history of our great country
Our boundary was wide and well known
Others always thought highly of our race
And always placed our race as the elders.
We have great heritage and culture
Which has spread far and wide in the Far East.
Religion, arts and education,
Music, philosophy and strategies are all that we have spread.
All Khmers, please remember our roots and history
Which speaks of the grandeur of our great race
Make up your mind and body and try hard to rebuild
In order to lift the value of our nation
To once again rise to the greatness that we once had.

Pagoda ban for activist monk

Photo by: Sovan Philong

The venerable monk and activist Loun Savath speaks to Boeung Kak lake residents in March.

Buddish Supreme Patriarch Non Nget has banned pagodas in the capital from hosting Loun Savath, the activist monk who frequently joins land dispute protests and advocates on behalf of displaced villagers.

Loun Savath hails from Siem Reap province’s Chi Kraeng district and has been active in supporting villagers in a long-running land dispute there that has seen multiple community representatives arrested. He later relocated to Wat Ounalom in Phnom Penh’s Daun Penh district, and has joined protests in the capital by residents of the Boeung Kak lakeside and of the Prey Lang forest area.

In a letter dated April 26 and received by Loun Savath last week, Non Nget said pagodas in Phnom Penh are no longer permitted to house the 31-year-old monk because his actions have “caused villagers to think badly about Buddhism”.

“What he did is not related to the monks’ point of view and has broken the Buddha’s rules,” Non Nget wrote. 

Loun Savath fled Phnom Penh in March for fear of arrest in relation to his activism before resurfacing at a rally held in the capital by the Prey Lang villagers two weeks ago. There, he was forced to flee the scene with the assistance of rights groups when it appeared that local authorities were planning his arrest.

Loun Savath said yesterday that he was undeterred by Non Nget’s directive and would continue with his activism.

“The Buddha says that monks must help people who have problems and educate people to do good deeds,” he said. “When villagers have a problem, I cannot ignore them.”

Loun Savath’s land activism has made him unique among Cambodian monks, and he has received little backing for his efforts from religious officials here. Following protests against the Boeung Kak evictions in April, Phon Davy, director of the municipal cults and religions department, said Loun Savath had in fact drawn the ire of Tep Vong, Cambodia’s highest-ranking monk.

“[Loun Savath] has violated the rules to such an extent that the Great Supreme Patriarch of Cambodia, Tep Vong, issued a warning letter to ban all monks from joining protests,” Phon Davy said at the time.

Loun Savath has so far taken little heed, however.

“What the authorities have done to me is a serious violation of human rights and Buddhist law,” he said yesterday. 

“I have done nothing wrong, so why are they evicting me from my pagoda?”

Ouch Leng, head of the land programme at local rights group Adhoc, said Non Nget’s directive was unjustified.

“The authorities should be encouraging him, because what he does is not for himself, but to find justice for people who are victims of land disputes,” Ouch Leng said.