Female Buddhists Working in the Temple: Life and Roles
Author: Eleanor Choke-jaya
Date: 15th August 2019
Keywords: #female, #force, #temple, #working woman, #community
Length: 1203 words
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Unlike its counterpart Mahayanist, Theravada school insists its Bhikkhuni lineage is extinct, thus cannot be revived due to the strict observance of original female ordination rules which require double ordinations from the male and female clergy. The male monastic part sees this situation as a technical problem. Others see it as sheer misogyny and sexism in Thai society.
Practically, no matter of any perspective involved, the absence of Bhikkhuni community inevitably renders labour deficit necessitate in sharing the religious burden to straighten the religion. To strive the balance of labour demand and supply, the temple1 pioneered the recruitment of female graduates to join the monastic community, volunteering in administrative posts, fund-raising duty, academic services, merit-making activities, etc. This trailblazing headhunter savvy entails the birth and later becoming the largest lay-female inhabitants living inside the temple ever.
The razer-sharp newly-grad recruiting strategy besides advantaging the temple of quality work force deprives the general public of talking about woman living in the temple with a certain sort of negativity in that connotation such as being old none-skill incompetents so on. Moreover, time has proven the lay-female religious contribution is fascinating.
Day in day out these recruits performs to whatever task they are given/assigned. The record has spoken for itself that every year, the female community is the main force in fulfilling the fundraising tasks set by the organization’s policy, serving as the key factor scaling up the temple various religious projects including expanding the temple’s member network.
Last year alone, 2017 in spite of the intense scandal, they closed three significant fund raising programs given the continuity of the community was financially worry free.
In couple with when the country has been under the coup-d’tat government2 since 2014 led by General Prayut Chan-o-cha, domestic and foreign investors are not confident in the Thai national economic plan causing the delay on their business expansion, ensuing the down turn of local retail sector in particular. Sellers and buyers alike suffer cash-flow difficulty.
The temple, instead of succumbing to the financial oscillating trend as there is a sense of the time that people won’t be going to the temple because they are so worried about themselves financially which is very understandably, sees the need to give people stimuli by jumping start in this particular time with some events that will welcome the public to come to the temple and doing something wholesomely fun.
Consequently, what can be witnessed amid the stagnant economy, if one walks around the temple, he can see people coming to the temple on Sunday and other Buddhist holidays having their good time; they enjoy socializing with each other; most importantly they meditate and make donation. People are ready to do more good deeds when they feel positive and having hope. The success of this out-of-the-box genius was no doubt carried out by the lay female teamwork. Everyone in the community is incredibly supportive and helpful; it is a group effort. Thus it is correct to say that the temple’s female force delivered on every circumstance.
By the time of the temple’s name making appearance on the media headlines nationally and internationally, the female force continued working both to the background and at the forefront involving in every circumstance-related stratum to ensure effective response to the real time decision.
The situation rendered not only the temple but also Buddhism at stake as in Thailand, state and religion are not entirely separate. The abbot and the temple have been accused of numbers random unrelated charges namely money laundering, encroachment on park land, and a wide range of building code violations.
Since at the beginning of all these allegations, the temple had been asking for the police to come and question the abbot at the temple. Of course, the abbot would like nothing more than to clear his name and for the cases to be ended. For the police part, despite, the fact that this request is a regular practice refused to come and do so.
To conclude this part of history, Phra Dhammajayo did not report himself to the police due to lack of assurance that he would be bailed out. His supporters saw it was too risk for him to go to the police as being feared he could be disrobed and sent on to the prison without proper legal investigation. It is important to remember that there were numbers of cases coming out in public during those years showing that those accused under the police or DSI3 custody died mysteriously in prison or in the confined place. We have seen this sort of extrajudicial happened a numbers of occasion.
The vortex of threat and the state of virtual crackdown were witnessed via media live broadcast and netcast on the day when government’s armed force surrounded the temple.4 Then the man hunt began; DSI was really after the accused abbot. The displayed scenario was unprecedented and really shocked the nation. None of any aspects can legitimize official harassment of this particular tradition of Buddhism. Not only toward the temple, it is notorious Thailand’s history of disastrous responses toward unarmed protesting citizens by the authority is a worrisome situation.
The temple faced 23-day food delivery cut from outside and no internet signal could be connected; hand phone could not be used. Amazingly, in such a solemn circumstance, no one felt frightened or scared or worried about what was going to happen; naturally they became the quiet effective force, attentive to what needed to done on the day to day basis.
Interestingly, with hindsight on another perspective, such do-or-die scenario gave all the chance to experience one side of unbelievable intensity of hate campaign, nasty attack, tremendous viciousness, etc. toward the temple, simultaneously, on the other side of overwhelming love and relentless support; the strength of the solidarity thorough the period of crisis was amazing; everyone in the temple of the time stood side by side. The scenario was so extreme and remarkable.
The temple is back to its peaceful wholesome normalcy. The temple understand that there are many misconceptions about what the temple and the abbot have done. The temple also knows that there are a lot more works need to be done to this regards. After all, for the temple’s female members as being part of the community involving in this special unique situation, they cannot help but being proud of their voluntary effort working both behind the close door and at the front line helping the temple and Buddhism at a whole passing through the crisis. They are also proud of being in this place of small role in enabling to change the prejudice narrative about woman working in the temple as being nothing but a group of incompetents. This is the life and roles they are the one to architect the way they want it to be and they are happy.
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1 Dhammakaya Temple was established in 1970 in Klong-luang, Patumthani, Thailand by Chandra Khon-nok-yoong
2 The 12th since the country's first coup in 1932, against the caretaker government of Thailand, following six months of political crisis.
3 Division of Special Investigation
4 16th February 2017 was the 1st day of the special operation
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