A True Four-Fold Sangha

The Buddhist Channel recently had an interview with Ajahn Brahm, the well-known monk who currently resides in Australia. The interview, titled 'The Bhikkuni Question' deals with the attempts, hindrances, and future of reviving (or in some cases introducing) the Theravada Bhikkuni lineage. Here's an exerpt:

Is it true that since the Theravada bhikkhuni sangha 'died out' many centuries ago, it has been impossible to ordain new bhikkhunis correctly according to Vinaya? And are Thai bhikkhunis who have been ordained since the Theravada bhikkhuni sangha, which was restored in Sri Lanka [in the late 1990s with Mahayana bhikkhunis as preceptors], not legitimate Theravada bhikkhunis?

That is a myth. In Thailand, we sometimes spend too much of our time believing our teachers, believing accepted wisdom rather than investigating and challenging. I thought, too, when I was a young monk in Thailand that the bhikkhuni order couldn't be legally revived. But having investigated and studied, I've found there is no problem at all. Someone like Bhikkhu Bodhi [a respected Theravada scholar-monk] has researched the Pali Vinaya and his paper is one of the most eloquent I've seen - fair, balanced, comes out on the side of 'It's possible, why don't we do this?' I've helped to publish the Thai translation of Bhikkhu Bodhi's paper, which will be distributed to monks and other interested people in Thailand.

One of the biggest myths is that bhikkhunis in the Mahayana tradition are somehow separated from the Theravada. But the truth of the matter is, there is no such thing as a Mahayana Vinaya. In all the Mahayana schools, they follow mostly a Dharmagupta Vinaya. Dharmagupta is one of the Theravada sects. They follow Theravada Vinaya. So the bhikkhunis we see even now in Taiwan and China is a lineage that is unbroken since the time of the Buddha.

In addition, there is another way of reading the Vinaya to say that the Buddha left an opportunity open for just the bhikkhus to ordain bhikkhunis and revive the bhikkhuni sangha.

Given this possibility in the Vinaya, we can argue that point as scholars, but also out of compassion. You have to follow the rules, but if there is a possible interpretation, which is the kind one, that's the one we should follow because that's what the Buddha would have encouraged us to do.

It was very easy before to say it can't be done. Now the argument is not whether it can or can't be done, but why it should or shouldn't be done.