How to heal suffering in your family - Gender discrimination in Buddhism?

Thay answers questions on 21 June 2014. Question 5

(Bell)

Dear Thay,
Dear Sangha

I have two questions.

So my first question is:

I am the last child from
the lineage of my ancestors.

And so there is a lot
of suffering to transform,

but I was also very lucky to have
enough conditions to encounter the Dharma,

and not to be running after survival.

So I could practice.

Now, I just come back
from a long journey,

and because I have been far away,
as I come back I can see very clearly

how the suffering was
built up in our family,

generation after generation
through historical conditions.

So I am trying to share with my elders,
so that they might also find relief.

But some of them are very hardened.

They have a lot of anger.

They become very mean
and very desperate.

And even though
I have some understanding,

I know I am also not stable enough
in certain situations,

and I do not know anymore
what to do to help them.

And I am very worried,
because I have seen some of them,

from this generation of my parents,
who escaped from the war,

become completely insane
and really destroy themselves.

So this is my first question.

And my second question is:

Why is it in the Buddhist tradition,
that even until today,

there is still so much
discrimination against women?

Thank you.

(Sr. Pine) Dear Thay, our friend
is asking two questions.

The first question is a little bit like

the question of the young man
about helping his father.

So our friend here is also saying
that she can see a lot of suffering,

not only in her parents' generation,
but through her ancestors' generations.

She wants to help them,
but she sees that they are very hard,

because of the great suffering
they have been through in the war.

And they destroy themselves
because of the suffering inside.

She wants to know how she can reach them,

how she can help them
to go in a more healthy direction.

And her second question is:

Why is there still today so much
discrimination against women in Buddhism?

Do you think that in Plum Village,
we discriminate against women?

The nuns and...

the female practitioners
in Plum Village,

play a very important role...

in organizing the life and
the practice of the Sangha

and the practice of the larger Sangha.

And the tradition of Bhikshunis
still exists in many countries.

There are countries that
have lost the Bhikshuni Sangha.

That is not because of Buddhism,
but because of Buddhist practitioners.

They allowed that kind of
discrimination from society

to penetrate into the community.

In Thailand, in Sri Lanka...

they do not have Bhikshunis anymore.

And many of the people in these countries
try to restore the order of Bhikshunis.

So Buddhists are not
practicing well enough.

That is why we have to do better
than the former generations.

And Thây is one of those who try...

to restore...

to restore the spirit,

the initial, the primitive
original spirit of Buddhism,

because the Buddha...

removed all kind of discrimination.

He received all kinds of people,
all kinds of race, all kinds of caste

into his community.

And he welcomed...

women to become Bhikshuni.

He was a real revolutionary
in his own time.

So difficult, but he was able to do it.

So we who are the continuation
of the Buddha,

should practice well enough
in order to maintain his heritage,

to preserve his heritage.

No discrimination!

Suffering is overwhelming.

And there are those of us...

who came out of the Vietnam war,

full of wounds.

We have seen our brother,
our father, our mother, our sister

killed and destroyed during the war.

We have seen many of them imprisoned

and tortured during the war.

Foreign ideologies, foreign weapons

had been brought in
from all over the world

to destroy us, to kill us.

And we were forced into
a situation like that for a long time.

And each of us, each Vietnamese
of the new generation

carries within himself or herself
that kind of suffering.

And after forty years of exile,

Thây has been able to go home
for a few times,

organizing retreats in order to
help heal the wounds of the war...

in people, in the younger generations.

He tried to do his best,

and he tried to do it
as a Sangha, not as a person.

Thây went back to Vietnam
not as an individual,

but as a community.

300 practitioners went
back to Vietnam with Thây

for the first time after
forty years of exile.

That was in...

2005... right?

2005.

We had hundreds of monastics
and lay practitioners coming with us.

And our practice was very solid.

Imagine...

a hotel in Hanoi,

where we stayed.

Secret police came and observed us,
because they were afraid of us.

Everywhere we go, they follow us.

They want to know what we
are telling people, what we are doing.

They are forced to
allow Thây to come home,

but they are afraid...

that we may say something,

that we may urge the people in Vietnam
to say something against them.

And several hundreds of us
practiced with solidity.

And the way we walk, the way we breathe
the way we eat our breakfast,

the way we encounter
the people in the hotel

and those who come to see us,
including secret police men,

reflect our practice.

And the hotels where we live
look like a practice center.

There is mindfulness.
There is peace, brotherhood, sisterhood.

And they were very impressed.

And one time we did walking meditation
around Hoan Kiem Lake.

It was the first time
the people of the city saw

such a large number of people
walking with peace, joy and happiness.

They were very struck by the sight.

It had a very big impact
on the population.

They saw solid practitioners.

And we were able to share the practice
with so many people...

in our public talks and in our retreats.

And after that we organised...

ceremonies of prayers.

We prayed for the many millions of people
that died during the war.

And thousands and thousands of people
came and practiced with us,

and prayed together.

And we promised each other
that never ever again

we would accept such a war of ideology,

and kill each other with foreign weapons
and foreign ideologies.

And that was possible.

So we practiced to help with
the healing of the whole country.

So my answer here is:

In order to succeed...

in your attempt to help

you have to...do it with a Sangha.

You have to belong to a Sangha.

You need to have
brothers and sisters in the practice.

We have to be powerful enough
to be able to handle the suffering.

There is a lot of garbage.

And since many of us do not know
how to transform garbage into flowers,

making good use of suffering
in order to create peace and healing,

we need a Sangha to support us to do so.

So practicing alone,
self transformation is already difficult,

let alone the transformation of others.

That is why...

we have to know, we have to see
that we should try to build a Sangha,

to be with a Sangha,
to contribute to the building of a Sangha.

Without Sangha, you cannot do much
work of transformation and healing.

Even the Buddha could not
do much without a Sangha.

And that is why, after Enlightenment,
the first thing he thought of,

was to go and identify
elements of his Sangha.

You have to do the same.

And Thây is very aware of that.

Thây knew that if he went home alone,
he would not be able to do anything.

So he put forth a condition:

"I will go back only if you allow me
to go with my Sangha."

So with the Sangha we will have
a collective energy powerful enough...

to take care of our suffering,
transform our suffering.

Good luck!

(Bell)