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

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    (Bell)
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    Dear Thay,
    Dear Sangha
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    I have two questions.
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    So my first question is:
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    I am the last child from
    the lineage of my ancestors.
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    And so there is a lot
    of suffering to transform,
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    but I was also very lucky to have
    enough conditions to encounter the Dharma,
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    and not to be running after survival.
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    So I could practice.
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    Now, I just come back
    from a long journey,
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    and because I have been far away,
    as I come back I can see very clearly
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    how the suffering was
    built up in our family,
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    generation after generation
    through historical conditions.
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    So I am trying to share with my elders,
    so that they might also find relief.
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    But some of them are very hardened.
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    They have a lot of anger.
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    They become very mean
    and very desperate.
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    And even though
    I have some understanding,
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    I know I am also not stable enough
    in certain situations,
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    and I do not know anymore
    what to do to help them.
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    And I am very worried,
    because I have seen some of them,
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    from this generation of my parents,
    who escaped from the war,
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    become completely insane
    and really destroy themselves.
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    So this is my first question.
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    And my second question is:
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    Why is it in the Buddhist tradition,
    that even until today,
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    there is still so much
    discrimination against women?
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    Thank you.
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    (Sr. Pine) Dear Thay, our friend
    is asking two questions.
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    The first question is a little bit like
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    the question of the young man
    about helping his father.
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    So our friend here is also saying
    that she can see a lot of suffering,
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    not only in her parents' generation,
    but through her ancestors' generations.
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    She wants to help them,
    but she sees that they are very hard,
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    because of the great suffering
    they have been through in the war.
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    And they destroy themselves
    because of the suffering inside.
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    She wants to know how she can reach them,
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    how she can help them
    to go in a more healthy direction.
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    And her second question is:
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    Why is there still today so much
    discrimination against women in Buddhism?
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    Do you think that in Plum Village,
    we discriminate against women?
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    The nuns and...
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    the female practitioners
    in Plum Village,
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    play a very important role...
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    in organizing the life and
    the practice of the Sangha
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    and the practice of the larger Sangha.
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    And the tradition of Bhikshunis
    still exists in many countries.
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    There are countries that
    have lost the Bhikshuni Sangha.
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    That is not because of Buddhism,
    but because of Buddhist practitioners.
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    They allowed that kind of
    discrimination from society
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    to penetrate into the community.
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    In Thailand, in Sri Lanka...
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    they do not have Bhikshunis anymore.
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    And many of the people in these countries
    try to restore the order of Bhikshunis.
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    So Buddhists are not
    practicing well enough.
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    That is why we have to do better
    than the former generations.
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    And Thây is one of those who try...
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    to restore...
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    to restore the spirit,
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    the initial, the primitive
    original spirit of Buddhism,
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    because the Buddha...
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    removed all kind of discrimination.
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    He received all kinds of people,
    all kinds of race, all kinds of caste
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    into his community.
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    And he welcomed...
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    women to become Bhikshuni.
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    He was a real revolutionary
    in his own time.
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    So difficult, but he was able to do it.
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    So we who are the continuation
    of the Buddha,
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    should practice well enough
    in order to maintain his heritage,
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    to preserve his heritage.
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    No discrimination!
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    Suffering is overwhelming.
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    And there are those of us...
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    who came out of the Vietnam war,
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    full of wounds.
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    We have seen our brother,
    our father, our mother, our sister
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    killed and destroyed during the war.
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    We have seen many of them imprisoned
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    and tortured during the war.
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    Foreign ideologies, foreign weapons
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    had been brought in
    from all over the world
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    to destroy us, to kill us.
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    And we were forced into
    a situation like that for a long time.
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    And each of us, each Vietnamese
    of the new generation
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    carries within himself or herself
    that kind of suffering.
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    And after forty years of exile,
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    Thây has been able to go home
    for a few times,
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    organizing retreats in order to
    help heal the wounds of the war...
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    in people, in the younger generations.
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    He tried to do his best,
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    and he tried to do it
    as a Sangha, not as a person.
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    Thây went back to Vietnam
    not as an individual,
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    but as a community.
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    300 practitioners went
    back to Vietnam with Thây
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    for the first time after
    forty years of exile.
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    That was in...
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    2005... right?
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    2005.
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    We had hundreds of monastics
    and lay practitioners coming with us.
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    And our practice was very solid.
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    Imagine...
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    a hotel in Hanoi,
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    where we stayed.
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    Secret police came and observed us,
    because they were afraid of us.
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    Everywhere we go, they follow us.
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    They want to know what we
    are telling people, what we are doing.
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    They are forced to
    allow Thây to come home,
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    but they are afraid...
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    that we may say something,
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    that we may urge the people in Vietnam
    to say something against them.
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    And several hundreds of us
    practiced with solidity.
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    And the way we walk, the way we breathe
    the way we eat our breakfast,
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    the way we encounter
    the people in the hotel
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    and those who come to see us,
    including secret police men,
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    reflect our practice.
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    And the hotels where we live
    look like a practice center.
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    There is mindfulness.
    There is peace, brotherhood, sisterhood.
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    And they were very impressed.
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    And one time we did walking meditation
    around Hoan Kiem Lake.
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    It was the first time
    the people of the city saw
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    such a large number of people
    walking with peace, joy and happiness.
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    They were very struck by the sight.
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    It had a very big impact
    on the population.
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    They saw solid practitioners.
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    And we were able to share the practice
    with so many people...
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    in our public talks and in our retreats.
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    And after that we organised...
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    ceremonies of prayers.
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    We prayed for the many millions of people
    that died during the war.
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    And thousands and thousands of people
    came and practiced with us,
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    and prayed together.
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    And we promised each other
    that never ever again
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    we would accept such a war of ideology,
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    and kill each other with foreign weapons
    and foreign ideologies.
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    And that was possible.
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    So we practiced to help with
    the healing of the whole country.
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    So my answer here is:
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    In order to succeed...
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    in your attempt to help
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    you have to...do it with a Sangha.
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    You have to belong to a Sangha.
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    You need to have
    brothers and sisters in the practice.
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    We have to be powerful enough
    to be able to handle the suffering.
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    There is a lot of garbage.
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    And since many of us do not know
    how to transform garbage into flowers,
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    making good use of suffering
    in order to create peace and healing,
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    we need a Sangha to support us to do so.
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    So practicing alone,
    self transformation is already difficult,
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    let alone the transformation of others.
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    That is why...
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    we have to know, we have to see
    that we should try to build a Sangha,
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    to be with a Sangha,
    to contribute to the building of a Sangha.
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    Without Sangha, you cannot do much
    work of transformation and healing.
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    Even the Buddha could not
    do much without a Sangha.
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    And that is why, after Enlightenment,
    the first thing he thought of,
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    was to go and identify
    elements of his Sangha.
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    You have to do the same.
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    And Thây is very aware of that.
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    Thây knew that if he went home alone,
    he would not be able to do anything.
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    So he put forth a condition:
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    "I will go back only if you allow me
    to go with my Sangha."
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    So with the Sangha we will have
    a collective energy powerful enough...
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    to take care of our suffering,
    transform our suffering.
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    Good luck!
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    (Bell)
Title:
How to heal suffering in your family - Gender discrimination in Buddhism?
Description:

Thay answers questions on 21 June 2014. Question 5

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Video Language:
English
Duration:
16:37
Gijs 'Jazz' Van den Broeck edited English subtitles for How to heal suffering in your family - Gender discrimination in Buddhism? Jan 29, 2015, 10:10 AM

English subtitles

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  • Revision 1 Uploaded
    Gijs 'Jazz' Van den Broeck Jan 29, 2015, 10:10 AM