Mae ji

Mae Chi (also Mae Ji, Mae Chee, Thai: แม่ ชี; pronunciation: [ mɛ ː t͡ɕ ʰ i ː ]; from Thai mae "mother" and the Indian respect indicative suffix- ji) are Buddhist women in Thailand who consider themselves to religious celibacy and asceticism have committed. They are sometimes referred to as " ( dressed in white ) Nuns ", although the Thai Sangha traditionally recognizes no women's ordination. You are making a living on the fringes of society, as they do not lay women ( Upasika ) nor Buddhist nuns ( bhikkhuni ) or even novices ( Samaneri ) are. Although they enjoy neither the prestige nor the privileges of the monks, but have no right to vote as well as these. Mae Chi holding 8 or even 10 vows, wear mostly white religious clothing, her hair and her eyebrows are shaved. Mae Chi usually live in communities, often on the temple grounds, but significantly away from the monastic community. Mae chi are traditionally made ​​insufficient in worldly as well as spiritual realms and meet usually auxiliary tasks and low services in the temple area. The number of Mae Chi in Thailand is estimated at about 20,000.

History

The transmission line of the Dharma broke out in the fully ordained nuns Buddhist nuns from ( Bhikkhuni ) of Theravada, so the Mae Chi regarded as pious laymen who can not do the rituals and tasks, practice the fully ordained. Mae chi are available in Thailand but for generations. The French ambassador Simon de la Loubère described it after his visit to Siam in the 17th century. In particular, older and unmarried women are likely to have visited this community. Your social prestige was always extremely low, despite their number and the path to genuine Buddhist nuns' ordination was never open to them, as the company siamesiche the usual full ordination of women in Buddhism never knew from the beginning.

21st Century

On the threshold of the 21st century, the problem of Mae Chi was no longer ignore. 1969 there was a national meeting of the Mae Chi on the initiative of the Supreme Council of the monastic order and the establishment of the " Institute of Thai Mae Chi's " first time. The call for better education went hand in hand with the adoption of new tasks in the care of girls and women. Even the radical call for full ordination as a nun ( bhikkhuni ) was not long in coming.

Bhikkhuni Dhammananda who was a well known public figure as highly esteemed academic Dr. Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, broke the great taboo by she received as a Theravada nun in 2003 in Sri Lanka as the first Thai woman full ordination. So they continued to pursue the Pionierweg her mother Voramai Kabilsingh ( † 24 June 2003 95 - year) continues, who had taken the end of the 20th century Bhiksuniordination in the Mahayana tradition.

If this attempt to introduce the Bhikkhuniorden in Thailand, as well as the attempts to reach the parliamentary route a betterment of Mae Chi, by no means come across undivided approval, but a spirit of optimism in circles of Mae Chi is clearly perceptible. They receive support not only from organizations such as the Buddhist Women's Network Sakyadhita, but also of Western Buddhists, and also isolated by Thai monks.

In the Thai Forest Tradition (Forest Sangha ), which connected the traditional values ​​of simplicity and meditation and is made ​​famous by the great innovators of Ajahn Chah, the Mae Chi dressed in white Anagarika ( eight vows nuns ) and brown -clad (like the monks are ) Siladhara (ten vows nuns ) distinguished. This served in the Forest tradition virtually the same training as the monks and enjoy, as far as allowing the Thai tradition, the monks a similar status, without coming to the delicate taboo itself. In particular, for " Westerners " in Thailand and for the monastic communities in the West ( eg, Amaravati in the English county of Hertfordshire) apply equally as full Siladhara nuns.

The tensions between western ideas and needs on the one hand and conservative attitudes of the Thai Sangha on the other hand resulted in the western monasteries of the forest tradition in the course of 2009 to arguments that demanded a solution. With the presentation of a five-point program, which had to sign the nuns, attempts to resolve was made with date 19 November 2009.

In some of the nuns and the lay community encounter provisions such as the homage of an elderly nun for a younger monk and the definitive exclusion of a further development opportunity of women to the status of a Bhikkhuni incomprehension.

The date of the ' Five Points Program ' can be seen in connection with other nuns conflict of the Western Forest Tradition. Almost simultaneously, on 1 November 2009, the world-famous monk Ajahn Brahm Australian ( Ajahn Brahmavamso ) was expelled along with his monastic community in Australia from the forest tradition of Ajahn Chah. Ajahn Brahm had participated leader on 22 October 2009 in Perth at the ordination of four Siladhara nuns to Bhikkunis and had the hastily convened tribunal in Bangkok not bowed on November 1.

Since then circulating a petition to the decisive bodies monk of the Thai forest tradition to stand no longer against the bhikkhuni ordination.