Wat Songhakalynamita, Nakon Pathom Samaneri Dhammananda (aka Chatsumarn Kabilsingh) and other distinquished Thai Women Buddhists

January 2003

It was my friend Kathy Meacham who first told me about the work of Thammasat University professor, Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, now the first Thai woman to be ordained as a Theravada monk. Thanks to Stephanie Kaza, at the University of Vermont, another one of my mentors, I was able to find Chat's email address and begin a correspondence in preparation for our meeting in Thailand. During my first experience in Thailand, in 2002, I hired a driver and car to take me about two hours from Bangkok early one morning to visit Samaneri Dhammananda for morning prayers, alms walk, and teaching. I arrived there around 6 a.m. The first prayer was complete and the women gathered around to go for the alms walk. Since male monks don't walk on Sunday, Sr. Dhammananda chooses to go for alms walk on this day only, in order not to compete with the male monks in their territory. As we prepared to leave for the walk, the sun was rising, the tropical birds were absolutely squawking, and the smell of the pig farms that predominate that region was wafting through the air. I was handed a small gold satchel and told that we were not going out to ask for food, we were simply going out to let the people know that there was an opportunity for making merit. Within the next 45 minutes, I witnessed about six to eight families who came out and received a blessing from the monk and gave her and each of us walking with her, the day's food portion. There was no doubt in my mind but that Sr. Dhammananda is truly a monk in the eyes of these families. A genuine exchange of compassion and mutual care passed between them at each stop.

Upon our return, we undertook more prayers and then we had lunch. During the prayers, Sr. Dhammananda asked us to visualize Osama Benladin within ourselves. We were to see his face and to ask him how he felt. Why was he angry? So sad? In the process could we discover our shared identities? Our own anger? Sadness?

After the mediation, I spent several hours time in Sr. Dhammananda's study, going through her library of books and articles. I discovered that her mother, Voramai, an early female monk in Thailand of the Mahayana tradition who had founded this very temple, was indeed still living. When I returned to the second floor of the meeting hall, I was shocked to find that Voramai actually lives in the very center of this temple in a glass room, attended by a 24 hour/day nurse. Her frail body lay on the bed within the glass room, covered by a mosquito net. She moved her leg. Otherwise, I might have thought her to be a corpse. Around the room were placed Buddha statues and flowers and pictures of Voramai in her younger days. My favorite is of her, squatting, smoking a cigar. She looked like just the kind of woman who would bike her way across Thailand with the YMCA just to prove that women could do such a thing! Now, at this cross roads in Thai history, when her own daughter is making history as the first female Theravada Buddhist monk,Voramai is surrounded by this rich life of the temple and people who travel there can pay their respect to the woman who devoted her life to the betterment of Thai women and children.

During this second visit to Thailand, I unfortunately had to leave early to return to the states so I did not get to experience Sr. Dhammananda's graciousness as did Carolyn and the students. From my understanding, she led them in some self awareness exercises involving clay and group processing games. She spoke to them about the female saints within Buddhism, and taught them about basic facts of women in Buddhism. The students found in her a woman who is extremely intelligent, whose life is committed to the cause of furthering the good condition of women, yet without being attached to the results. She, as she says, "just does it."

I think we were all honored to be a part of the making of Thai Buddhist history, at least for a little while. I am recalled to the 1970's when women like Rev. Dr. Carter Heyward were "irregularly ordained" within the Episcopal church before it was legal to do so. That act pushed the hand of the Episcopal church to move forward toward full ordination for women. Would that something similar could happen in Thailand!