Buddhist Nun Relationships

The people of Zangskar who live in the high northern mountains of India are culturally and physically bound to the land. As mentioned throughout studies of monastic life of Buddhists, dedicating yourself to the pursuit of enlightenment does not allow you to neglect this close relationship. However, as Kim Gutschow points out various times, hard labor is very often performed by nuns because they lack the funding necessary to completely dedicate themselves to the monastics (84). It is noted that this is in stark contrast to monks who comparatively have ample resources. Since monks normally dictate a lot of what the nuns can and cannot do, the gap of wealth between nunneries and monasteries is only one of the factors affecting the Buddhist nuns’ activities, as the actual ecology of the Himalayan Kashmir directly affects the Nuns work. While reading the analysis of the life of a Buddhist nun …show more content…
Because of this, when men exercise power over women, the women do not object. This has been attributed to the idea that women want to become men in their next reincarnation, so they consent to this treatment (188). What is intriguing is whether or not they wish this power relationship would change, or if it just is an accepted cultural trait. Seeing that the end goal is to reincarnate into a man, does this former experience of being treated wrong carry into their next life or are they just told again that the power belongs in the hands of males so they comply. If Buddhist doctrine was the reason for this sexism in monastic life, would the scholars at some point come to criticize it? Does the practice of monks having total control over nuns stem from these principles that they must obey to reach enlightenment, or does it stem from the