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Female Buddhist Monks “Bhikkhunis” Challenge Thailand’s Status Quo

Their ranks and those of hundreds of aspirants — there are five stages before ordination — include a former Google executive, a Harvard graduate, journalists and doctors, as well as village noodle vendors.

NAKHON PATHOM – On a rural road just after daybreak, villagers young and old kneel reverently before a single file of ochre-robed women, filling their bowls with rice, curries, fruits and sweets. In this country, it’s a rare sight.

Thailand’s top Buddhist authority bars women from becoming monks. They can only become white-cloaked nuns, who are routinely treated as domestic servants. Many here believe women are inferior beings who had better perform plenty of good deeds to ensure they will be reborn as men in their future lives.

Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, an author, former university professor and the first bhikkhuni in Thailand

Yet with the religion beset by lurid scandals, female monastics or “bhikkhunis” are emerging as a force for reform, not unlike activists in the Christian world seeking gender equality including ordination of women as priests in the Catholic Church. They are growing in numbers and appear to be making headway.

Thailand has some 100 bhikkhunis who were ordained in Sri Lanka, where women are allowed to become monks. They and their monasteries are not legally recognized in Thailand, and don’t enjoy state funding and other support the country’s 200,000 male monks are granted.

Living spartan lives, the women are governed by 311 precepts from celibacy and poverty to archaic ones like having to confess after eating garlic. Their ranks and those of hundreds of aspirants — there are five stages before ordination — include a former Google executive, a Harvard graduate, journalists and doctors, as well as village noodle vendors.

“It is our right, our heritage, to lead a fully monastic life. We are on the right side of history,” says Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, an author, former university professor and the first bhikkhuni in Thailand from the Theravada branch of Buddhism, which is dominant in Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka. Using her religious name of Venerable Dhammananda, she contends that the Buddha 2,500 years ago built the religion as a four-legged stool — monks, nuns, laymen and laywomen — but “we are now sitting on just three legs.”

New Samaneris (buddhist novice nun) finishing the Almsround (food begging) near Wat Songkdhammakalayani, the first temple gathering fully ordained nuns in Thailand since 1960. People from communities around the monastery feed the Bhikkhunis (female buddhist monk).

People from communities around the monastery feed the Bhikkhunis (female buddhist monk).

The male-dominated religion has been blighted in recent years by crimes and gross violations of vows, just as widespread sex abuse and Vatican financial scandals have damaged the Roman Catholic Church.

Monks in Thailand have been convicted of everything from murder to wildlife trafficking. Sexual depravity is frequently reported. One former abbot, fugitive Wirapol Sukphol, faces charges of drug use, money laundering, fathering a child by an underage woman and illegally amassing millions of dollars. A photograph shows him seated in a private jet wearing aviator sunglasses.

The Supreme Sangha Council, the religion’s ruling body, is under fire over the mishandling of corruption allegations against prominent abbots, including one of its own members. The allegations include embezzling funds intended for the cremation of an abbot’s predecessor and the investment of $1.2 million from donations into the stock market.

With Buddhism so intimately tied to Thai identity — more than 90 percent adhere to the faith — these misdeeds and what is termed “checkbook Buddhism” have spurred calls in Parliament for curbing the almost total authority the council wields over the clergy and the corruption-stoking $4 billion in annual donations to monasteries. A proposed Patronage and Protection of the Clergy Bill would impose stiff penalties for those who break the religion’s cardinal rules and set up a panel to monitor donations. Corruption within Buddhism may also be dealt with in Thailand’s next constitution, now being drafted.

The role of women in Buddhism has also aroused national-level debate.

The Sangha council has urged the government to ban Sri Lankan clergy from coming into the country following what Dhammananda calls a “rebel ordination” in Thailand of eight bhikkhunis last November by Sri Lankans. That drew broad criticism of the council itself.

“The clergy can no longer insist on operating in a closed, feudal system that violates universal norms and values,” said an editorial in the English-language Bangkok Post. Instead of trying to crush women’s aspirations, it said the “clergy should concentrate on cleaning up its own house to restore declining public faith.”

No scandal has emerged among Thailand’s female clergy. Dhammananda said she has seen no misbehavior in her monastery beyond a few nuns who had used their mobile telephones to excess.

“I think that many nuns see themselves as exemplary. They are, and they’re carving a new role for themselves that didn’t exist,” said Juliane Schober, an expert on Southeast Asian Buddhism at Arizona State University. “That that puts pressure on the Sangha doesn’t surprise me.”

Women clergy interviewed at three monasteries said it was essential to maintain a high moral ground so as not to give opponents an excuse to stop their movement. Some cast them as Western-educated feminists out to undermine traditional Buddhism.

“They can be a force for change in Buddhism,” said Phramaha Boonchuay Doojai, a leading activist monk at Chiang Mai Buddhist College.

“If everything is in the hands of men, it is as if Buddhism was just the way of a father, not mother. But you need both,” he said. “Mothers have some unique feelings that men do not share. They may have more loving kindness.”

Proponents of ordination like Boonchuay say bhikkhunis originated with Buddha himself; the first was an aunt who raised him. Opponents argue that the lineage of the Theravada bhikkhuni order, under which women could be ordained, died out long ago and cannot be restored. The Mahayana branch of Buddhism practiced in East Asia has historically ordained women.

“We simply follow the rules. The ordination of female monks was allowed in the Lord Buddha’s time. But as time passed, the lineage of bhikkhuni disappeared,” Phra Tepvisutthikawee of the Buddhism Protection Center has said.

Despite conservative opposition, bhikkhunis are gaining ground with the general public in Thailand.

“It is a movement now. When I was struggling by myself it was just this crazy woman who wanted to be a monk,” says Dhammananda, who was ordained in 2003. “Now people don’t feel strange when they see a female monk in the streets. We don’t have problems with people, with society.”

Venerable Nandanyani, a bhikkhuni and onetime mathematician

Aside from spiritual pursuits, the 15 monastics at her Songdhammakalyani Monastery visit prisoners, aid the poor and infirm and maintain other links with the surrounding community near Nakhon Pathom in central Thailand. Regularly they make alms rounds, a timeless tradition of food offerings by the faithful who are then blessed by the monks.

To the north, in the shadows of the country’s highest mountain, hundreds of civil servants, businessmen, villagers and others regularly flock to an idyllic monastery to hear talks by Venerable Nandanyani, a bhikkhuni and onetime mathematician. Families attend a weekend religion “camp” on the monastery grounds. A bhikkhuni leads a group of men and women in the slow motions of walking meditation.

Seated below a statue of the Buddha, the abbess energetically explains why ordination of women is vital, punctuating her words with thumbs-up gestures. It enables individuals to probe Buddhism’s depths and live the full monastic life, she says, and also allows intimate communication between female clergy and laywomen unhindered by the barriers of sex and traditional propriety between women and monks.

“We must wait,” she says. “Slowly but surely it will come.”

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

google

Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

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Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli, To repay $6.4 Million

Washington — The Supreme Court rejected Martin Shkreli’s appeal on Monday, after he was branded “Pharma Bro” for raising the price of a lifesaving prescription.

Martin appealed a decision to repay $64.6 million in profits he and his former company earned after monopolizing the pharmaceutical market and dramatically raising its price. His lawyers claimed the money went to his company rather than him personally.

The justices did not explain their reasoning, as is customary, and there were no notable dissents.

Prosecutors, conversely, claimed that the firm had promised to pay $40 million in a settlement and that because Martin orchestrated the plan, he should be held accountable for returning profits.

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli

Martin was also forced to forfeit the Wu-Tang Clan’s unreleased album “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” which has been dubbed the world’s rarest musical album. The multiplatinum hip-hop group auctioned off a single copy of the record in 2015, stipulating that it not be used commercially.

Shkreli was convicted of lying to investors and defrauding them of millions of dollars in two unsuccessful hedge funds he managed. Shkreli was the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals (later Vyera), which hiked the price of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill after acquiring exclusive rights to the decades-old medicine in 2015. It cures a rare parasite condition that affects pregnant women, cancer patients, and HIV patients.

shkreli

He defended the choice as an example of capitalism in action, claiming that insurance and other programs ensured that those in need of Daraprim would eventually receive it. However, the move prompted criticism, from the medical community to Congress.

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli

Attorney Thomas Huff said the Supreme Court’s Monday ruling was upsetting, but the high court could still overturn a lower court judgment that allowed the $64 million penalty order even though Shkreli had not personally received the money.

“If and when the Supreme Court does so, Mr. Shkreli will have a strong argument for modifying the order accordingly,” he told reporters.

Shkreli was freed from prison in 2022 after serving most of his seven-year sentence.

SOURCE | AP