[Buddha-l] women & , er, religion

[Jayarava]

Ai Carumba I have 41 messages in my Buddha-L folder. The sleeping giant has woken - was it something I said ;-) I'm not even going to attempt to read them all, let alone respond. However... 

--- On Wed, 22/7/09, jkirk <jkirk at spro.net> wrote:

> What I did write was the question about 'what is a mitra',
> and thanks for the explanation, but the diff. between being
> sworn in or ordained and being a mere mitra still is rather
> unclear.

Hi Joanna

I suppose you could say it's about levels of commitment. Typically the mitra is newish to Buddhism, but thinks it's a great idea and has made some kind of decision to practice it with the FWBO - which may or may not have involved looking at various other groups. It is basically self-selecting these days. Some people do take quite a long time to decide to commit; others never do, but hang around anyway. A mitra ceremony is entirely a local affair. 

By contrast at the time of ordination a person will have been putting Buddhism into practice for a number of years (11 in my case) - they have developed a moderate degree of self awareness to the point where they can acknowledge, and work with, their strengths and weaknesses; and they are obviously making substantial progress with their practice. Note that one can be starting from a fairly low base and still be effectively practising. One also has to have aligned oneself (especially through the medium of friendships) with the order for it to make sense joining it. Why join an order if you don't like the people or the way they do things? In the case of ordination there must be a consensus of local order members who accept one's ordination, and agreement from preceptors - the final decision is made by one's public preceptor in consultation with their peers. The level of commitment required is much higher, and (in theory) the whole order is entitled to have
 a say. We never say a final no, but people are often asked to wait, or to work on specific things. The shortest period from asking for ordination to being ordained these days is probably 3 years; the longest is sitting at around 20 years I think... and counting.

Our jargon for it is that a mitra is 'provisionally' going for refuge, and an Order Member is 'effectively' going for refuge (at the time of their ordination). It reminds me of the distinction between path and fruit: a mitra has undertaken to follow the path, and an order member is tasting the fruit of the path (to some extent).

I hope that is more clear now?

I suspect there are other posts and comments that I might wish to respond to, or that others might think I should respond to, but I have limited capacity and I want to go to the library to read about Japanese history. 

So, sayonara, and may you all be happy and contented.

Jayarava