A Trustworthy Woman: why the Buddha told his monks to believe what she said

• Thanks to Bhikkhuni Suvira for information on Chinese Vinayas.

A spiritual community is nothing if it cannot take care of its most vulnerable. People come to community because they are suffering. Spiritual communities become a haven for the damaged and the broken, for those seeking comfort and healing. We come together to lift each other up, to give each other strength, to believe in each other when we can no longer believe in ourselves. A wise spiritual leader catalyzes this process by drawing out our inner wisdom and showing us that together we can find the strength to break our own chains.

But sometimes it goes bad. It turns out, a flock of wounded lambs does not always attract the care of a kindly shepherd. Sometimes it draws the wolves.

There have been too many cases where spiritual exemplars—whether monastics, teachers, or supposedly enlightened gurus—abuse their position, taking advantage of the very people who they are meant to protect. Sexual violations within a community are especially damaging, as it is the one place that is seen as pure and safe in a corrupt and dangerous world. If even here is fraught with abuse, what hope to find sanctuary anywhere else?

One of the tragedies of sexual assault is how hard it is for the survivor to find justice. They have suffered a terrible trauma, only to undergo a second trauma at the hands of the justice system. They know that there is a small chance of bringing their abuser to justice, and yet if they say nothing, they have to live with the knowledge that their abuser is still out there and in all likelihood, is still harming others.

It is critical, then, that every spiritual community, whether the traditional monastic Sangha or contemporary Buddhist groups, have an explicit and responsible procedure for dealing with sexual abuse within their walls. Assume that it is not a matter of if but when. And when it comes to monastic communities, it is essential to support the order of fully ordained women (bhikkhunī). Without them, the monks have no female peers, no sisters and equals to stand up for women and call monks out on their blind spots.

The principles laid down by the Buddha were strikingly progressive, though they sometimes seem to have been honored more in the breach than the observance. It is worth taking some time to understand these procedures, which are relevant both as rules for monastics and as examples for lay communities.

Sexual assault or harassment is frequently discussed in the Buddhist monastic codes. These texts—the Vinaya—codify rules and principles of conduct for the monastic communities of monks and nuns. Their origins can be traced back to the time of the Buddha, and the texts themselves were settled and organized in the few centuries following the Buddha’s life. While variations indicate that these texts were the product of communities in different schools or traditions, the basic rules are common among all the traditions and must stem from the earliest community.

The Buddha took an active part in guiding the monastic communities—but perhaps not how you might think. If you are expecting a system of hierarchical control and unquestioning obedience to the teacher, then the Buddha has some surprises in store for you. The Vinaya texts organize the Sangha as an anarchist collective: consensus decision-making, property held in common, full community participation, and no power of command or hierarchical authority. Even in a student-teacher relationship, the student is explicitly instructed to disobey the teacher if they ask them to do something that is against the Dhamma. And it is crucial to understand that there is no assumption of male superiority, nor any allowance for monks to give any commands to nuns at all in any context. Nuns ran their own lives, and apart from a few points of procedure, were entirely independent of the monks.

Legally, there is a strong presumption of innocence. In most cases, a monastic can only be found guilty of an offence if they confess. And it is that last point that is specially relevant here. It is the old problem of sexual assault: who do we believe?

The order of nuns was established after that of monks, and in some ways is positioned as an adjunct to the male Sangha; for example, the nuns inherit many of the monks’ rules. While modern Buddhist apologists for patriarchy use this to undermine women’s ordination, it is under-appreciated how much the rules of the Vinaya protect women. Sometimes it is the simple things: monks are prohibited from getting nuns to do their laundry, and are restricted in accepting their alms-food. In Buddhist communities where full ordination for women is opposed, it is common to find nuns spending much of their day in the laundry or cooking food. When monastic women are stripped of the protections offered by the Vinaya, the patriarchy re-asserts itself, prioritizes the needs of men; it takes women out of the meditation hall or Dhamma seat and puts them literally back in the kitchen.

The #metoo movement has highlighted both the horrifying prevalence of sexual assault and the critical importance of believing women. This is especially important when dealing with an organized patriarchal institution. Under patriarchy, men monopolize real estate and physical assets while arrogating moral superiority and infallibility. When accused, the institution falls behind the man, arguing that its own existence is more important than the lives of women. We have seen this happening countless times: in Hollywood and the music business, in sports and colleges, in families and churches, in the highest courts and parliaments, even in the White House. Buddhist centers are no different. So long as power is concentrated in the hands of men, the same dynamics will recur. It’s only a matter of time.

This situation is dealt with in the Vinaya through two special rules called Aniyata, which means “uncertain, undecided”. The uncertainty here is the proper way of dealing with an accusation. Unlike other rules, where a certain transgression demands a certain response, here the Sangha must first determine the nature of the transgression. These rules only apply in the case of accusations against monks by women, and require that the male Sangha take such accusations seriously.

The two rules are similar; the second merely has a narrower scope, and I’ll pass over it here. Here’s the first one, translated from the Pali by myself.

Suppose a monk were to sit alone with a woman in a private and concealed place convenient for having sex. And suppose a trustworthy laywoman, seeing him, were to accuse him of one of three offenses, either [sexual intercourse] entailing expulsion, [sexual contact or lewd speech] entailing suspension, or [dubious intentions] entailing confession. The mendicant who admits sitting in this way must be dealt with according to whichever one of these three offences applies, or according to what the trustworthy laywoman has said. This rule is undetermined.

Several Sanskrit versions of this rule (Mahāsaṁghika, Lokottaravāda, Mūlasarvāstivāda), while otherwise virtually identical, specify that the monk is to be dealt with according to the laywoman’s accusation “in addition” (puna) to his confession. They emphasize this using reduplicated pronouns (yena yena … tena tena), an idiom which conveys an emphatic universal:

The mendicant who admits sitting in this way must be dealt with according to whichever one of these three offences applies, and in addition according to anything whatsoever that the trustworthy laywoman has said.

Like all Vinaya rules, this was prompted by a specific circumstance and deals with a narrow range of cases. It is not meant to be a complete policy. Nevertheless, it does raise a range of relevant issues.

The first thing that strikes me is how the responsibility is unquestionably on the monk. There is no hint that the woman who is sexually involved is in any way culpable, nor is the accuser. This, of course, stands in rather stark contrast with contemporary cases, where the character and morality of the women involved immediately comes under scrutiny and attack. There is no “boys will be boys”: he is an adult and must take responsibility for his actions.

In addition, there is no question of protecting the institution by a cover-up or denial. The Buddha understood that an institution is served by truth and accountability.

As this is a case dealing with a vowed celibate, any sexual behavior is out of bounds. In broader context, the problem is non-consensual or otherwise inappropriate misconduct. While consent does not come up in this rule, in the Vinaya it is a central component of sexual morality, the dividing line that marks an action as assault. In a spiritual community, moreover, the relation between a monastic or teacher and student is not equal, and the very possibility of consent becomes blurred. Much like a relationship between an employer and employee, or therapist and client, things get messy fast. Even if the teacher is not a celibate monastic, such unequal relationships are wide open to manipulation and abuse and should be completely avoided.

Another striking phrase here is the idea of a “trustworthy” laywoman. The Pali is saddheyyavacasā, literally “whose words are believable”. The rule thus places believing women at its core. And this gets to the heart of the he said/she said problem.

What exactly does “trustworthy” mean here? It is not a technical term, so it should be read as an ordinary-language phrase. In other words, it means just what it seems to mean: someone whose testimony is reliable.

But this is not how the rule was always interpreted by the monastic community. To understand this we must turn the Vibhaṅgas, the old commentaries on the rules. While the Vibhaṅgas are regarded as canonical, the wide variations between the various Vinaya texts shows that they were not settled until the sectarian period, a few centuries after the Buddha. The rules themselves, on the other hand, almost always agree virtually word for word, indicating that they stem from a very early period, probably the time of the Buddha himself. This distinction is one of the oldest and most robust findings of modern text-critical study.

The Pali Vibhaṅga says, in effect, that the “trustworthy laywoman” has attained one of the stages of awakening, at least stream-entry; she is a Noble Disciple. This narrows the scope of the rule so far that it becomes virtually redundant. Few people are stream-enterers, and we have no way of knowing who they are. Such a clause is extremely unusual. It shows how from an early date the male Sangha moved to reduce the legal liability and moral accountability of monks by discrediting the testimony of women.

The Vinayas in Chinese translation each offer a somewhat different analysis in their Vibhaṅgas. The majority (Mahāsaṁghika, Mahīśāsaka, Sarvāstivāda, Mūlasarvāstivāda), while differing in wording, agree in substance with the Pali in saying the trustworthy laywoman must be at least a stream-enterer. The Dharmaguptaka, however, adopts a more moderate position (translation by Bhikkhuni Suvira):

An upāsikā with faith and joy is one who has gone for refuge in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. She does not kill, steal, commit sexual misconduct, lie or drink alcohol. What she has spoken is well-remembered and not incorrect, and what is true and not false.

There are three factors here:

• She is a layfollower of good conduct.
• She has an accurate recollection of events.
• She is not lying.

This seems like a reasonable interpretation. For the rest, though, it should come as no surprise that the texts show a hardening of attitudes towards women and a silencing of their voices. It is the story of every reformer and their legacy: slowly or quickly, steps forward get walked back.

If we accept the plain meaning of the rule as explained in the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya, how are we to know who is trustworthy? In the background story, the accuser is Visākhā, a prominent member of the community, well known to the Buddha and the Sangha. Clearly she was regarded as trustworthy.

But not every woman is so well known in the community. What then? Where lies the burden of belief when a woman accuses a man of sexual transgression?

For the man’s part, that’s easy: when accused, men will almost always deny it, implying the woman is lying. Thus a man’s denial is of little weight.

On the other hand, it is difficult to estimate the reliability of accusations of sexual misconduct by women, and I don’t know of any that cover the same situation as envisaged in the Aniyatas. However, there have been several studies of reliability in the case of rape. These typically analyze information provided by the police. Most studies conclude that the rate of false accusations is around 4%, give or take.

For example, a 2005 study by the British Home Office looked at 2643 sexual assault cases and found that the incidence of false accusation was 8% based on subjective police judgment or 2.5% using official criteria. These stark figures show how the members of the police force, a patriarchal institution, shifts the balance towards distrusting women and exonerating men, even when this goes against their own guidelines. Noting the declining incidence of successful rape convictions and the trauma inflicted on women by the legal process, the study urged a shift “from an exercise in scepticism focusing on discreditability to enhanced evidence-gathering and case-building”. This is simple common sense, and it begs the question: why have legal systems found it so difficult to successfully convict cases of rape? Perhaps an answer to this can be found in the widespread incidence of sexual assault by police officers themselves.

Oddly—or perhaps disturbingly—the percentage of false guilty verdicts for serious crimes is similar. For example, a 2011 article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences estimated false guilty verdicts at 4.1% for death row inmates in the U.S. Thus a simple accusation by a single woman is every bit as reliable as a judicial verdict. Obviously, if two or more women make an accusation against a man, the probability of his innocence becomes vanishingly small.

Since women’s testimony is reliable when reporting rape, it is reasonable to assume that it will be no less reliable when it comes to other forms of sexual accusation. This all suggests that, rather than restricting trustworthiness to a tiny circle of enlightened women, we should extend it to women in general.

Response to accusations of sexual violation should focus on the woman’s protection and well-being, while holding the man accountable. But in the Buddhist world, as in the world at large, we still find that in cases of sexual assault people believe the men, who often lie, over the women, who almost always tell the truth.

I recall an example where this is exactly what happened and the monks, though following the supposedly strict Vinaya practice of the Thai forest tradition, did not follow the rule. In this case, a lay woman was staying in a center. She was a respected meditation teacher in her own right, the very definition of a trustworthy laywoman. Some recently arrived monks were at that time in charge of the place. She witnessed inappropriate sexual behavior by one of the junior monks, who was flirting with a younger woman. In keeping with her responsibilities, told the senior monk. The monks discussed it, the junior monk denied it, and the senior monk dismissed the accusations. But it was all true. It became clear that the junior monk was spiralling, and he soon disrobed. The senior monk disrobed some time later. There was no justice or accountability, but the lay woman learned an important lesson about the patriarchy. No longer trusted or trusting, she left the center, a place she had contributed to far more than those monks.

Notice how crucial to the patriarchy is the control over real estate. This is their ultimate source of power. They control who stays and who goes. And they get to ascend the high seat from which they can prescribe what is right and what is wrong.

Does this mean that we risk the false conviction of innocent men? Not all patriarchs are abusers, even if they support an institution that enables abuse. And as we have noted, the Vinaya in general holds a very high standard of presumption of innocence. Typically, a monk or nun cannot be held guilty until they have actually confessed.

The Aniyata rules appear to be an exception to this. There is a tension between the normal presumption of innocence and the emphasis on believing the woman’s testimony. As we have seen, contemporary studies show that a woman’s testimony is reliable, but the Vibhaṅgas, except the Dharmaguptaka, try to minimize this by restricting those women who can be considered trustworthy. The Pali Vibhaṅga goes further by giving an extensive series of examples illustrating that a monk was only held guilty if he admitted to the offence. On this point, the Mahīśāsaka is similar, while in the Mahāsaṅghika, Mūlasarvāstivāda and Sarvāstivāda Vibhaṅgas the laywoman’s testimony is considered weighty enough that if she and the monk disagree, a further legal procedure is required. Only in the Dharmaguptaka does the laywoman’s testimony prevail regardless of what the monk says.

In addition, in the Pali Vibhaṅga the slightest flaw in the woman’s testimony is sufficient to dismiss the whole case. For example, if she says, “I saw you sitting down having sex with a woman,” and he says, “I wasn’t sitting but lying down” then he gets away with it.

The rule laid down by the Buddha emphasizes believing women and holding men accountable, while the Vibhaṅgas written some centuries later—with the notable exception of the Dharmaguptaka—shift the focus to exonerating men and disbelieving women.

The medieval Pali commentary Samantapāsādikā by Ācāriya Buddhaghosa justifies this by pointing out that sometimes what is seen is not what really happened. He is not suggesting that the woman is lying, merely that she may be mistaken.

Nevertheless, the Thai commentary Vinayamukha by Sangharaja Vajirañāṇavarorasa (1913, trans. 1969, vol. 1, pp. 79–80) points out the fallacy in this idea. If in the end only the bhikkhu’s word is accepted, then the “trustworthiness” of the laywoman becomes meaningless. To be trustworthy is more than just not lying, it is to be a reliable source of information. Someone who is trustworthy can, by definition, be trusted to know what it is that they saw and describe it properly. This argument is substantially the same as the position of the Dharmaguptaka Vibhaṅga. Vajirañāṇavarorasa concludes that “trustworthy” indicates that the authorities should believe in her testimony.

He also accepts the implication of this, namely that the testimony of the laywoman can be sufficient even if the bhikkhu denies the charge. He further agrees that by restricting “trustworthy” to only Noble Disciples, the Vibhaṅga is “defining it on an excessively high level”. He assigns this definition to the “Arranger” of the Vibhaṅga rather than the Buddha.

When I make textual arguments, I am used to being accused of being biased due to my Western feminism. So it’s interesting to see that these arguments were made by an Asian monk of a royal family, one who literally bears the title “Supreme Patriarch”. When writing this article, as a white Australian monk of anarchist leanings, I reached similar conclusions quite independently.

These reasonable considerations by the Thai Sangharaja were walked back by the American commentator Thanissaro Bhikkhu, who discusses this point in his Buddhist Monastic Code (1994, revised 2013, p. 158), an unofficial manual for Vinaya practice among contemporary Western monks. He acknowledges that “the Buddha at one point was willing to let the bhikkhus give more weight to the word of a female lay follower than to that of the accused bhikkhu”.

Yet the burden of his analysis is given over to explaining at unusual length how a monk can only be held accountable if he confesses. While admitting that the texts on which he relies are later, he argues that they “supersede” the earlier rule, which was laid down by the Buddha. Thus the exoneration of the patriarchs takes precedence not only over the woman but over the Buddha himself, and even over the Thai Sangharaja, the former head of the lineage to which Thanissaro owes allegiance.

Thanissaro makes the extraordinary argument, used nowhere else in his manual, that even if guilty monks get away with it, in the long run their karma will catch up with them. Small comfort to the women. But then, the welfare of women is never a factor in these debates, and a woman’s perspective is never invited.

When an accused abuser is exonerated, he doesn’t take it as a chance to reflect on his conscience and reform his acts. He is being told by the patriarchy that he is invulnerable. His sense of narcissism and entitlement only swell and his actions grow bolder.

We need to get past the idea that it is possible for a “good man” to hold a seat of unassailable spiritual authority; that our patriarch is wise and compassionate and only acts for our good. A good man rejects absolute power and authority because he knows that, whatever his intentions may be, any institution that requires obedience and submission inevitably leads to abuse.

Patriarchy conditions men to believe they can do whatever they want and just get away with it. And it conditions women to believe that they can only survive by colluding with the patriarchy against other women. Men become besotted with power, worshipped and exulted each time they commit a worse depravity, daring themselves to go further and indulge their darkest desires. And all-too-often, it turns out, what men desire is to hurt women.

Men don’t start out that way. They begin life as innocent boys, loving and laughing and full of joy. They do not become evil by chance, but by choice; choices that are shaped and encouraged by patriarchal culture. When they should be stopped, they are excused. The method of patriarchy is to strip women of voice and agency; the purpose is to allow men to act with impunity; the seat of power is real estate; and the endgame is rape.

There’s only one way to turn this back: believe women and hold men accountable. The Aniyata rules give us an early example of how this can be applied in a monastic context. It is far from a complete and final solution, but it gives us a place to start. When we encounter Buddhist men who deny womens’ voices or strip their agency, we know that, no matter how revered they may be as a teacher or practitioner, they do not speak as the Buddha did, and do not represent the Buddha’s heritage.

When something bad happens in a spiritual community, a center or monastery, women often feel beleaguered and alone. That they have no power, and that everything is stacked against them. That no-one believes them. That the Sangha, their last refuge from a world of danger, has become the danger.

But you should know: the Buddha would have believed you. And for what it’s worth, I believe you too.