Better than the Boys

"... Although Kinh Tam was just twenty-four years old, the novice had already twice endured great injustice. The first was being accused of attempting to kill another person. The second was being said to have transgressed the monastic vows in sleeping with Mau, the daughter of the richest family in the village, and making her pregnant. Two instances of very grave injustice. But Kinh Tam could still bear it, because the novice knew the practice of inclusiveness (magnanimity) and had learned ways to nourish loving-kindness and compassion. In fact, the novice was not a young man at all.

Kinh Tam was actually a daughter of the Ly (“Plum”) family in another province. Her parents had named her Kinh (“Reverence”). Because she so strongly wished to live the monastic life, Kinh had disguised herself as a young man in order to be ordained. Buddhism had entered Giao Chau, the ancient name for what is now Vietnam, around two hundred years earlier, and the temples there were only receiving men for ordination. Kinh had heard that long ago in India there had been numerous temples in which women could become Buddhist nuns. She often wondered, “How much longer will we have to wait before we have a temple for nuns in this country?”

She came to Dharma Cloud Temple, one of the most beautiful temples in the land, to be ordained and to live the monastic life. The temple was in the Giao Chi district, six days’travel from her home village in Cuu Chan district. Kinh hid the fact from her parents that she was practicing at Dharma Cloud Temple. She knew that if they were to learn of her ordination and whereabouts, they would intervene and beseech her to return home to them. Just to have the teacher find out that she was a girl in disguise would be enough to have her expelled from the temple. And if she were to become unable to continue the monastic life, the suffering would be too unbearable.

From early childhood, Kinh had been very much a tomboy, always joining in the games of boys. Her parents dressed her in little boys’outfits. As she got older, they received permission for Kinh to join a classical Chinese class for young boys with the village teacher, named Bai (“Bowing”). Kinh studied very well and received better grades than many of the boys in her class..."
- Thich Nhat Hanh, The Novice (a novel)