hen my mother shaved her head I was 11 years old. In Thailand in 1956 if a woman shaved her head it was to become a mae chee (white robed nun). There was no ordination just receiving the eight precepts. My mother Ven. Voramai Kabilingh never thought of becoming a mae chee—she told her preceptor Pra Prommuni of Wat Bavornnives that she would be wearing light yellow—and so it was. She turned her house into a small nunnery where more and more young women joined her. I grew up in this monastic setting learning all of the chanting along with other nuns. So it is not a surprise that when I took ordination much later in life I was already fluent with the chanting.
In the following year 2500 BE [Buddhist Era the calendar used in Thailand] which a very important year for Buddhists I took the light yellow robe and took the precepts from my mother’s teacher at Wat Bavornnives. It was during summer vacation so I remained in the robe for 47 days until the school started in mid May.
That was my first ordination.
My education prepared me for ordination. I attended McMaster University in Hamilton Ontario Canada where I indulged myself in the study of Buddhism and was converted to a Feminist Buddhist through reading I.B. Horner. My Thesis was “A Comparative Study of Bhikkhuni Patimokkha of 6 Schools.”
The Chinese language which I had studied while I was in India really became an asset as for a Ph.D. one needs to know at least two languages in addition to English. For me it was Chinese and Sanskrit—I took Sanskrit in the summer to fulfill the other language requirement.
