Whenever the issue of female ordination pops up, we hear two standard lines from our clerical elders.
First, Bhikkhuni ordination is no longer possible because the lineage of women monks in orthodox female ordination has long been broken. Second, women can still pursue a monastic life by becoming mae chee, or white-robed nuns.
In truth, these responses are mere disguises for gender discrimination in the clergy.
Thai Theravada Buddhism does not only shut the ordination door on women but also punishes monks who dares challenge the no-female-ordination rule.
This means that Sri Lanka — also a predominantly Theravada Buddhist country — has become a centre for Thai women seeking ordination.
There are now about 100 Bhikkhunis and Samaneris (female novices) in the country. The number is growing and clerical authorities can do nothing about it because they do not fall under the local clergy.
So what about the fate of the white-robed mae chee?
"We have just been evicted," mae chee Choojai Pathumnand told me at the weekend, when I dropped into Ratanapaiboon Nunnery to make merit for my late mother.
Since the founding of the Thai Nuns Institute four decades ago, nuns had been allowed to use a small quarter of Wat Bovornniwet Temple as their centre.
Amid criticisms about the clergy's opposition to Bhikkhunis, this free office space was often used as proof of its support for mae chee as an alternative to female monks. But not any longer.
Shortly after the late Supreme Patriarch died, the nuns were told to pack up and go.
"We were stunned. We were speechless," said mae chee Choojai. "But what else can we do? We are unwanted, so we will have to find a new place where we won't be chased out like that again."
The institute is now raising funds to construct a building in a vacant plot at the Rattanapaiboon Nunnery to serve as its new centre in Bangkok.
The construction cost weighs heavily on the nuns since the public prefers to make merit with monks.
"But we are used to facing such obstacles living and working as nuns," said mae chee Choojai matter-of-factly. "It has always been this way. This eviction problem is just one of them."
Unlike monks, women who want to live monastic lives must support themselves. Since they are not legally recognised as monastics, mae chee must pay for their own education.
When they are sick, they have to pay for their own medical expenses. When travelling, they must pay for transport like normal citizens. Yet, they are not allowed to vote.
Monks and novices get education and financial support from their temples and merit makers. They get free transportation and special seats on buses and trains. They also have Monks Hospitals to take care of them when they get sick.
According to traditional teachings, monks are the "most fertile paddy fields" for planting the seeds of merit for one to harvest in his or her next life.
The last time I made offerings at a big temple, two monks stopped the chanting to talk on their mobile phones. They also did not touch the food I offered. They said they were already too full from the late morning meal and had to rush for another round of chanting and food offerings.
I cannot help thinking of my visit to a nunnery in Buri Ram where the nuns must grow rice themselves to cut food costs and to raise funds for their projects for needy children, women and elderly.
"We might think we face many obstacles in our monastic life. But in fact, there are so many people who are much more unfortunate and they need help from us," said mae chee Choojai.
The Nuns Institute has 27 branches, all of which are nunneries independent from temples.
Many of them used to be located in temples but were later forced out when the abbots felt the nuns' social work outshone theirs.
The majority of head-shaven, white-robed nuns, however, live in temples and do temple chores in return for accommodation, which leaves them little time to study and practise meditation.
"We are lucky enough to be able to practise and work for the less fortunate," said the ever optimistic mae chee Choojai. "Our goal is to live a spiritual life that is also beneficial to others."
In my quest for the right "fertile paddy fields" to make merit, I think I have found mine.
Sanitsuda Ekachai is editorial pages editor, Bangkok Post.