[Buddha-l] Re: Rational or mythological Buddhism and WesternBuddhist lay practice

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Fri, 2005-03-25 at 23:24 -0500, Stuart Lachs wrote:

> Some years ago I heard Jan Natier give a wonderful talk on some of the
> sexual concerns of the Buddhist vinaya. I don't remember looking with
> disfavor "upon monks humping trees" but animals, skulls, and dead people
> were definitely out.

As I recall, the commentary on the first rule, which was originally
simply to avoid sexual relations, is the longest commentary on any rule.
Monks were very innovative at finding reasonable facsimiles of women.
They resorted to trained monkeys, corpses, skulls, nostrils and, yes,
knotholes in trees. So in order to rule all these forms of gratification
out, the rule became increasingly elaborate. The reason given for ruling
most of these forms of sexual gratification out was that when the laity
caught monks in flagante delicto with skulls, knotholes and nostrils,
they talked disapprovingly. 

> There was a real concern about "what having sex meant?"

It seems to have had to involved something other than part of one's own
body. Using one's own hand (or nostril, I suppose) for sexual
gratification was not as serious an infraction as involving someone or
something separate from one's body, although one supposes that the laity
would be just as likely to talk disapprovingly in either case.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico