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

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Sat, 2005-03-26 at 08:15 +0100, Mikael Aktor wrote:

> Wouldn't it be a much simpler (and more straightforward) answer to say 
> that sexual abstinence is demanded because monks are supposed to conquer 
> the desire for sex? Or do you actually mean that these rules have 
> nothing to do with desire?

Yes, I actually mean that these rules have nothing to do with desire.
They have everything to do with avoiding social disapproval, and also of
setting a decorous example to the laity. It was to avoid social
disapproval that the monastic code had rules against monks laughing
boisterously in the company of the laity or using coarse language. When
monks were in the company only of other monks, however, laughter was not
against the rules. No one thought laughter was itself an obstacle to
spiritual attainment.

As I mentioned in another message, a monk or nun could be kicked out of
the order for a lifetime if guilty of having sexual relations with
another being. Being guilty of masturbation, however, was much less
serious, because society did not disapprove of that quite as much as
they disapproved of religious mendicants doing "unseemly" actions with
human beings, corpses, animals and trees. If the purpose of the rules
had been to avoid the gratification of sexual desire as such, then ALL
forms of sexual gratification would be seen as equally destructive of
the yogin's resolve.

Moreover, as has been pointed out before in this thread, there are
plenty of instances where laity are attained to the status of ariya-
puriso and attained refined states of jhaana, which shows that celibacy
was not seen as necessary to make significant spiritual progress. So
celibacy, we can conclude, was seen as desirable not because marriage or
sexuality was seen as inherently obstructive to spiritual progress, but
because society withheld approval of sexually active people who sought
alms as a religious practice.

There are inconsistencies in monastic rules, and most of them can be
traced, I think, to inconsistencies in popular conceptions of what is
acceptable in "polite" society. 

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico