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

[F.K. Lehman (F.K.L. Chit Hlaing)]

May I add a bit to the long discussion about Celibacy? It seems to me 
(somewhat in line with Richard Hayes' arguments maybe) that what is 
at issue is the Magadhan view of what it means to a person to be in a 
mendicant order. It was, inter alia, to be outside of civil society; 
and having wives and families was much of what defined being part of 
civil societies. This is a general thing in the Indic tradition, 
where,as is so often said, one enters such and order undergoing 
'civil death'. Furthermore, even sexuality itself, marriage aside, is 
involved because it is, if I may say it this way, in itself a 
distraction of a civil social nature.If one is supposed to be 
concentrating 'all the time' on all the obvious higher things and 
ideas, not least the truths involving non-attachment, then it seems 
clear that sexual thoughts and interests go against this desideratum. 
Remember that now and again in Suttas Buddha treats women not as 
polluting for a monk so much as a distraction - as in His initial 
refusal to allow female bhikkhuni - quite different from much of the 
justification for monastic celibacy (the very phrase seems redundant) 
in Christiaan Europe in the Middle Ages.
-- 
F. K. L. Chit Hlaing
Professor
Department of Anthropology
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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