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

[Mikael Aktor]

Richard P. Hayes wrote:

>On Mon, 2005-03-28 at 22:24 +0200, Mikael Aktor wrote:
>
>  
>
>>I have no intention or reason to project some kind of Victorian moral to 
>>ancient Buddhist, monastic rules. A silly idea. But I think it is 
>>important to understand what exactly (or as exactly we are able to 
>>decide) is the monastic lifestyle implied by these rules.
>>    
>>
>
>If all you mean to say is that the monastic rules were for people living
>a monastic life, then I would surely have no difficulty agreeing with
>that. [...] If, however, you mean to say, as I think you did start out
>saying, that monastic life was considered essential to the practice of
>Buddhist contemplative exercises and to attaining nirvana, then that
>assertion is just plain wrong and is contradicted by many texts.
>  
>
As I said, my knowledge of Buddhism is rather propaedeutic, so I accept 
your point (although I notice that not all Buddhist scholoars aggree 
with you, e.g. Harvey: "[...] the Buddha explaining that the act [of 
masturbation] is related to the very attachment, fetters and grasping 
that the Dhamma aims to transcend", meaning that celibacy somehow IS 
"considered essential to the practice of Buddhist contemplative 
exercises and to attaining nirvana").

Perhaps we need to distinguish several levels when speaking of 
monastacism (and religious asceticism in general). We may start with 
three: the ideal, doctrinal level - the humanistic, realistic level - 
and the level of social expectations.

Even without a very thorough knowledge of Vinaya texts, is seems logical 
that attaining nirvana must rest on transcending the attachments created 
by - among other things - a sexual life. The idea of being without 
sensual attachments (a prerequisite for nivana, I guess) and still 
having a sexual life seems absurd. For what reason would one have a 
sexual life if there were no "thirst" or impulse driving one to sexual 
activities? That is why I took it as self-evident that sexual abstinence 
(and with that the monastic, virtuoso lifestyle) is meant as a 
prerequisite for nivana in the preachings of the Buddha. That is, on the 
ideal, doctrinal level.

On the other hand, it is quite common in monastic traditions all over 
the world to operate with different kinds of double standards, saying 
'one thing is the ideal, another the human reality which - in general - 
is that sexuality is not fully controlable'. Added to this is the 
concern for the social expectations of the lay society - as you have 
stressed. These two together creates the idea (not only in Buddhist 
monasticism) that as long as monks do not have actual sexual intercourse 
or other activities involving other "creatures", masturbation is not a 
big issue. Propably the reality (which monastic leaders are fully aware 
of) is that if masturbation would exclude monkhood, there would be only 
very few monastaries. Still, this does not need to affect the doctrines 
and the ideals. Can we conclude that I have argued from a doctrinal, 
ideal level, and you from the human-social-reality level (which may very 
well, as you suggest, actually (and wisely) be accounted for - and 
embedded in - the articulations of the Buddha)?

mikael

-- 
Mikael Aktor
University of Southern Denmark