[Buddha-l] Is polyamory kilesa?

[Christopher Fynn]

jkirk wrote:


  Since the Buddha himself is not represented as having any such experience,
> how can what he said about fornication, or whatever word is used to
> translate that precept, be taken literally? 

Didn't the bodhisattva have a wife and child - and a palace full of dancing girls?

> Seems to me people have to find their own way on this deal. However,
> polyamory was big in the 60s and 70s (they called it "open marriage") and it
> led to lots of broken households and rigorous emotional distress of both
> adults and children.  

Polyandry was fairly common in parts of Tibet and polygamy in parts
of Bhutan. In both cases one of the main reasons seems to have been to prevent 
the breakup of ancestral land.

- Chris

I never heard anyone defend the idea seriously, except
> as a "fun thing to do" rationalized as "freedom."  IMO, the sexual freedom
> ideology of the sixties was among its more stupid ideas.

> Joanna