[Buddha-l] Is polyamory kilesa?

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Vicente Gonzalez schreef:
>
> The "French" (universal?) case of a shared acceptance of adultery
> that Joanna wrote sounds more problematic.
>   
The French Oh la la is a Calvinistic myth, just as the Italian stallion.
> Anyway, it seems that having multiple partners doesn't have to do with
> sex misconduct in a direct way, Some people can have sex in group
> and in common agreement and they can be well and happy. Specially when
> the bed is enough large.
>
>   
The problem seems to me that some see the rules about sexual conduct as commandments. So if you don't keep them, you're a bad person. Then I see counter arguments saying 'this cannot be wrong, because you don't really hurt someone if you have consenting adults'. I think that is confusing Buddhism with Christendom. The Buddha mainly intended to say that it is not wise to have many sexual contacts because you get more children then you can remember and the children will not be properly educated. Secondly sexual contacts tend to increase the usual samsaric emotional disturbances, and in the least your agenda gets overloaded, so you don't have time to meditate. 
Then there's a more subtle danger the integration of a pattern of behaviour into the selfapprehension, also called  'the I and mine'. Some people tend to regard their sexual life as an integral and necessary part of their life, they need it because it's part of what they are. It is a field of exploitation, where they think they take the pleasure or intimacy, or whatever they call it they're entitled to. What they don't see is that it is in fact nature playing with them, it seems as though they exploit nature to get pure pleasure, but the pleasure is a trick of nature to let them play the reproduction game. But nature is Mara, it wants to keep you away from nirvana, it tends to involve you in all kinds of illusions. 
Now there are the tantrics of course who would contradict this, but they never managed to come with a consistent theory of how there sexual alchemy works, they never tell that they practise it nor describe how they do it and above all most of them admit that you have to master your emotions, get over the need for sex and the need for pleasure exploitation in order to begin with the sexual alchemy. The Buddha comes with an empirical explanation, well, if the tantrics say they can do better, they have to come with a better empirical theory and not with quotes from tantras, texts they don't understand themselves.

Erik


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