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| Casual intimacy, it's not just an American thing (mademan.com) |
Editors: Has
Wisdom Quarterly become a coven of "smut peddlers" with all this frank discussion of sex?
Contributor Gary Kramer (
ATS): I can only speak from my point of view. I didn't FEEL anything was wrong with it, personally. But I'm in a committed relationship with someone I love deeply. The
Slow Orgasm program to me SEEMS like it would be in line with the 3rd precept, as long as it wasn't used as a pick-up tool. What do you think?
Ashley Wells: This site, this resource, is principally for Buddhists not monastics, more West than East. My understanding of what makes Buddhism such a fantastic spiritual discipline and philosophy is that it promotes integrity rather than hypocrisy.
Bhante: I think what you are writing is very good. [What about the pictures?] The pictures are very nice compared to what is on the Internet.
Seth Auberon: Buddhists may be hypocritical, but Buddhism is not. Individuals, contributors can be all over the map.
Amber Larson: The whole world has been ruined. Something made it sexist, rewrote sacred texts. The shame and fear about sex, our bodies, desire, child bearing... are not limited to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The Dharma, too. There are sutras that are sexist when the Buddha was progressive. We have to think that the same is true of ancient shamans, healers, and medicine men (most of whom were women), rabbis, Jesus (St. Issa), the prophet, Mahavira, and the nuns and holy women that have always existed. One could hardly be blamed for believing that equality, matriarchy, and the divine feminine are new concepts. They are some of the oldest traditions we have any remaining knowledge of in history/herstory.
Contributor Roshi Jeff Albrizze (
PasaDharma): I'm happily married and always enjoy reading. I can see how some people might raise an eyebrow, not readers. American Buddhists are certainly open if it's for them, an "
American Buddhist Journal."
(mademan.com)
Dhr. Seven: If one reads AN X.206 (
Numerical Discourses, Book of the Tens, Discourse 206), one finds the Buddha, or the monastics in his memory, defining "sexual misconduct" in detail:
Misconduct is having sex with one of ten kinds of forbidden females. Nowhere does it "forbid" fornication (sex before marriage). What it warns against is harm. Do not harm. Do be careful. Do not ruin others' relationships. How? Avoid other people's dependents, their children, their spouses, those under their protection. It, of course, applies to women as well as men.
But in a sexist twist it is remembered by the monks as a sutra to them, as men. So it seems to promote norms that act as if only men were active sexual agents, as if women were only ever passive recipients, or as if the females considered off-limits (e.g., married women) were seducers trying to lure males to the ruin of their virtue, which is probably a good way to think of it for a celibate, but it's far from accurate.
Ashley: I don't know enough about this "tool" to use it to pick up. Assuming that's what it is or can be, I still don't think that would be out of line. All's fair in love and war. Creepy is never good, but whatever works. Is this some kind of "magic" that seduces? I don't think so.
Editors: The stories we hear! Women and men are suffering the same in this society. No one's having a good time. We have to be sex positive. And we have to leave sex out of our minds during periods of intensive practice if we want to advance as we meditate without dissipating those gains, particularly on retreats. But the rest of the time? Be healthy, be fair, be open and communicative.
Seth: I have trouble with intimacy. It scares me. There are worse things in how we relate to people. If we want to express loving kindness, we can treat people by the Golden Rule and, sometimes, be treated well in return.
Amber: I used to think Tantra was another thing to add to the bucket list. But I have come to believe that the real scary/super thing about it would be to be vulnerable to someone, to be available, to be "intimate."
CC Liu: Imagine the mind-blowing connection, the momentary nonduality between at least to pairs of aggregates. [*General Laughter*]
Kalyani: I would try that. It's better than what we actually do. Being grabby, selfish, win-lose, underhanded...
Ashley: What if we were open? What if we actually discussed it openly?
Seven: That's a great idea! What if this could be a forum to DISCUSS things rather than promote shame or squeamishness about sex, like some kind of blog? [*General Laughter*]
CC: I heard a great thing. Someone brought a Chinese Zen nun to
Shambhala. She was taking notes and asking, How are Americans getting people, Westerners, to be interested in the Dharma? It wasn't happening in Asian communities. People there weren't knocking down temple doors to meditate. How in the world were Americans doing it? That's what she wanted to know.
Ashley: Perfect! So we agree? We are not "smut peddlers." [*General Laughter*] If readers think we are, that's what COMMENTS are for. They should comment and complain or applaud.
- Editors, Wisdom Quarterly (SEX DEBATE), 4/13/12
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“A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be” (Ruth Ozeki).
Amber Larson: The whole world has been ruined. Something made it sexist, rewrote sacred texts. The shame and fear about sex, our bodies, desire, child bearing... are not limited to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The Dharma, too. There are sutras that are sexist when the Buddha was progressive. We have to think that the same is true of ancient shamans, healers, and medicine men (most of whom were women), rabbis, Jesus (St. Issa), the prophet, Mahavira, and the nuns and holy women that have always existed. One could hardly be blamed for believing that equality, matriarchy, and the divine feminine are new concepts. They are some of the oldest traditions we have any remaining knowledge of in history/herstory.
Dhr. Seven: If one reads AN X.206 (Numerical Discourses, Book of the Tens, Discourse 206), one finds the Buddha, or the monastics in his memory, defining "sexual misconduct" in detail:
(j-million.com)
It refers to the fame-loving renegade star Zaphod Beeblebrox rather than the human, Arthur Dent, most listeners identify with. It is all the funnier because that seems to be all The Big Z is ever thinking about.
The radio series was so popular it became an increasingly inaccurate "trilogy" selling millions.
He we are Buddhists talking about sex in a healthy and frank way. But what would we tell our diaries? The editors are reluctant to speak individually. Yet readers are eager to know. An insta-poll reveals a goodly number of celibates. Are they master meditators? Most do not even meditate daily. But all of them do meditate multiple times a week. Are they cunning linguists? Just one. Are they unmarried hypocrites? No. While most of the editors are not married, all adhere to the Five Precepts, which says no to sexual misconduct not to sex itself.
Of course, sex is embarrassing to most Americans. We're Puritans and fundamentalists after all. One never realizes this until one travels out of the country, but it's true. We are raised on violence, guilt, explicit advertisements, and official hypocrisy. We say we're "open" but we act like prudes. Some of the editors at Wisdom Quarterly are prudes -- not that they wish to be, just more sort of out of habit after a while. But they have great back stories because, "Every sinner has a future, and every saint has a past." Here is a normal day in the life of.
Dear Diary: Last night she looked at me. I talked to her. She took me to her house. And then... Well, nothing happened. But I sensed potential. If I get invited over again, I may just try something. *Inconsolable weeping* Oh, to close the deal already rather than over thinking it! I'm a disgrace to mankind! But without the crushing karma of alcohol?
Society sold us a bill of goods! "Project X," "Act Like a Man," "Blue Velvet," "The Diary of Anais Nin," and that part on the cliff in "Lion King," we were cheated. And it makes us lonely. And we think everybody else is having fun. Religion promises answers while advancing the problem. We have to be responsible. We have to go against the corporate stream. There is love, there is intimacy, there is nature free of obsession compounded by denial. And Wisdom Quarterly will find it.
"That was one for the diary if only I weren't so sleepy now" (healthynews.com).
Sex is the one subject guaranteed to illicit raised eyebrows, flushed cheeks, and even an embarrassed giggle -- and not just from teenagers.
