The 'Dark' Side of Theravada Buddhism

(Radici Exposition)

Sasana Flag – Int'l Buddhist Flag in Burma (Buddhism in Myanmar/Wikipedia)

• Buddhism in Cambodia
• Buddhism in Thailand
• Buddhism in Burma/Myanmar
• Buddhism in Sri Lanka
• Buddhism in Laos
• Buddhism in Southeast Asia
• Buddhist Monastic Code (Vinaya)
• Basic Monastic Precepts (Pāṭimokkha)
• All Buddhist rules for monks in English translation: The Buddhist Monastic Code, Volumes I and II | eBook (dhammatalks.org)
• The Dark Side of Albert Einstein (MSN)

Humans on all fours: karma, devolution?

I was traveling as a vegan through India which, while mostly Hindu, at that time had about 100 million Muslims. (It now has 200 million or more).

I came to a strangely barren outdoor marketplace made of stone and clay. I watched from a distance as a bad smell of BBQ wafted through the air like an accident. Imagine the smell of burning plastic, upholstery, oil, textiles, and diesel fumes.

Men began to congregate, each at their own stall with animals, mainly sheep, lambs, or goats in tow. I blended in, holding still, just observing. And I began to realize these were butchers, killing animals by slicing their throats, beheading them, draining their blood, separating their corpses into portions, and piling bloody flesh on the stall tops for sale.

Shoppers, Muslims following their religion to eat the dead and Hindus violating theirs by buying carcasses (and therefore paying butchers to kill) for consumption, which is at odds with ahimsa ("nonharming"), were gathering.

• The Dharmic religions enjoin humans to abstain from killing and from encouraging anyone else to kill. Butchers are encouraged to slaughter when people pay them to do it. Am I blameless for eating meat? It would be as if the Mafia godfather were to say, "I've never killed anybody" when he has hired and directed men to kill by paying them to do so. Is he blameless or as blameworthy as those Mafia men for all those killings? Butchers, paid for yesterday's killing, kill for tomorrow in full expectation that there is money to be made by those not doing the dirty work.
• I'm a woman traveling around the world. Here are the 5 places I felt the least safe

The flies. The dirty hands. The dust and pollution of uncovered stalls. The floors of stalls were a sheen of blood. There was some baying of the young sheep.

The men all seemed very nice, not yelling or argumentative, all in their workaday mode, thinking nothing wrong with slaughtering and selling in unhygienic conditions.

A modern human family walking on all fours?

Then, thinking of karma, I saw it. No one seemed to pay any mind, but I could not wrap my head around what people must be thinking they were seeing and why it was so. People probably go along to get along by not thinking.

An Ulas family member or distant relative, walking on all fours through the blood slats, was going from stall-to-stall begging. He had a Muslim cap like the others and clogs (rope and wood sandals) on his feet, which gave the appearance and sound of cloven hooves, as he ambled from butcher to butcher, who pitied him (or wanted him to move on).

They have him a few coins (backsheesh) or slivers of red flesh. To explain it to myself, I imagined that this man -- in a past life or earlier in this one -- was a butcher like them but then went crazy and decided to go on all four like a dog-duty ascetic.

But he was no ascetic, not one to do penance or tapas (fiery austerities), not Hindu or a member of one of the Dharmic religions. Yet, by his concurrent good deeds, possibly giving to beggars, he managed to gain rebirth in this world (on the human plane) rather than The Downfall (niraya), the worlds of woe that result from killing living beings and other cruelties.

Karma is such that the way it works out is not only strange but incomprehensible, one of the Four Imponderables. It is possible, particularly in this world of mixed karma (skillful and unskillful deeds), that one form of karma interferes with the other. Killers are not always immediately reborn in perdition.

It is possible by good karma (keeping the Five or Eight Precepts) that merit is made that counters unskillful actions for a time. The result of killing animals is not that one will one time be killed or reborn in hell but that it will happen again and again and those mental impulsions (javanas) formed in the doing come to fruition by conditioning a rebirth. One act (good or bad) has exponential karmic-results (vipaka, phala), ripening like fruit.

The man walked like a tall, skinny cow from booth to booth. The butchers gave charity. And he moved on to work the whole marketplace. I turned in disbelief, gobsmacked, and saw a girl selling piles of colorful powder dyes. It is not clear in what, ubiquitous plastic bags or wrapped in yesterday's newspaper. The piles were perfect and very likely synthetic and she seemed miserable to be there.

Then the smell hit me again and I saw smoke. It was a kind of hibachi, and an old Muslim man was placing something on the sooty grill. The smoke did not seem to bother the miserable salesgirl, but from a farther distance, it sure bothered me.

The man smiled at me, seeing my camera. I approached slowly and got close enough to discern what was burning. It was a pile of small heads of recently living lambs. It is the strangest thing to see a beheaded face separated from its torso, disconnected from its neck. The eyes were gently closed and I felt sure they might open at any moment. Was he cooking their brains in the skulls?

Surely, this was butcher offal (trash). What was he doing? I came to understand that he was singing the hair off to sell the heads for buyers to eat the face. Like a dog gnawing on a bone for marrow and gristle, scraps of remaining tendon, the smear of blood or scent of flesh, someone would buy this.

• Discovery of bone-filled urns under tree could rewrite ancient Amazon civilization history

Price? 5 cents (It's hard to do the arithmetic conversion with moving exchange rates, and this was a long time ago when the US greenback fetched about 40 rupees). The man kindly smiled at me. All the men were nice, seemed nice, seemed well adjusted to their task, with wives and families at home, well-fed with lots of dead meat. India is a kaleidoscope. I thought that man an anomaly. But here is a whole family:

Family that walks on all fours have 'undone the last three million years of evolution'

Story by Harriet Brewis, Indy 100, 8/27/24

The skin on the palms of their hands is as thick as it is on their feet (60 Minutes AUS/Indy 100).

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All families have their own quirks and habits, but one group of relatives has such a distinct trait that scientists have branded them a total anomaly of the human species.

I told you, Darwin. - No, Wallace, I already knew.

The Ulas family has been the subject of evolutionary fascination for years after they were discovered in a remote village in Turkey walking on all fours. Back in the early 2000s, a scientific paper was published on five of the Ulas siblings and their strange bear crawl-style of movement, with experts divided over the cause of the anomaly.

In the years following the paper’s publication, evolutionary psychologist Prof. Nicholas Humphrey of the London School of Economics (LSE) travelled to Turkey to meet with the extraordinary family.

Alfred Wallace, the unfamous father of evolution

The Ulas mother and father had a staggering 18 children. However, of these, only six were born with quadrupedalism (walking on all fours), which has never been seen before in modern adult humans.

“I never expected that even under the most extraordinary scientific fantasy that modern human beings could return to an animal state,” Prof. Humphrey told 60 Minutes Australia, which made a documentary about the family back in 2018.

“The thing which marks us off from the rest of the animal world is the fact that we’re the species which walks on two legs and holds our heads high in the air,” he added. More

• Family that walk on all fours have 'undone the last three million years of evolution' (msn.com)
• Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly, Aug. 27, 2024; Harriet Brewis, Indy 100, 8/27/24; Wisdom Quarterly

Berkeley Zen Center lay ordination (video)

Berkeley Zen Center; Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly

BerkeleyZenCenter.org

Three members of the Berkeley Zen Center sangha (spiritual community) received "lay ordination" (Zaike Tokudo) from Sojun Weitsman Roshi and Hozan Senauke Sensei in the summer of 2017.

Such commitment to practice is possible in Mahayana Buddhism, particularly in the Japanese tradition practiced in the United States.

This ceremony takes place once a year at BZC and is a significant rite of passage for each participant and for the whole sangha.

• Film Club: Watch Old Plum Mountain, a film about the Berkeley Zen Center (Tricycle: The Buddhist Review)

You're never too old to RNR if you're TYTD.

Those present have the feeling that we are all together witnessing and participating as those ordaining receive the Buddha’s precepts.

Those ordaining are welcomed into the lineage of Shakyamuni Buddha and Suzuki Roshi’s family.

• Sojun Roshi’s students:
• John Lake Hei Ko Shin Kan ("Calm Lake Deep Insight")
• Matt Haug Ji Dô I Shin ("Compassionate Path Healing Heart")
• Hozan Sensei’s student:
• Tim Lane Kô Ryû Gen Shin ("Peaceful Dragon Sees Heart")
• Heart Sutra Class | Berkeley Zen Center
• A new abbot for the Berkeley Zen Center (Old Plum Mountain Zen Center) | Sangha News Journal (sfzc.org)
• SFZC Dharma App
• Actor Pasquale Esposito from Italy to lay ordination
• Hozan Senauke: Zazen Instructions | Berkeley Zen Center
• 2024 BZC Calendar (berkeleyzencenter.org)

How to sit zazen: instructions

This is a talk given at Berkeley Zen Center on Friday, May 14, 2021, by Hozan Alan Senauke. AUDIO: Listen to an audio-only version of this talk: Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed. Subscribe to The Berkeley Zen Center Podcast: RSS.

ABOUT: Hozan Alan Senauke: Sensei began practicing at BZC on Dwight Way and later established his practice as a student of Sojun Roshi in the early 1980s. He was ordained as a Zen priest at BZC in 1989, receiving Dharma Transmission from Sojun at Tassajara Zen Center in 1998. After serving as tanto (head of practice) and then as vice-abbot at BZC, Hozan was installed as abbot in January of 2021. More

Fat Tuesday: Removing meat for Carnival/Lent

MSN.com; Pfc. Sandoval, CC Liu, Crystal Q. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Los Angeles has a pioneering cook in Rahel, who offers gluten-free vegan Ethiopian delicacies.

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I pray as I begin then I let go as my meditation.

Most Americans think Mardi Gras is a party, but it's actually a holy day during Holy Week, and its purpose is to put the brakes on meat eating. Three of the world's four largest religions know it's bad -- for health and for morals -- but that attitude has been thrown out over time. Buddhism (including the one billion uncounted Buddhists in communist China) and Hinduism remember the harm, whereas Christian/Catholicism and Islam seem to have forgotten. But Lent is the reminder. Only, now, most of us ignore it. Ethiopian Christians remember, as do monastics and people attempting to purify themselves by prayer -- not the common petitionary kind so much as other more effective forms (such as The Isaiah Effect: Decoding the Lost Science of Prayer and Prophecy rediscovered by Gregg Braden).

• Find vegan and vegetarian food outlets
• Carnival or Shrovetide is "removing meat"
• Fasting and abstinence in Ethiopian Orthodox
• What will there be to eat? Ethiopian cuisine

I didn't mean to kill animals. I'm taking it back.

Glittering green beads descend from balconies, costumed and topless crowds line parade routes, and jazz music fills the air — yep, you guessed it: Mardi Gras is here!

Otherwise known as "Fat Tuesday," this celebration draws scores of people to New Orleans, USA, every year for one big party.

Even if one can't make it to The Big Easy, one can join the festivities by dressing up in dazzling Carnival costumes, decorating the home in purple, green, and gold, or preparing a spread of traditional Mardi Gras food.

• Fasting days to abstain from meat (slaughtered flesh)

Thank you, soldier. We all want to live longer.

Just the flavors of the Carnival season are enough to keep many coming back for more: boils and étouffée, powdered beignets and po'boy sandwiches, and king cakes with tiny baby figurines hidden inside -- all largely unhealthy (albeit beloved) garbage.

And if the latter seems like an odd tradition, there's plenty more where that came from! The history of Mardi Gras and its customs is a much bigger story than anyone thinks.

• Carnival means "remove meat" (Latin carnevale), and it's part of the tradition of abstaining from animal flesh for 40 days. It's been practiced in Christian Ethiopia for millennia. The Roman Empire was no different, except in lustily building up to the fasting from flesh part. Today, Fat Tuesday, is when one eats up all the things (usually in pancake form) one does not want in the kitchen for the next 40 days.

What about fish? No way! That's an animal

For example, did you know why it always falls on the Tuesday before the start of Lent? Or why exactly it's called Fat Tuesday? To answer these questions and more, read ahead for the history of Mardi Gras and why it's celebrated. More: msn.com

• PETA.org to go vegan
• Vegan Made Easy: A healthy plant-based lifestyle (vegan.com)

Sillness+Insight @ Empty Cloud Monastery

Abbot Ven. Sudddhaso and guest monk; Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

(Buddhist Insights @ Empty Cloud) Sangha Panel: Samādhi (stillness, calm, concentration) and vipassana (insight, wisdom, liberating-knowledge) are two topics of utmost importance in early Buddhism.

This panel was streamed live on April 5, 2023. The Sangha ("Monastic Community") at Empty Cloud discusses samādhi and vipassana, which can be taken up in earnest every week on the lunar observance or uposatha day. This was highly recommended by the historical Buddha -- daily practice with weekly intensive practice, staying overnight in the monastery to make a concerted effort at attainments in calm and insight, book understanding and actual firsthand practice.

Gender inclusion in Buddhism w/ lesbian monk

Western Theravada nun Ayya Soma (Buddhist Insights @ Empty Cloud Monastery, New Jersey, streamed live on August 26, 2022); CC Liu, Ananda, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Hey, Gays, come to New Jersey! We celebrate complete nonheteronormative diversity!

Not-Self (Anatta) and LGBTQIA+ identities

Buddhism + Gender (Cabezon)

(Buddhist Insights @ Empty Cloud) Streamed live on August 26, 2022. Gender and Buddhism are not a new or novel combination of topics.

Wisdom Quarterly covered it years ago, focusing on the academic anthology entitled Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender (1991, edited by the prolific author Prof. Jose Ignacio Cabezon) with an excellent Theravada contribution by Prof. Donald Lopez, Ph.D.

How are LGBTQIA+ identities viewed in Buddhism? How might one understand anatta (the teaching of all things being impersonal and not-self) in the context of transgender life stories?

The Buddha didn't judge. Why would we?

In this talk, Italian-American Theravada Buddhist nun Ayya Soma (who may have been bisexual, lesbian, questioning, gender-fluid, and/or a tomboy prior to ordination and is a celibate now) shares some reflections based on early Buddhist texts from those schools that preceded the major reformed or universalist Mahayana school (a syncretic Brahminical/Hindu tradition).

• India recognizes a "third gender" (pandaka) 2014
• Search Wisdom Quarterly: Jose Ignacio Cabezon
• Pandaka: Sex Addiction and Perversion 2011
• Buddhism and sexual orientation (Wikipedia)
• What are the Seven Proclivities or anusaya?
• What are the perversions (vipallāsa)?

Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender

Paperback – Dec. 13, 1991 by Jose Ignacio Cabezon (Editor)

Buddhism + Gender (Cabezon)

This valuable academic work, edited by University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) Professor of Tibetan Buddhism Jose Ignacio Cabezon, Ph.D., has garnered a 5.0 out of 5 stars (with 5 ratings).

The compilation explores historical, textual, and social questions relating to the position and experience of women and gay people in the Buddhist world from India and Tibet to Sri Lanka, China, and Japan.

It focuses on four key areas:

1. 

   (BACK COVER)

   Buddhist history,
2. contemporary culture,
3. Buddhist symbols, and
4. homosexuality.

It also covers Buddhism's entire history, from its origins to the present day. The result of original and innovative research, the editor offers new perspectives on the history of the attitudes toward, and of the self-perception of, women in both ancient and modern Buddhist societies.

UC Santa Barbara Prof. Jose Ignacio Cabezon

Prof. Cabezon explores key social issues such as abortion and examines the use of rhetoric and symbols in Buddhist texts and cultures.

This anthology discusses the neglected subject of Buddhism and homosexuality.

"It fills an important gap in the field -- a serious, textually close reading of gender's influence on Buddhist thought and vice versa." - Anne Klein

Gender panel at Empty Cloud Monastery

The unbearable nervous laughter of [gay?] Ayya Soma and Ven. Suddhaso

The Crackpipe Monk (Dharma Outreach)

Drugs are like candy...can't have just one. Put down the pipe and get on the train? I'dunno.

(Dharma Nomad Gangster, May 25, 2022) Dharma Outreach with Ajahn Sujato a.k.a. Ven. Graham and Marshall (dharmaoutreach.com, Facebook Profile, Facebook Group). Dharma Talk #1.

• Drug addiction recovery groups

Imagine the infamous Noah Levine (recovering American drug addict and author of Dharma Punx/Against the Stream plus founder of a for-profit recovery center in Hollywood, sued out of his position as any kind of Dharma leader but still hustling to have a center). Now imagine him as a monk who has not committed sexual misconduct crimes or harmed many people around him, all full of tattoos and a shiny bald head. What is left is a kind of Ajahn Sujato (not the Australian Buddhist translator formerly known as Anthony Best of SuttaCentral.net fame) or Graham with his thick accent and scruffy appearance. Ten years a Theravada monk in the Thai tradition makes him a thera or "elder." So bravo that he survived parajika ("defeat") free, clean, having overcome drugs like crack! Home of The New Day Sangha| Dharma Outreach

In the forest of meditation (video)

True Little Monk (short video documentary, July 21 2018); TEXT by Ajahn Chah (ajahnchah.org) via Ven. Sujato and Ellie Askew, edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Here is a rare documentary about Ajahn Chah's Thai meditation center for Westerners, the "International Forest Monastery" (Wat Pah Nanachat) in Ubon Ratchathani, Northeast Thailand from True Little Monk: The Wisdom Training Program for Novices.

There are two kinds of suffering....become free.

Westerners are generally in a hurry. So they experience greater extremes of happiness and suffering. The fact that they have much defilement (kilesā) can be a source of wisdom later on.

To live the lay life and practice Dharma (Pali Dhamma), one must be in the world but must rise and remain above it. Virtue (sīla), which begins with the basic Five Precepts, is the all-important parent of all good things.

It is for removing all wrong from the mind/heart, removing that which causes agitation and distress. When these basic things are gone, the heart/mind will always be in a state of serene mental coherence (samādhi).

At first, the basic thing is to make virtue really firm. Practice formal meditation when there is the opportunity. Sometimes it will be good, sometimes not. Don’t worry about it, just continue.

If doubts arise, just realize that they, like everything else in the mind, are impermanent.

From this base, mental coherence (samādhi) will come, but not yet wisdom. One must watch the mind at work -- see like and dislike arising from sense contact [with the pleasant and unpleasant things], and not attach to or reject them.

Let’s not be anxious for results or sudden progress. An infant first crawls then learns to walk then to run.

When one is fully grown and able to run, one can travel half way around the world to Thailand [to practice in forest meditation centers like Wat Pah Nanachat].

Sex, celibacy, and "purity"?

Ven. Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Manual; Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Just give me one chance to prove that marrying that ginger will be a big mistake!*

I've got a burning desire.

What's "love" got to do with it? With what? With "purification and purity" (visuddhi).

For a monk or nun who has undertaken additional training rules to gain enlightenment and liberation from all suffering most expediently, celibacy (brahmacariya) is incumbent on such a practitioner, meaning a "supreme" (chaste) or "pure" life.

A lay-practitioner who observes the Eight Precepts also takes a temporary vow of chastity (full abstention from sex). The highest aim and purpose of this is, according to MN 29, "unshakable deliverance of mind" (akuppā ceto-vimutti). But purity is not celibacy.

Celibacy is a means to actual purity, to purification of the mind/heart of all craving.

• [WQ: Rather than abstaining from sex, a lay practitioners always abstains from sexual misconduct (kamesu micchacara), that is, harming anyone (even oneself) for the sake of one's own sensual pursuits. But this term "sexual misconduct" is much misunderstood and mistranslated according to our Western (Judeo-Christian) biases. Fortunately, the Buddha defined it exactly as avoiding having sex with the ten forbidden types of people (other's spouses, people under the protection of others, those unable to consent, and so on). Let us strive, then, to at least live by a simplified rule of avoiding doing harm as we pursue having sex.]

Those who become enlightened to the first three stages can still have sex. Not only that, according to the Ratana Sutra, there are only five things they cannot do, as doing so would entail a painful result that is no longer possible for them.

 

But I'm in the mood! - Tell it to the sign.

It may even be possible after the fourth and final stage, but it is traditionally explained that at that point one has gone beyond.

One has gone altogether beyond the necessary and sufficient sensual desire and lust that acts as motivation. One has escaped the former traps of craving and clinging to the unsatisfactory, which applies to all things.

• Self-proclaimed fully enlightened Buddhist meditation master Daniel M. Ingram says sex is possible even after full enlightenment (arhatship): Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book

Woodland-devas love to play.

The Seven Stages of Purification (satta-visuddhi) form the outline of The Path to Freedom (Vimuttimagga) as well as Buddhaghosa's monumental work, The Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga), which is based on the former work and likely the product of the same author under the name Araha Upatissa.

The only place in the Pali canon where these seven kinds of purification are mentioned is in "The Simile of the Stagecoach" (MN 24, see The Path to Deliverance, by Ven. Nyanatiloka, §64), where their purpose and goal are illustrated.

 

Ah, to have a spouse like mine! (Wm. Etty)

There it is said that the real and ultimate goal does not consist of purification of virtue, or of mind, or of view, and so on, but in enlightenment and full release. Now just as one mounts the first coach and travels to the second coach, then mounts the second coach and travels with it to the third coach, and so on, in exactly the same way the goal of:
 

How will I cross over to "the further shore," freedom from all suffering, nirvana?

1. (I) the purification of virtue (sila-visuddhi) is
2. (II) the purification of mind (citta-visuddhi); its goal:
3. (III) the purification of view (ditthi-visuddhi); its goal:
4. (IV) the purification by overcoming doubt (kankhāvitarana-visuddhi); its goal:
5. (V) the purification by directly knowing-and-seeing of what is path and what is not-path (maggāmagga-ñānadassana-visuddhi); its goal:
6. (VI) the purification by knowing-and-seeing of path-progress (patipadā-ñānadassana-visuddhi); its goal:
7. (VII) the purification of knowing-and-seeing (ñānadassana-visuddhi), but the goal of this purification is deliverance freed from all clinging.

There are supersensual pleasures.

(I) "Purification of virtue consists of the fourfold purity of virtue (catu-pārisuddhi-sīla), namely, restraint with regard to the Disciplinary Code (pātimokkhasamvara-sīla), sense-restraint (indriysamvara-sīla), purity of livelihood (ājīvapārisuddhi-sīla), virtue with regard to the Four Requisites (paccaya-sannissita-sīla)" (The Path of Purification, Vis.M. XVIII).
 

On these four terms, see sīla. In the case of a layperson, it entails the observance of whatever rules (five or more precepts) one has taken upon oneself.

 

(II) "Purification of mind is a name for the eight attainments (i.e., eight meditative absorptions), as well as for neighborhood-concentration (upacāra-samādhi; see samādhi)" (ibid.)

 

*The happiest people? They should be but no.

(III) "By purification of view is meant the understanding, in accordance with reality, of mind and body (nāma-rūpa)... which is founded on nondelusion (wisdom) as base and which in manifold ways determines mind and body after overcoming all belief in a personality (attā, self, ego)" (ibid.) [To understand how and why there is no personality, self, ego, see anatta.] More

Buddhist SEX: Moderation, Tantra, Freedom!

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Wiki; MBG; Maurice O'Connell Walshe (Wheel 225, BPS); Andrew Olendzki (accesstoinsight.org)

What secret ingredient is a must for my post-flow yoga refuel? Great sex? Thank you.

The future Buddha's beautiful mother, Maya Devi, was -- it is said -- a kind of "virgin" or "pure person" in one sense: She was free of sexual misconduct going back seven generations.

Our sexy-spiritual, Los Angeles yoga teacher Psalm Isadora (RIP) loved tantric sex.

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Chakras light up during intimacy with partner

This is an age in which sexual matters are discussed with great openness.
 
There are many who are puzzled to know what the Buddhist attitude towards sex is, and it is therefore to be hoped that the following guidelines may be found helpful towards an understanding.

It is, of course, true to say that Buddhism, in keeping with the principle of the Middle Way, would advocate neither extreme puritanism nor extreme permissiveness.

You are sacred. Act like it: Five Precepts

But this, as a general guiding principle without further explanation, is not sufficiently helpful for most.

In the first place, we have to distinguish between training rules adopted by different kinds of Buddhists:

• Monastics (monks and nuns)
• male- and female-novices
• "probationers" (anagarikas)
• lay meditators during times of intensive practice (with additional precepts)

Celibacy for deeper meditation

for their path toward enlightenment in this very life. If one does not reach enlightenment in this life, the practice will at least produce a very advantageous rebirth.

 

Guiding principles for lay Buddhist practitioners are easy and quite freeing: avoid violating the Five Precepts and enjoy sex with appropriate partners even if you're unmarried.

Or go celibate. Or be a serial-monogamist. Or secure consent and do whatever you want. As a Buddhist you're free. More

Speaking of Buddhist-Sex, what is tantra?

Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit

Do you think I'm sexy? Yes, well, don't stare too much. I died earlier this year. - P. Isadora

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Use birth control. I may not want to be born!

Tantra (Sanskrit तन्त्र, literally "loom, weave") denotes the esoteric traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism that co-developed most likely about the middle of first millennium CE.

• VIDEO: Tantrika talks about her childhood sexual abuse (below)

In Indian traditions the term tantra also means any systematic broadly applicable "text, theory, system, method, instrument, technique, or practice." This may be thought of as a stratagem or modus operandi to achieving some end.
 

In Buddhism, the Vajrayana tradition is known for its extensive tantra ideas and practices.

Various tantric symbols (Sarah Welch)

In Hinduism, the tantra tradition is most often associated with its goddess tradition called Shaktism (worship of the Goddess Shakti), followed by Shaivism (Lord Shiva) and Vaishnavism (Lord Vishnu).

Tantric Buddhist and Hindu traditions have influenced other religious traditions such as Jainism (a surviving wandering ascetic tradition like Buddhism), Sikhism, the Tibetan Bön (pre-Buddhist shamanic) tradition, Taoism, and the Japanese Shintō (pre-Buddhist animistic kami worship) tradition.

Tantra as genre of literature in Hinduism (upholding as best it can the far more Ancient Vedic tradition) have been influential to its arts, icons, and temple building practices.
 

Mas amor por favor ("More love, please") Sexual trauma and breast cancer link?

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Wait, sex can be empowering?

Hindu rituals (pujas), temples, and iconography are tantric in nature. The Hindu texts that describe these topics are called Tantras, Āgamas, or Samhitās. 

In Buddhism, its tantra-genre literature has influenced the artworks in Tibet, historic cave temples of India, and imagery in Theravadan Southeast Asia. More

Like a Lotus: Why Tantra?

Andrew Olendzki, (Thag 15.2) "Udayin Thera: The Blooming Lotus" (excerpt) edited by Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly

Tantric Buddhists of Californian, Bhutanese, Nepalese, Mongolian, Tibetan Vajrayana were drawn to the contrast in the imagery of the lotus flower.

The contrast is between the ordinary, defiling mud rooting the plant in the water and the sublime beauty of the blossom rising above it.

Relentless in their non-attachment to dichotomies (polemics, polarities, extremes) and their demolition of opposites, the tantric approach is to be capable of embracing both sides or opposites without clinging to either.

Although the emphasis changes, we can see that the essential teaching of non-clinging or non-attachment (nopalippati="is not stained") -- to objects of sensual-perception, to a particular mode of teaching, or to conventional dualities -- remains carried through the ages by this simple image of a white lotus growing out of muddy water:

As the flower of a lotus,

Arisen in water, blossoms,

Pure-scented, pleasing the mind,

Yet is not drenched by the soiled water,

In the same way, born in the world,

The Buddha abides in the world,

Yet like the lotus by water, is not

Drenched by the sullied world.

• 34th Lotus Festival, Los Angeles (sutra)

Buddhist Sexual Yoga: Yab-Yum

Don't have sex yet. Wait till you're home. Even then...are you a long-time practitioner?

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Padmasambhava in Yab-Yum

See also tantra techniques. According to some Tibetan authorities, the physical practice of sexual yoga is necessary at the highest level for the attainment of buddhahood (Routelege Encyclopedia of Buddhism, p.781).
 

The use of sexual yoga is highly regulated. It is only permitted after years of training (An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics: Foundations, Values and Issues by Peter Harvey).
 

4 types of sugar addicts: Which are you?

The physical practice of sexual yoga is and has historically been extremely rare (The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama by Thomas Laird).
 

A great majority of Tibetan Buddhists believe that the only proper practice of tantric texts is metaphorically, not physically, in rituals and during meditative visualizations (Routelege, p.781).

 

Why we all need sexual healing

Jason Wachob, mbg founder and CEO in memory of Psalm Isadora (edited by Wisdom Quarterly)

We all lost a great member and friend of the mbg community (mindbodygreen.com), Psalm Isadora. According to her Facebook page, she passed away.

Psalm became a contributor for mindbodygreen.com and made an immediate impression. That was the thing about her: she always made an impression. To those who knew her, she was an unapologetic force of nature!

Whenever she walked into a room, she wanted you to know it. She oozed confidence, rarely compromised, and always said exactly what was on her mind. She was fierce. She was a warrior princess. And she was also a mother to a son.

Canadian pop star Shania Twain

She survived what many people cannot -- extreme sexual trauma in a sinful, hypocritical Christian cult that lasted much of her childhood. She channeled those horrific experiences into a message of female empowerment through sexuality and tantric principles.

She shared this message of empowerment with the world through her articles, classes, and workshops.

She even shared her deeply personal and emotional story about overcoming sexual trauma in a powerful talk at our last Revitalize event, which received a standing ovation. Watch the talk

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• Buddhism and Sexuality: An Exploration Among Buddhists there is a wide diversity of opinion about homosexuality. Buddhism teaches that sensual pleasure and craving in general, sexual obsession in particular, are hindrances to enlightenment, far inferior to the kinds of metaphysical "spiritual pleasure" (pīti, bliss, joy, "rapture") integral to the practice of meditative absorptions or jhānas. The Five Precepts avoids "sexual misconduct" -- 10 persons to avoid having sex with, which is often also interpreted according to local social norms. Still, some Asian Buddhists hold prejudices against gay, lesbian, and transgender persons.