I love Buddhism for all it has taught me both spiritually and magickally. Over the years however I have found a lot that I disagree with. If it wasnt for the inherent freedom in Dzogchen View that transcends all this, I could never really call myself a Buddhist.
LAGOS (AFP) — The Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual and temporal leader, on Friday said sex spelt fleeting satisfaction and trouble later, while chastity offered a better life and "more freedom."
"Sexual pressure, sexual desire, actually I think is short period satisfaction and often, that leads to more complication," the Dalai Lama told reporters in a Lagos hotel, speaking in English without a translator.
He said conjugal life caused "too much ups and downs.
"Naturally as a human being ... some kind of desire for sex comes, but then you use human intelligence to make comprehension that those couples always full of trouble. And in some cases there is suicide, murder cases," the Dalai Lama said.
He said the "consolation" in celibacy is that although "we miss something, but at the same time, compare whole life, it's better, more independence, more freedom."
Considered a Buddhist Master exempt from the religion's wheel of death and reincarnation, the Dalai Lama waxed eloquent on the Buddhist credo of non-attachment.
"Too much attachment towards your children, towards your partner," was "one of the obstacle or hindrance of peace of mind," he said....
Now, I love the Dalai Lama. I think he is one of of the most realized beings on the planet. I also know that when he speaks, he is speaking to the world, and thus towing the Sutric Busshist line, not the Tantric Buddhist line. Or, as Glenn Mullin once told me "Almost everything the Dalai Lama has ever told me in private about Tantra, contradicts something he has said in public.
But even as a the line you give to the public, I just cant get behind it. Its life dood. Without its downs there are no ups. I realize that normal people may look to some meditators like Bi-polar people look to normal people, but its all about harmony. Emotions serve a purpose. Birth in a body serves a purpose.
I am down with the whole chain of interdependant origination except for the first stage: that manifestation grows from ignorance.
Besides. If, as even Sutric Buddhism states, a human rebirth is the most precious type of birth, what good does people not having sex do? No sex, no birth man.
4 comments:
No birth no karma.
Jesus said it this way:
The disciples said to him, "If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry."
Jesus replied, "Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it."
I think Erica Jong said it best:
"The blood is brutal, though it sings."
You don't need children as an excuse for sex. Sex is the lifeforce, and as such it is creative and destructive.
I find that I alternate between months of mainlining that energy on a tremendous high, then renouncing it and wearing really conservative clothes for a few weeks. The downs come with the ups. The blood is brutal, but it's real. And it's the only thing that really wakes me up.
Far be it for me to quote Crowley, but he had a point here:
Mysterious Energy, triform , mysterious Matter, in fourfold and sevenfold division, the interplay of which things weave the dance of the Veil of Life upon the Face of the Spirit, let there be Harmony and Beauty in your mystic loves, that in us may be health and wealth and strength and divine pleasure according to the Law of Liberty; let each pursue his Will as a strong man that rejoiceth in his way, as the course of a Star that blazeth for ever among the joyous company of Heaven.
Yeah, like he said. Sometimes it kinda sucks, but it also totally rocks.
P
I completely understand the polite disagreement one feels towards the man. Marc, Denise, and I saw him speak at Rutgers - we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves despite our own personal differences of opinion.
One of the best balancing acts, regarding mysticism and the real world, I have come across was contained in a book called After the Ecstasy, the Laundry. Yes you can have these transcending experiences, but you still have to pay bills.
I personally defer to Taoist (or Chaote) sources regarding how to balance these things:
Calmness in quietude is not real calm;
When you can be calm in the midst of activity,
this is the true state of nature.
Happiness in comfort is not real happiness;
when you can be happy in the midst of hardship,
then you see the true potential of the mind.
(From Back to Beginnings: Reflections on the Tao. By Hanchu Daoren. Translated by
Thomas Cleary. Shambhala, 1990.
BTW, I love the new banner.
Heh, I've had the same thought on sex, householdership, and precious human birth.
It seems when H.H. speaks in public he is speaking as both a monk and a high ranking Gelugpa Lama. Private talks on tantra he probably speaks as a tantric yogin who just happens to be a buddhist monastic. Maybe he actually feels that way; I have no idea for sure.
I am sure it does simplify things to be a monk, and I am sure it gives a very neat perspective on things. Always admired the smashan yogins more, and the householders even more than that.
Life has a system, life goes on, and life in it's own way is perfect and knows best. Life is also a bloody screaming bitch sometimes. And I say that 'cause I Love Her.
There seems to be a certian skill set either ingrained or learned for most monastics. For the rest of us.. not so much. Not our streangths.
Gotta go with your streangths after all.
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