The Zen of Sex

Sex both inspires and scares us. Men cannot understand women, Tantric poetry deifies it and yet others exclude sex as a necessary evil.

In some Buddhist countries, monastic’s are celibate while prostitution proliferates.

Any bhikkhu (ordained monk) whose penis enters a woman is ‘defeated’ and expelled from the sangha or monastic community. However, these words do not apply to lay people.

The Buddha himself, seemed fairly relaxed about rules, and before he passed away he said only the major rules were important. The rest he said could be discarded.

The problem is that no one bothered to ask what those major rules were, wrote David Loy, in Money, Sex, War, Karma: Notes for a Buddhist Revolution.

This can be seen that in Japan Zen Buddhist monastics were permitted to marry in 1872 leading to a tradition that the first son would become a monk.

One of the most revered zen masters, Ikkyu Sojun (1394-1481), mocked the rules of monasteries and their extremes of self-denial.He claimed foebidding sex to attain enlightenment made no sense. Rather, his philosophy of  “red thread zen,” sex deepened the experience of enlightenment.

Me, I am praised as a general of Zen,

Tasting life and enjoying sex to the fullest! wrote Ikkyu Sojun.

So are these Buddhist restrictions on sex necessary? True they apply to Monastics only, however, is there a lesson we can learn from them?

On the one hand, Buddha was not a proponent of family life, he left his wife and son, to find Enlightenment. Yet one of his biggest supporters was the courtesan Ambpali, who later became a bhikkhuni (nun) without any censure of  her past life.

Nor was Buddha an ascetic who was not exposed to the delights of women. As a young prince, in a polygamous society, Buddha was surrounded by concubines and dancing-girls.

However, the third of the Five Precepts for lay Buddhists does give instruction “I undertake the course of training in refraining from wrong-doing in respect of sensuality.” Although some undertake a stricter form of this rule during periods of short terms monastic practice.

“There is, in the Buddhist view, nothing uniquely wicked about sexual offenses or failings” wrote M Walsh in the Sangha Guide on Buddhism and Sex.

“Those inclined to develop a guilt-complex about their sex-life should realize that failure in this respect is neither more, nor, on the other hand, less serious than failure to live up to any other precept.”

The most difficult precept to follow is the fourth that enjoins us to refrain from all forms of wrong speech.

Nor is a monk forced to life long celibacy. A Theravada or Mahayana Buddhist monk can leave his calling to start a family, but it’s one or the other. The Theravada abbot Ajahn Brahm reported that he took up his post, after his superior decided to disrobe for family life. He has also joked with gays and transexuals, that he ws more ‘perverted’ because he has no sex at all.

Of course, An intimate, committed relationship is a beautiful thing between people who truly love and cherish each other.

Some traditions, such as Jewish Kabbalah, see sexual relations as expressing the union of masculine and feminine divine energies, or sefirot. Even ascetic Christian monastic’s, like Claire of Assisi and Bernard of Clairvaux,  borrowed from it writing lyrically of God’s love expressed in the Biblical erotic poem Song of Songs.

Buddhism did likewise. The Buddhist Candamaharosana-tantradevelops the “germinal mantra ‘Om mani padme Hum’ along sexual lines.

“This mantra contains both mani, meaning jewel, synonym for vajra, the word which means diamond, thunderbolt and the male organ, and padme meaning ‘in the lotus’ (locative case of padma), a symbol for the female sexual organ, the outer opening of which resembles the petals of a lotus” wrote exoticindiaart.com

The lotus is a symbol of Enlightenment but is liked to feminine sexuality.

While there is much room for interpretation in sexual matters, abortion is clearly mentioned by the Buddha. He stated it broke the first Buddhist precept of not killing or harming any sentient being. Although, may Buddhists ignore this.

In Japan contraception has become only recently available, and so abortion became a common form of birth control. Of course, it was not available to the Buddha.

Lay people are advised: “he avoids unlawful sexual intercourse, abstains from it. He has no intercourse with girls who are still under the protection of father or mother, brother, sister, or relative; nor with married women, nor female convicts; nor lastly with betrothed girls.”

According to the four Noble truths, craving causes dukkha. Now certainly, there is plenty of lust and craving with sex.

Dukkha is the subtle dissatisfaction or suffering that disturbs us when we attached to desires.

The crucial concern in Buddhism is dukkha states Loy,  which imply that a Buddhist lay person would avoid sex that hurt others or caused pain.

Buddhism does not equate sexual with sin, as a Christian may understand it.

Rather, a Buddhist asks if an “either skilled (kusala) or unskilled (akusala). The results of action (Pali kamma, Sanskrit karma) accrue to the doer as vipaka, which is pleasant when the action was skilled, unpleasant when it was unskilled” said Walshe

A deviation in Buddhist sexual ethics is not seen as essentially wicked, rather it is unskillful. The experience of pleasure is a result of past and the present, freshly created karma. Deviation adds to the karma.

“According to the tantric tradition, it’s important to sublimate sexual energy and direct it up the kundalini to the higher chakras, where it can blossom into enlightenment,” said Loy.

However, even with intense meditation, Monks can still experience desire.

Theravada suggests that sexual desire is incompatible with the deep serenity experienced in Nirvana. While Mahayana is less dualistic. It, emphasizes that form is emptiness and emptiness is form.

“Nirvana is simply the true nature of this world, when our non dwelling awareness is not fixated on particular forms ….. including attractive sexual ones” said Loy.

Loy then goes on to elaborate how perhaps what we often call good for us, or even love, may be our biology deceiving us.

After all, few desires are as illusory or as deceptively  intense as sexuality.

How many have been told that having a child will bring a couple together? The reality is that child raising can be hard work that can tear a couple together. If the qualities of commitment and responsibility are developed a couple can grow spiritually and emotionally.

In seeking enlightenment, child care would be a challenging distraction from hours of meditation.

Now, it certainly is true that our thinking is 95% unconscious, and much of what we call free will, is little more than calling on our ability to respond. However, meditation can help us remove our self from many unconscious conditioned responses.

While sexuality would distract a monastic from the serious business of meditation, there is also the question of whether sexuality can empower spirituality.

In contrast, the Jewish Kabbalah teaches that spiritual progress is made by the each partner helping the other to spiritually grow. Sexuality, and relationship are seen as catalysts for experiential change that force us to face up to or weaknesses and to elevate mundane including sexual, life to a spiritual level.

(Interestingly, the Dalia Lama has met with Jewish mystics, including Rabbi Laibl Wolf, author of Practical Kabbalah: A Guide to Jewish Wisdom for Everyday Life.)

Buddhist tantric adopted the concept of energy chakra’s from Hinduism however, the tantric sexual practices are intended to “move the energy released … upward until it reaches the ‘crown chakra” at the top of the head — the seat of spiritual evolution” wrote Kevin Trainor in Buddhism: The illustrated Guide.

This “produces the experience of incomparable bliss, transformed consciousness and nirvana.”

“Some sadhanas call for male and female partners to practice sexual yoga. In this act, the couple join as divine consorts to magnify and move the innate energy upward in both. Profane pleasure-seeking and orgasm represent failure, since union should deflect the sexual energy into the mystical channel of enlightenment.”

Some, Vajrayanists even believe that if done profanely it may land you in Hell.

This is why some depreciate the Neo-Tantra movements of the West that ”typically makes use of the traditional tantra yoga asanas (positions), breath control, and meditation, but it is taught outside the framework of Hindu culture and religion.”

However Loy points out that ainstitutiions, Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike, will try to hang onto their past. While, Loy suggests Buddhist sexual practice is inflenced by mnay forces,  he also askes to what extent did the depreciation of the bodyin some Hindu circles influence the Buddha.

Tantric Practitioner Shambhavi Sarasvati, who teaches the ideas of Hindu teacher Anandamayi Ma, describes Tantra well: “Authentic Tantrik practice ritualizes every aspect of life in order to place the sadhika (practitioner) in synch with the rhythms of nature.”

“Tantra ritualizes your life from the moment you open your eyes in the morning, throughout your whole day, as you fall asleep, while you are sleeping, and until you open your eyes again the following day.”

“Neo-Tantra ritualizes sex. Authentic Tantra sexualizes ritual” said Shambhavi Saraswati.

In some cases it perpetuates misunderstandings. For example, the Kama Sutra and Ananga Ranga are often incorrectly called tantras when in fact they are sutras on love and sex unrelated to tantric practice.

However, the Mahayana  advice not to be fixated on forms can enhance love making. Rather than chasing illusory fantasies, Tantric and Taoist  lovers are supremely present .

Imagine a man. Who has a fixated image of women in his head. Perhaps, he has spent his time masturbating with porn. He may find it hard to be become truly intimate with a woman.   Does he appreciate her, or is he trying to find a sexual ideal?

At the very least, mediation practice, allows us to find ourselves and pull back the layers of self deception.

By experiencing our self, then we are free to flow with the rhythms of life and love, and intuitively and lovingly caress the dance of love.

“What makes Zen Sex mind-blowing is not its promise to deliver a superorgasm,” wrote Philip Toshio Sudo in Zen Sex: The Way of Making Love “but its potential to rescramble our brains-to change the way we look at ourselves, our love-making, and the world.”

“What makes it the best sex we can possibly have is not its capacity to fulfill our fantasies, but to so deeply absorb us that all thinking is forgotten and we feel the perfection of Divine Love.”