Celebrating Celibacy

[John]

Re: Celebrating Celibacy

From “Letter to Mara”, a Buddhist version of the CS Lewis “Screwtape Letters” (about how the devil uses temptations to enslave humans)


“……Sex has been our weapon of choice for about a billion years now. For
such a simple biological function, you've created so many unique
possibilities. What a wonderful swindle it all is! The
innumerable weird and wonderful variations humans get themselves
so frenzied about all reduce to some tricky wiring and a simple
bit of friction. And it often isn't even sex itself that keeps
us in business but all the peripheral aspects that go with it --
the expectations and preliminaries, the accessories and
emotional baggage. Fortunately, there's enough of this to keep
most humans going for a lifetime, and one lifetime at a time is
all we need to concern ourselves with.

"Lately, I must say, we have been succeeding wonderfully using
technology as our ally. As soon as they got the daguerreotype
working, they were pointing it at naked women.And now we have
color photography, cinema and video. Tantalizing images are
easier and easier to come by. Recently they've even been
spreading this stuff through the Internet. They don't even have
to leave home to find it. Maybe I ought to get a web page. No,
it would only be redundant.

"Technology itself is largely a product of sensual desire. The
crazy humans create devices to make the acquisition of sensual
pleasures easier or to avoid the occurrence of sensory
discomfort. This drives their whole economy and keeps them busy
all their brief lives. They want, indeed they imagine they need,
a car, a stereo, a computer and then a newer car, a newer
stereo, etc. We must keep them in a state of desire for all
these devices -- the more they work, the less time they will
have to figure out what's really going on.

"The teachings of our Great Adversary have been the only serious
obstacle to our project. He has pointed out to them again and
again the dangers inherent in sensual desire. However, we have
succeeded so well over the centuries in muddling up this truth
with various bogus teachings that it is becoming harder and
harder for them to find the real Truth. There are plenty of
so-called "teachers" among them who are willing to speak our
line in his name -- not merely soft-pedaling the idea of
renunciation, but proudly announcing that 'the passions
themselves are enlightenment.' Of course, there are plenty of
fish who like the taste of that bait!

"But we cannot rest, for there are a few beings getting
dangerously close to finding a way out of our power. They are
starting to reflect or even to practice renunciation and
meditation. Once they discover that their true happiness is not
based on our trickery, they may escape. We must use all the
resources at our disposal to confuse them. Although they may be
sitting quietly, their minds are still easily distracted.
Fantasy is a great thing, especially since a mind with a bit of
concentration can powerfully visualize and hold even our
unwholesome objects.

"The thing we must not let them do is to contemplate the real
nature of the body. You would think that anyone of even moderate
intelligence could see the inherently foul and unstable nature
of those meat-machines they drag around. After all, they have to
be constantly washing and perfuming the stinking things just to
bear being in each other's company! But they don't see that and
don't want to see it. We merely have to keep them looking at
their bodies in a highly selective way, emphasizing the largely
visual characteristics identified as "beautiful". It's an easy
enough trick.

"And don't forget to whisper all the current buzz that keeps
them from doing body-meditations. You know what I mean --
meditation on the unlovely is 'life-denying, uptight,
repressive.' It's easy enough to convince them because it's what
they want to hear. Keep them imagining they can have their cake
and eat it too, and then we can stop worrying. Let them meditate
all they want. As long as they think they don't have to let
anything go, we're still in control…."


http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma/mara1.html

[John]

Re: Celebrating Celibacy

Hi Zen, Shui Di, Chet.

I am fine, thanks for asking. I just got back from a five day Zen retreat and I feel wonderfully relaxed and clear minded. But of course, I'm straight back onto the computer and watching TV, reading books etc.

I was really impressed by that video -- it's really worth watching although it's a bit long. His main point, I think, is actually of being able to live in simplicity without all the complications of relationships, gadgets and other possessions that we think we can't do without. He talks of having spent six months in solitary retreat in a small hut. How many of us would want to do that? And yet he claims that if you are comfortable with yourself you can be quite happy, you are not alone, you have yourself for company. Perhaps all these wordly entanglements are just a big hindrance for us although we think we need them to make us happy.

I was reading last week in Glenn Wallis's book about how the Budhha advocated meditating on discarded corpses in cremation grounds to free ourselves from carnal desires.I'm getting to an age where these things aren't that important any more anyway

Gassho,
John

Re: Celebrating Celibacy

Celibacy seems....extreme to me.

As a Borderline, I have special issues with relationships - but I think that I may have worked through a LOT of that with my last relationship. I think that, for me, celibacy would be a reactionary refusal to deal with relationships altogether and I really can't trust that I'd choose it for the 'right' reasons right now.

A partner really helps to draw me out of my own world in a very valuable way...or at least, it could - if I wasn't dealing with it in a Borderline way. I look back at the money I made when I lived in LA and how I don't have much to show for it - but that's not true. I had a very good (though costly) therapist in LA who really helped me address some of the borderline stuff.

I'm in between thinking that I'm just too screwed up for relationships and thinking that I need them in order to evolve from my fractured black/white view of the entire world in general.

Chet

[Shui_Di]

Re: Celebrating Celibacy

Hi every body,...

I just want to remind about what Master Tozan has said, that, our life just like a blue mountain and the white clouds.
They depend to each other, without being dependence to each other. The white clouds is always the white cloud. Blue mountain is always a blue mountain. When the sun rise, the clouds just go, without leaving any trace.

Gassho, Shui di

[Dojin]

Re: Celebrating Celibacy

Hi John, How are you?

i dont know about celibacy... but i sure understand what you mean about people who try to find that someone to complete them.
i myself never could give up on love and a relationship, but i could never be in any relationship that is just for comfort or in order not to be alone. i have a girlfriend now for over a year and i love her very much, i don't want to lose her and she makes me very happy ( and crazy sometimes but that's all part of it ). that doesn't mean that my happiness is dependent on someone else though. i very much believe that we are complete as we are, with nothing to add or take away... and should not look for happiness and peace somewhere other than ourselves, yet we should not deny ourselves of the company of people and sharing our lives with someone we love.

Gassho
Daniel.

[John]

Jundo mentioned that the Buddha advocated celibacy, on another thread, and that made me think about the issue. We are all so conditioned to believing that we can only be happy when we are in a traditional family unit. I found this YouTube video on the subject from a guy who has a very different perspective. But it probably wouldn't interest the happily married in the forum:

“How celibacy brings peace, simple contentment and spiritual insight that surpasses that of romance and sexuality. AND makes for a positive response towards an overpopulated and polluted planet...”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXocSGQFvmw[/video]]

"Celebrating Simplicity". “If you are a friend to yourself you are never lonely….if you don’t love yourself you will always be running away to somebody else thinking that there you can get your fulfillment….why should your happiness become dependent on somebody else? … on that attachment and support? …if your happiness is so dependent on your wife and family it is very fragile…”

Gassho,
John