Health Impact of Celibacy

[Andrew108]

Huseng, you have lust. So what is the best thing to do with it?

[Adamantine]

Hence the student is unqualified.

Qualified students also go the wrong way at times.. even Bodhisattvas on the lower bhumis can fall.

Like I said, I believe esoteric practices are not suitable for most people.

Well, that's clearly your position. I am sympathetic to this view. But as Yudron has pointed out it's not clear what you mean by most people. I mean, most people aren't even remotely interested in Dharma, period.

Realistically speaking, if you are going to start perceiving things are pure and empty, you should already be mentally and emotionally stable so as not to deceive yourself into thinking you're on some high road to liberation while in actuality just finding religious justification for one's own neurosis and harmful habits.

Mentally and emotionally stable from a samsaric perspective?

How mentally and emotionally stable was Milarepa in the beginning?

It isn't even all about celibacy, but simply understanding that sexual desire is unwholesome and hence sexual activities are cause for future suffering in this and more importantly future lives.

I think this is where you lose the plot. It's not sexual activity that is a cause for future suffering but grasping to it. Even desire from the POV of the higher tantras is not in and of itself a cause for suffering, it is the attachment that it engenders.. the grasping itself. It is equally a cause of suffering to grasp to subtle experiences of bliss during meditation. This can be worse actually. If one can engage in sexual activity without grasping but gets stuck grasping to states of bliss what then? I think your absolutisms don't involve a sophisticated understanding of the actual terror of the situation.

The same principle applies to eating, which is why gluttony is to be discouraged.

The same principle also applies to grasping to ideas, and absolute ideas, btw. . .

The difference of course is that if you don't eat you will die

Not if you're adept at chulen.

Abstaining from sexual activities will not kill you.

It certainly could cause many problems though, depending on the individual.

In fact detoxifying from lust might even provide insight and reveal just how mentally weak one is

detoxifying from lust may indeed involve a healthy dose of actual sexual activity. Most cultivation of lust these days is online actually.
And celibacy is often the cause of lustful obsessions, whether self-imposed or not. . .

This is something I discovered personally.

Clearly your bias reflects your personal struggle, but every person is unique and will have a different experience and way to travel the path.

Lust tends to colour our decision making processes and value judgements, which is perhaps why hearing about teachings where you get your liberation and sex together are so alluring.

What's alluring to most of us about the view of the interdependence of the 5 poisons and the 5 wisdoms is how profoundly true it rings.

Lust is a mental poison

and poison used in the right context becomes medicine. = the view of Vajrayana.

However, also remember that the essence of the practice is not to judge others but to discover and purify our own worst faults. Even if we think we can know another person's mind through what we witness as their behavior this may be a wrong presumption.

In fiction this works, but not in real life. If someone is an abusive molester and alcoholic, you best approach them cautiously. You might convince yourself that they're really helping you, but that could just as well be self-delusion. Plenty of texts describe the qualities a good reliable teacher will possess, which is a decent gauge with which one might ascertain whether someone is really above the fray or not.

Reserving judgement and allowing oneself to be manipulated are two entirely different things. If you can't differentiate between them, then definitely for you personally I would say better to not tread on the path of pure vision.

What you're suggesting here is actually a genesis for cults arising.

Actually, absolutes without subtlety of view are often the genesis of cults arising.

People are told never to judge others and just see their superiors as having some kind of status above norms and even the law.

I never suggested this, reserving judgement towards other in general in any final decisive way (not "superiors") is a general conduct one should have for all beings. I was not speaking of teachers perse.

This is how you get scandalous teachers firmly rooted in Dharma organizations, or Zen Roshis who molest women for years and years without being ejected from their position.

Well, you find these scandalous individuals in every position of power in all institutions worldwide -- secular, political, or religious; across land, water and cultural divides; so I hardly think it's the fault of Dharma teachings.

I don't personally roll like that. There is such a thing as ethics and ethical judgements based on reasonable criteria. If more people were aware of this they'd not end up following questionable figures.

I hardly think it's a lack of awareness in most cases, rather a question of karma. Some of the most questionable figures behave in the most ethical ways.

There are many examples of yogis who appeared as greedy, lecherous, or drunkards who revealed at the time of death all the signs of highest accomplishment. We should really reserve judgement for ourselves when it comes to gaging results of practice.

Right, that's fiction though. I'm talking about real life.

Nope, it's not fiction. It's simple history. But you can cherry pick your examples based on your agenda and personal bias. That's what most people do anyway, why be any different?

[Sherab Rigdrol]

What drove me to Vajrayana was its embracing of the sensual/material. There is no way I could renounce a lot of what I experience in life.

A lack of renunciation precludes the possibility of liberation from sensual desires and consequently saṃsāra.

In fact for years I had an ignorant view of Buddhism in general because my first impressions of it were centered around renunciation. I'm grateful that I never gave up the search.

Actually the Buddha taught renunciation and abstaining from sex, overeating, oversleeping, music and entertainment in general.

Mehh, I don't agree at all with those statements. The dharma evolved to fit these degenerate times. All of those sensual wonders that the Buddha taught a certain culture and time period to abstain from can all be used nowadays to further our liberation from samsara. One can understand the emptiness and impermanence of all sense pleasures without giving up the experience of them.

[Andrew108]

Understanding the emptiness and impermanence of sense pleasures wont get you very far. That's just like applying the concept of emptiness to experiences and still is a karmic situation. Then on the other hand turning the the absense of lust into a desirable situation wont get you far either.

[Sherab Rigdrol]

Understanding the emptiness and impermanence of sense pleasures wont get you very far. That's just like applying the concept of emptiness to experiences and still is a karmic situation. Then on the other hand turning the the absense of lust into a desirable situation wont get you far either.

How come emptiness and impermanence won't get anyone far?

[Andrew108]

Understanding the emptiness and impermanence of sense pleasures wont get you very far. That's just like applying the concept of emptiness to experiences and still is a karmic situation. Then on the other hand turning the the absense of lust into a desirable situation wont get you far either.

How come emptiness and impermanence won't get anyone far?

Because of using these concepts as antidotes. Because lust, sense peasures and so on self-liberate from their own side. Because there isn't a need to dress-up lust with emptiness or to deny sense pleasures are just what they are. In the end lust and wisdom aren't different. But of course this applies only if lust or absence of lust aren't taken as objects or held on to.

[Jnana]

I think everyone is different due to their samskaras, I for one cannot imagine practicing anything other than Vajrayana...

Yes, different people have different dispositions, etc. Nevertheless, the vajrayāna has always been controversial within the context of mainstream Buddhist orthopraxy. And contemporary liberal attitudes towards sexual desire don't have much support within Buddhist sūtras and śāstras either. Ven. Hsuan Hua:

The true mind is the mind without any sexual desire. Anyone without sexual desire is someone no longer mixed up, someone who understands what it means to dwell in the true mind at all times...

Bodhi means not picking anything up. Let it all go! “It” includes money, sex, fame, food, and sleep...

To decrease desire, it is not enough to be a vegetarian and to read Sutras. You must cut off all sexual desire... Unless you rid yourself of sexual desire you will never get out of the Triple World...

And even within the context of vajrayāna practices, lust is still considered a potential hindrance to correct engagement and these practices are only correctly engaged in by very few practitioners. Ven. Hsuan Hua:

As for one who practices tantra, if he has no sexual desire, it is all right. If he has desire, then he is just the same as a common person... There must be no thoughts of sexual desire. To do the tantric practices, one must neither be a piece of wood nor have desire. It is really not easy. Because it is so difficult, it is extremely dangerous. But most people like it, and use it to cover up their own "inner conflicts."

Ven. Thrangu Rinpoche:

The lower door or lower gate is very dangerous, so very few people actually practice this. There are a few great yogis and yoginis who do it, but most do not. What is of utmost importance in either form of karmamudrā — either the upper gate, or the lower gate version of this practice — is that there be no craving for the bliss, that there be no attachment to it.

Longchen Rabjam:

In the path of "skill in means," indulging in the bliss of the sense (-organs),
Is attachment to sensuality; so in most cases it is the cause of birth in the inferior realms.
Even if one reaches happy realms, one will be reborn in inferior births.
"Skill in means" is the path of only a very few yogis.
(In this path) there are great dangers of deviative obscurations, and it is very difficult to see the meaning of realization.

[uan]

Mentally and emotionally stable from a samsaric perspective?

How mentally and emotionally stable was Milarepa in the beginning?

How much consort practice did Marpa have Milarepa do? I think Milarepa spent his time like Sisyphus, building houses and tearing them down again and again. Milarepa's whole practice was grounded in faith and renunciation.

There are many examples of yogis who appeared as greedy, lecherous, or drunkards who revealed at the time of death all the signs of highest accomplishment. We should really reserve judgement for ourselves when it comes to gaging results of practice.

Right, that's fiction though. I'm talking about real life.

Nope, it's not fiction. It's simple history. But you can cherry pick your examples based on your agenda and personal bias. That's what most people do anyway, why be any different?

I'd be interested in some examples.

It really doesn't matter who can or can't, or has achieved those levels of accomplishments - but there are examples of what levels a practitioner needs to be at to do some of these practices - the 5th Dalai Lama urinated off the wall and sucked it back into his bladder to prove that he was able to do consort practice -- I can't do that.

Then we have the case of Geshe Michael Roche. There's a quote on the GMR wikipedia page from the Dalai Lama that seems relevant:

"Yogis who have achieved a high level of the path and are fully qualified can engage in sexual activity, and a monastic with this ability can maintain all the precepts...Such a practitioner can make spiritual use not only of delicious meat and drink, but even of human excrement and urine. A yogi’s meditation transforms these into real ambrosia. For people like us, however, this is beyond our reach. As long as you cannot transform piss and shit, these other things should not be done!"

(source listed: His Holiness the Dalai Lama; Jeffrey Hopkins, PhD. (2002). How To Practice. Simon & Schuster. p. 193. ISBN 0-7434-2708-4.)

I honor those who have taken the vows of celibacy, and one doesn't need to be a monastic to do it. Being celibate and/or a monk/nun doesn't mean one is then going to take leaps and bounds in their practice, though it can help in many ways. Nor is lust the only thing that people need to work on or even the primary thing. That's what a teacher is for, to let us know where we are and how to get to where we need to go. There are 7 deadly sins for a reason. We can progress far on the path without being celibate.

While Vajrayana allows for many things, it doesn't mean all or most practitioners have the capacity to do all those things or ever will. That's really between the practitioner and his/her guru. The problem with talking about exceptional yogis and adepts as a guide to show us what we can do is that they are exceptions. I won't speak for Huseng, but I don't think he'd deny that there are those yogis who can do it. Just that most of us can't. Now if you are one that can, massive respect _/\_ (and no sarcasm).

Maitri

[Indrajala]

Mentally and emotionally stable from a samsaric perspective?

How mentally and emotionally stable was Milarepa in the beginning?

Most practitioners are not Milarepa and while his hagiography is inspiring, few could or would emulate such dedication.

We need to be realistic and not idealistic or fantastic. Moreover, the examples of practice and realization given in hagiographies are often fantastical and must be understood figuratively and not read literally. For example, in Chan people generally do not cut the fingers of boys and/or intentionally break the limbs of disciples to prompt realization.

It is equally a cause of suffering to grasp to subtle experiences of bliss during meditation.

That's debatable. The experience of dhyānic bliss is contrary to the afflictions and thus subdues them. In the absence of active afflictions the mind is clearer and thus more readily able to ascertain wisdom.

This can be worse actually. If one can engage in sexual activity without grasping but gets stuck grasping to states of bliss what then? I think your absolutisms don't involve a sophisticated understanding of the actual terror of the situation.

Yes, if one can engage in sex without grasping. If you can eat rotten excrement without flinching, then you might claim to be able to engage in sex without grasping, otherwise you are just kidding yourself.

The same principle also applies to grasping to ideas, and absolute ideas, btw. . .

Right, but we're dealing with conventional reality as it applies to common people who lack attainments and freedom from the most basic of afflictions.

Lust is a mental poison

and poison used in the right context becomes medicine. = the view of Vajrayana.

To skilfully navigate such things would require knowledge I don't believe most practitioners really have. Self-diagnosis without any knowledge or experience is self-destructive.

Nope, it's not fiction. It's simple history. But you can cherry pick your examples based on your agenda and personal bias. That's what most people do anyway, why be any different?

Hagiographies are generally not factual histories.

[Indrajala]

Huseng, you have lust. So what is the best thing to do with it?

Recognize the existence of it and examine its causes while applying the antidotes.

[Indrajala]

All of those sensual wonders that the Buddha taught a certain culture and time period to abstain from can all be used nowadays to further our liberation from samsara.

This is deluded and wishful thinking, and moreover quite dangerous.

One can understand the emptiness and impermanence of all sense pleasures without giving up the experience of them.

Intellectually you can understand emptiness and impermanence, but mastery of dhyāna is a prerequisite for cultivating the appropriate level of mental stamina to truly realize emptiness and eliminate all grasping. In order to master dhyāna, abstinence from sensory pleasures is necessary. It logically follows that abstinence from sensory pleasures is also a prerequisite for true experiential realization of emptiness, which enables liberation from suffering.

At a more basic level, however, sex in the present life might not do much harm, though it establishes the causes for future rebirths in the desire realm, which includes the lower realms. In the greater scheme of things sexual activities driven by lust are detrimental to liberation because they foster the causes for unfortunate rebirths in the lower realms.

It would only be rational to abstain from such pleasures if one wanted to secure a good rebirth and moreover liberation.

[Andrew108]

Huseng, you have lust. So what is the best thing to do with it?

Recognize the existence of it and examine its causes while applying the antidotes.

So you fix lust as an object in the present. Then you enlarge the lust by connecting it with a cause in the past. Then you apply an antidote so that the object won't get acted on in the future.
This is where you are at. So I needn't say more. But there are other ways to understand desirelessness.

[Indrajala]

This is where you are at. So I needn't say more. But there are other ways to understand desirelessness.

This is where we start a pissing contest, right?

[Adamantine]

This is where you are at. So I needn't say more. But there are other ways to understand desirelessness.

This is where we start a pissing contest, right?

yeah, 6th Dalai Lama style

[Sherlock]

By the time Tsangnyon Heruka wrote his biography of Milarepa, the whole biographical tradition had accreted many erroneous stories. Everyone who brings up Milarepa as an example should read Peter Roberts' The Biographies of Rechungpa. The stories about the uncle, using his sorcery to kill, and building houses for Marpa are completely absent from Gampopa's own version of the biography. Milarepa performed household tasks for Marpa because he didn't have money, and Marpa didn't refuse him any teachings.

Maybe I should start a new thread on this, but I think this is germane to the discussion:

I have been reading Hardships and Downfall of Buddhism in India by Giovanni Verardi. There is a lot of interesting information in the book, but I'll try to keep what I post here relevant to the discussion.

One of the main themes of the book is Buddhism's systematic opposition to Brahmanical society from its very inception. In its early history, it prospered amongst the middle class shudra artisans and traders, ruling kshatriyas who were looking for leverage against the Brahmans, and some renegade Brahmans. Various historical movements causing breakdowns in international trade led to this form of society losing viability to the agrarian Brahmanical way of life; Buddhist society responded by the formation of first householder bodhisattvas, and then non-celibate "monks".

I definitely think the book deserves a read, but one of its key take-away points for me is that householders who try to practise, and in more advanced cases perform rituals for the benefit of others are just as important as the celibate sangha in helping Buddhist teachings to survive. A few people mentioned the three necessities of (IIRC) dharma, ordained sangha, and laypeople for Buddhism to survive; I think perhaps laypeople can be divided into what are essentially ngakpas who perform rituals and might offer advice and those who might practise according to their capacities but still work regular jobs.

This wasn't the model for the earliest models of Buddhist societies, but in history, we can see that lay "priests" do have an important role to play: they ensured that Buddhism survived in Tibet through its dark ages, in Nepal they managed to carry the tradition Sanskrit-based Buddhism to the present day when it had died out in all neighbouring regions, and in the pre-modern era, married "monks" still preserved Buddhism in East Asia, in the Theravadin countries it seems the monks adopted priestly functions but there still seems to be some kind of lay-priest tradition AFAIK, with the amulets and all.

Of course, it is hardly ideal to only have priests and no ordained sangha, since it does lead to decline sooner or later (Newari Buddhism wasn't doing well before the influx of Tibetan refugees; Dark Age Tibet was rife with priests teaching adharma, killing and raping; and we can see the situation in Japan today).

Nevertheless, the model of society where laypeople are essentially told that they just don't have the merit to renounce the world in this life and wait for some future that might be as rare as a turtle popping its head into a float in the ocean in order to ordain hasn't worked as well as that with more lay participation.

Anyway, I hope I haven't rambled off too much.

[uan]

By the time Tsangnyon Heruka wrote his biography of Milarepa, the whole biographical tradition had accreted many erroneous stories. Everyone who brings up Milarepa as an example should read Peter Roberts' The Biographies of Rechungpa. The stories about the uncle, using his sorcery to kill, and building houses for Marpa are completely absent from Gampopa's own version of the biography. Milarepa performed household tasks for Marpa because he didn't have money, and Marpa didn't refuse him any teachings.

Thanks for the additional information. Not too surprising that the popular story has some embellishments

[Sherab Rigdrol]

All of those sensual wonders that the Buddha taught a certain culture and time period to abstain from can all be used nowadays to further our liberation from samsara.

This is deluded and wishful thinking, and moreover quite dangerous.

One can understand the emptiness and impermanence of all sense pleasures without giving up the experience of them.

Intellectually you can understand emptiness and impermanence, but mastery of dhyāna is a prerequisite for cultivating the appropriate level of mental stamina to truly realize emptiness and eliminate all grasping. In order to master dhyāna, abstinence from sensory pleasures is necessary. It logically follows that abstinence from sensory pleasures is also a prerequisite for true experiential realization of emptiness, which enables liberation from suffering.

At a more basic level, however, sex in the present life might not do much harm, though it establishes the causes for future rebirths in the desire realm, which includes the lower realms. In the greater scheme of things sexual activities driven by lust are detrimental to liberation because they foster the causes for unfortunate rebirths in the lower realms.

It would only be rational to abstain from such pleasures if one wanted to secure a good rebirth and moreover liberation.

Well first off think you for the compliment that my thinking is deluded and dangerous. I wouldn't have it any other way. The historical buddha specifically revealed Vajrayana teachings the way he did because they were most applicable for degenerate times such as these. He knew he could not reveal those teachings to his Sutric audience--sign of the times.

Second I find it humorous that you assume that people cannot use their day to day samsaric reality as the path. To specify I am coming from a Dzogchen perspective. So that being said, I will choose several of the so called sensory sins that you attributed to me having deluded thinking over.

1.Oversleeping- many people are clinically depressed, which means they sleep most of the day. If they are a student of the dharma they can learn and indulge in dream yoga, thus making the best out of their karmic predicament.
2. Listening to music too much- Not sure where you live, but in America we are very lucky to have at times a fulfilling live music culture. Fact remains, for myself and many others that music is a catalyst for higher states of awareness. Thus a person who may have difficulty stabilizing rigpa in silence, could use the inherent gifts found in sound to stablize rigpa due to their karmic leanings towards music.
3. Sex- Self explanatory, but yeah, redundant.

It's quite funny to assume that one has to give up anything in order to cultivate dhyana. Kind of defeats the entire purpose of practice IMHO.

Worst thing that happens if a person engages in lots of lust is they come back to Earth for round 77,000,000,0000,000

Again, I live in the west, lust, desire, sense pleasures are my karma. I'd rather use them as the path and help others along the way.

Remember a horny person who becomes celibate just becomes a horny celibate.

[JKhedrup]

Remember a horny person who becomes celibate just becomes a horny celibate.

That's a big generalization. You don't give people enough credit. Spiritual practice can help us to have more control over all sorts of impulses, including the sexual urge.

Fortunately my main struggle as a monk if with the institutional lack of freedom and my independent nature rather than celibacy.

But I know several people in the Sangha who were previously promiscuous swingers and decided they had had enough, took up Brahmacarya and have had great success in reducing the hold this impulse once had over them. So even people who were once irresponsible sexually are capable of Brahmacarya if they are determined.

Celibacy definitely isn't for everyone, and should not be prescribed for everyone. Nor should it be undersold as for many it can be a valuable and transformative assist in spiritual practice.

Many great tantric practitioners were celibate monks, and not just in the Gelug tradition. Think Patrul Rinpoche, Gampopa, Penor Rinpoche, the 16 of the 17 Karmapas etc.

[Sherab Rigdrol]

Remember a horny person who becomes celibate just becomes a horny celibate.

That's a big generalization. You don't give people enough credit. Spiritual practice can help us to have more control over all sorts of impulses, including the sexual urge.

Fortunately my main struggle as a monk if with the institutional lack of freedom and my independent nature rather than celibacy.

But I know several people in the Sangha who were previously promiscuous swingers and decided they had had enough, took up Brahmacarya and have had great success in reducing the hold this impulse once had over them. So even people who were once irresponsible sexually are capable of Brahmacarya if they are determined.

Celibacy definitely isn't for everyone, and should not be prescribed for everyone. Nor should it be undersold as for many it can be a valuable and transformative assist in spiritual practice.

Many great tantric practitioners were celibate monks, and not just in the Gelug tradition. Think Patrul Rinpoche, Gampopa, Penor Rinpoche, the 16 of the 17 Karmapas etc.

Just for clarification I wasn't taking a poke at those who choose Brahmacarya. I think that some people simply lack the desire, or karma and thus have the causes and conditions to take up that vow. My statement was meant towards those who believe you cannot make any spiritual progress without renunciation of lust. And when I say renunciation, I am referring to actually giving up sexual activity, not the basic renunciation of realizing the empty nature of desire. Also, I believe many people choose celibacy in a spiritual context in order to bypass their basic psychological ground, which ultimately causes more difficulties in the long run--hence my statement.

[JKhedrup]

One student at a course I was translating told me they thought celibacy was a horrible perversion and led to suffering.

What do you mean by have the karma to be celibate?

In India one man said to me 'you are young, not ugly, why you take Sannyas?'. A girl in Thailand said to me 'who broke your heart to make you give up on living life.' The assumption that is I must be damaged, socially inept, or impotent in order to choose this lifestyle. I am sure as I get older they will assume it's because I'm too ugly. I would go as far to say that I feel I am discrimminated against in sone cases because I choose not to have sex.

Can't sex also be a source of suffering?

Hello- rape, incest, HIV, syphilis, teen pregnancy. All these very major sources of suffering are connected with sex.

I think after years of demonizing sex society has gone to the other extreme and made it way more important than it needs to be. The side effects of that are the objectification of women, the abuse of the porn industry and other social ills.