An interview with Sangharakshita published in Golden Drum in 1988.
This is probably the first time Sangharakshita spoke 'on the record' about his sexual experiences.
A more recent interview, also with Nagabodhi, is available on DVD. It is entitled 'A Retrospective' and covers a wide range of topics including sex.
Nagabodhi: The Five Precepts are the common 'minimal' ethical observance of Buddhists throughout the world. The third precept, Kamesu miccachara veramani sikkhapadam samadiami, is translated: 'I undertake the training principle of refraining from sexual misconduct'. What is the essential meaning of this precept?
Bhante: There is a personal aspect and a social aspect. One must avoid sexual behaviour which is socially disruptive, and one must at the very least avoid engaging in sexual behaviour of any kind to such an extent that one's ethical and spiritual progress is seriously impeded.
Nagabodhi: In the Buddhist East this precept is often taken to mean simply the avoidance of rape, abduction, and adultery.
Bhante: This is really quite a narrow view. The thought that immediately springs to mind is that of prostitution in Bangkok. Bangkok is almost the world capital of prostitution, so much of it goes on there. Yet Thailand is a Buddhist country, and the prostitutes in Thailand are all, presumably, good Buddhists. So those who engage in prostitution - assuming they are not married women doing it for a bit of extra house-keeping money - are not committing rape, they're not committing adultery, and are therefore, according to the current, popular Buddhist understanding, not committing any breach of the third precept. But one certainly couldn't feel that by having recourse to prostitution they were really leading ethical lives from a Buddhist point of view!
Nagabodhi: Why has the precept come to be interpreted in such a narrow way?
Bhante: I think people in the Buddhist East, including parts of India, don't really examine their sexual behaviour in any detail. At least until recently, you simply conformed to tradition and custom, rather than trying to work out what was ethical or non-ethical for yourself. More often than not, tradition and custom kept you on the right track - one has to acknowledge that - but perhaps not in a very intelligent way. People wouldn't usually examine their sexual conduct any more than they usually examined any other aspect of their behaviour. They'd be concerned only with SOCIAL approval or disapproval. And, naturally, the group interprets the precept in a rather social sort of way.
Generally speaking, in the Buddhist East, they don't worry too much about what goes on between consenting adults in private, provided it does not amount to rape, adultery, or anything of that sort. Certainly, in Buddhism, there isn't that preoccupation with the minutiae of sexual behaviour that we have had in the West, as a subject for gossip and enquiry, nor even, perhaps, for ethical scrutiny.
Perhaps it should also be said that, in those countries, there is no very serious expectation that the lay person will lead a spiritual life. The monks or nuns, on the other hand, ARE expected to lead a spiritual life, and for them there is the Vinaya, in which the precept is explored in far greater detail, probably to make it clear that absolutely all forms of sexual behaviour are excluded.
Nagabodhi: To what extent can the rules of the Vinaya be taken as the Buddha's own words, or as representing a detailed working out of his views on the subject of sex?
Bhante: Whether or not they are Buddha vachana in all their details can be debated; I am not at all sure that the Vinaya offers a fair representation of the Buddha's thoughts on the subject. It is very legalistic in tone, and I don't think the Buddha could have viewed anything in a purely legalistic way. But I think the Vinaya does give legalistic expression to an attitude, or a principle, which was the attitude of the Buddha himself.
There can be no serious doubt that the Buddha expected his monk disciples - those who had Gone Forth from their spouses and families - to be celibate. That seems to have been understood, not only by the Buddha himself, but by others of his day. One who had Gone Forth from home into the homeless life did so probably because he or she wanted to be free from all entanglements. So even if one disregarded the personal aspect of sexual ethics - if one disregarded the effect of sex upon the mind - one would still have to avoid sexual activity if one wanted to be free from worldly (in the sense of household) entanglements. If one did engage in sex, a sexual relationship might develop, children might be produced, and you would be back where you had started.
From this point of view, such abstention from sexual activity would be the concomitant of a certain LIFESTYLE, rather than of the spiritual life as such. The Buddha certainly wouldn't say that one who hadn't completely given up sexual activity couldn't make any spiritual progress, and it wasn't that you couldn't make spiritual progress without being a monk. The Buddha had householder disciples who were Stream Entrants, who appear not to have given up sexual activity. But, if you did follow the lifestyle of a monk, it would have been contradictory to engage in sexual activities in a society where there were no contraceptives.
Nagabodhi: When you were in the East, living as a monk, what part did chastity play in your own personal practice?
Bhante: I'm not so sure that it played a very active part. I knew I was expected to be celibate, and so I was. I accepted it as part of the deal, part of the spiritual life; but looking back, I don't think I regarded chastity as a PRACTICE, something I should WORK on.
I was chaste for many, many years, in body, and I think in speech. Unchastity of speech always displeased me from a quite early age. But I don't think I made a particular effort to eliminate sexual thoughts. I was more concerned with eradicating unmindfulness, and was much more distressed by angry or violent thoughts than I was by sexual thoughts - which I tended to think of as being more 'natural'.
But, even when I was in the army, these feelings, though strong, were very much at the background of my mind. I was finding the East so interesting. I was reading whatever Buddhist books I could get hold of; I was writing - it was a very exciting time for me. So even sexual THOUGHTS played a very minor part in my life. It was only when my thirst for such things as the Dharma, literature, poetry, and philosophy had been slaked to some extent that I started thinking about sex, towards the end of my stay in India.
Nagabodhi: In your experience of the modern Theravada, did the monks seem to be spotless in their practice of chastity?
Bhante: Some of them did talk to me about these things, and from what they said I gained the impression that most Theravada monks had committed minor breaches of celibacy, at least from time to time. I even met and heard of a few Theravada monks who had wives and children - though they kept them as secret as they could - but who none the less continued to wear the yellow robe and expected to be treated as monks.
Minor breaches of celibacy were generally overlooked, as if it was almost too much to expect of ordinary human beings that they should be completely celibate in body, even though they were monks. Among themselves, the attitude was fairly forgiving. After all, many of them had become monks purely for social reasons: because their parents wanted them to become monks, or because, by becoming monks, they could be sure of receiving a good education, or of achieving economic security. So there would be no question of any conflict between their breach of the precept and their spiritual aspiration. They were usually only concerned with what might happen if they were found out by the lay people.
Nagabodhi: Even so, in many traditional Buddhist countries, sex is the 'great divider', perhaps the major point of difference between the life of the monk and the life of the lay-person. The monk is chaste; the lay-person is not. Is this a fair observation?
Bhante: It is certainly fair with regard to the Theravada countries and those Mahayana countries where they do have celibate monks. But it wouldn't be a fair observation with regard to Japan, where celibate monks ceased to exist centuries ago, or to some of the sects of Tibetan Buddhism who do not emphasise the monastic life, and therefore do not emphasise celibacy.
In the Theravada world, the monks and the laity seem to have very little in common. They certainly don't seem be following one and the same spiritual path. The Mahayana's main emphasis, though, is on the Bodhisattva Ideal, and therefore on the development of the Bodhicitta (or 'Will to Enlightenment').
In the early days of the Mahayana there was a very strong conviction that the Buddha had taught what was, essentially, one path for all: not only in the sense of his having taught one yana instead of three, but also in the sense of his having taught a spiritual path which could be followed regardless of lifestyle. The Bodhichitta can be developed both by the monk and by the layman; the emphasis was very much on following the path of the Paramitas (Perfections), and on becoming a Bodhisattva. Celibacy and non-celibacy thus became less important issues. One did not have to be a monk - or a layman - to develop spiritually. In our FWBO terminology, we would say that commitment was primary and lifestyle was secondary.
A further development was of course that of the Vajrayana. There were great teachers, even in India, who were not monks. Chandragomin, who composed the 'Hymn to Tara', was a layman. We have the famous example of Vimalakirti, who was a Bodhisattva APPEARING as a layman. Marpa too is a famous example, - though his most celebrated disciple, Milarepa, led an extremely ascetic life and was certainly celibate. In this way, the ground was prepared for the 'married lamas' of the Vajrayana.
Nagabodhi: Do you think the Theravada has placed too much emphasis on the importance of chastity in the monk's life?
Bhante: I think it would be difficult to attach too much importance to chastity. It is, however, possible to attach too much importance to being a monk, in whose life chastity occupies an important place. You could say that the Theravada places too much emphasis on monasticism, too much emphasis on chastity as an aspect of monasticism, and, therefore, too much emphasis on chastity of BODY: on chastity in a purely TECHNICAL sense.
You see, it's not as if you've got the chaste as the sheep, as it were, and the rest as the goats. We shouldn't think of chastity and non-chastity as if they were white and black, and as though you were either one or the other. There are degrees. To begin with, there's chastity of body, chastity of speech, and chastity of mind. We can't divide Buddhists into those who are chaste and those who are not chaste. We can't even divide them into those who are bodily chaste and those who are not. One certainly can't associate chastity exclusively with the monk and non-chastity exclusively with the layman. I would prefer to say that there are infinite gradations, and that everybody is chaste to some extent and everybody is non-chaste to some extent.
Nagabodhi: I believe the Buddha once said, 'If there was another human passion as powerful as the sexual urge, there would be no hope of Enlightenment for human beings': What do you think he meant by that?
Bhante: One COULD argue that the Buddha was simply trying to point out how powerful that passion is, so that his disciples would guard against it. But I take it quite literally.
The sex drive is very powerful. From a common sense point of view, the sex drive is what enables the human race to perpetuate itself; it would seem to be nature's great con-trick. If there was no sex drive, and we were asked, on rational grounds, to do what the sex-drive impels us to do instinctively, most likely we wouldn't do it! If you didn't have any sex urge, or sex drive, would you REALLY want to be responsible for bringing into the world, and supporting, and educating, children? You'd have to be quite altruistic to want to do that on purely rational grounds!
Then again, the sex drive can have a very destructive effect. It can be a source of very strong feelings of attachment and possessiveness, of jealousy, hatred, and despair. It can completely overwhelm people, making it impossible for them to follow the spiritual life, or even think in terms of any higher human development.
I suppose the Buddha's view was that sexual desire is a form of craving. Craving is, of course, an unskillful mental state, and unskillful states hold us back from gaining Enlightenment. For Buddhism - certainly for early Buddhism, and certainly for the Theravada - sexual desire is thus axiomatically unskillful. I doubt very much whether it is anywhere considered that you can engage in sexual activity without, at least to some extent, that activity being an expression of an unskillful mental state.
Nagabodhi: Under no circumstances or conditions?
Bhante: It would seem so, yes.
The emphasis of Buddhism in this respect - its realisation that sex is, or can be, an obstacle to spiritual life - is virtually unique. The theistic religions tend to believe that God created everything in the world: he created human beings, and he created their bodies - including the reproductive organs. So, in a way, God is BEHIND sex, and approves of sex. In some religions, God even blesses sex (- though the Christian position is ambiguous, because the Fall has rather spoiled things).
In the case of Buddhism, however, there is no creator god, no god responsible for sex. So who IS responsible for sex? YOU are. Your past desires - 'past' in the sense of desires experienced in a previous existence - have brought you, in this life, into the gross material human body, equipped with sexual organs, by means of which you can give expression to the desires you have carried from your previous existence.
People are not aware of how powerful this force is. You experience the strength of a force when you oppose it. Usually people tend to go along with their sexual drives, and so don't experience their strength - except, perhaps, when they come up against external obstacles, in the form of parental disapproval, or something of that sort.
So, since Buddhism regards sexual desires (along with others) as binding you to the Wheel of Life and causing you to be reborn again and again, it therefore teaches that, if you are serious about not being reborn, if you are serious about following a spiritual path and attaining Nirvana, then you will need to avoid sex, not simply in the sense of abstaining from sexual activity, but in the sense of overcoming, eventually, those particular desires or cravings that find expression through sexual activity.
Nagabodhi: You have been using the words 'desire' and 'craving'. Craving is usually understood to imply a neurotic element, as distinct from 'desire' - which is sometimes understood to suggest more of a healthy appetite. Is sexual desire always to be regarded as a form of 'craving'?
Bhante: I think traditional Buddhism, especially Theravada Buddhism, would maintain that even a healthy appetite for sex is the expression of an unskillful mental state. It follows from Buddhist principles that one could be Enlightened and at the same time enjoy one's food, without any associated craving. But I doubt if that principle could be extended to cover sexual experience. Buddhists might well acknowledge that even an Enlightened person has to eat; but an Enlightened person does not have to engage in sexual activity, he does not have to procreate.
Then, of course, the sexual appetite usually involves other people. When one comes into close physical, or emotional, contact with another person within the context of a sexual relationship, usually all sorts of psychological projections take place, and sometimes a very complicated, even negative situation develops - which doesn't happen with regard to food, say, or to sleep. Even the so-called 'healthy appetite' for sex, if satisfied, very quickly leads to the development of attachment. That attachment can lead to the arising of very strong emotions of possessiveness, jealousy, hatred, and so on.
It could of course be argued that it is possible for someone to enjoy sex without any of these things arising. But then there would very likely be present in the mind of that person, the unskillful states, not so much of sexual craving, as of indifference, lack of positive emotion, and exploitiveness.
Nagabodhi: To return to the Five Precepts for a moment, you once composed a 'Tantric version', in which the third precept was rendered: 'Do not misuse energy.' Could you expand on that?
Bhante: The third precept represents an important form of ethical discipline. I discovered that a lot of young people in the West didn't take very kindly to the idea of discipline, so it wasn't very easy to talk about the importance of the precept in disciplinary terms.
What I had in mind was that sexual energy was a sort of paradigm of energy in general. I don't think there is, specifically, a special, separate, 'sexual energy'. The psycho-physical organism is itself an expression of energy, and sexual activity is simply one form in which that energy manifests itself. It's obviously important that energy should not be wasted, so if you can point out that sexual energy is a form of energy, then it becomes immediately obvious that that energy should not be wasted.
Nagabodhi: Some people argue that sexual activity - and particularly the orgasm - bestows energy, and that its denial depletes. Could you comment on this?
Bhante: I rather doubt whether sex does actually give people energy, as they maintain. At the time of orgasm there is an expenditure of energy; you experience yourself as spending energy, and therefore you experience yourself as being 'energy full' - as you might when you throw a cricket ball.
When people talk of sex and orgasm actually giving them energy, they are talking about something quite different. I think, especially in the case of men, that when they experience orgasm, there's a sort of sense of achievement, as if they've had their way: they've done something that they consider worthwhile. Their ego becomes a bit bloated and swollen, and this they interpret as a sort of access of energy. It isn't at all a healthy or positive state.
When one has experienced orgasm, one is often left in a state of what could be called 'enervation'. Having made the effort that the approach to orgasm involves, your natural tendency is simply to rest. If you want to meditate, to overcome the hindrances, to concentrate the mind, and enter the dhyanas, you have to make a very great effort, and after an orgasm, you won't feel like making an effort. Some people may not feel like making an effort - especially that mental effort - for many hours afterwards; for others it might be quite a few days. They are just not able to get their mental energies together. It's not that they feel physically weak, or even mentally exhausted: they have lost a certain cutting edge, not only in relation to meditation, but to all sorts of other areas. They need to give their energies, and especially their mental energies, time to build up again and to want to express themselves.
Nagabodhi: You sometimes hears it said that, at the moment of orgasm, one experiences a dissolution of ego and a sense of union with one's partner. . .
Bhante: There seems to be a confusion here between sinking below the ego and transcending it. Ego is lost in deep sleep; you are not self-conscious in all sorts of situations, not because you've transcended the ego, but because you've temporarily reverted to a state lower than that of the ego, or self-consciousness.
As for 'union', the very idea is nonsensical. Often, those very people who feel this sense of union at the time of orgasm are fighting and quarrelling five minutes later! So where is the union? What has been achieved? If one really achieved unity in a spiritual sense, not just by way of mutual unconsciousness, then one's attitude to the other person would be completely transformed: one would be positive, affectionate, and caring,- which ordinary human sexual relationships rarely are.
Nagabodhi: Even so, sex is usually regarded as a vital route - even the vital route to emotional fulfillment and satisfaction....
Bhante: I wonder whether people really do get emotional satisfaction and fulfillment out of sex. Certainly there is a MEASURE of satisfaction and fulfillment, but it's usually very short-lived.
Emotional satisfaction and fulfillment is quite a big thing. From a philosophical point of view, Buddhism sees man's predicament as stemming from the fact that he is looking for absolute happiness in something which is quite unable to give absolute happiness. He's looking for permanence in something which is quite unable to give him permanence, looking for the real in the midst of the unreal. No finite thing is capable of giving infinite and unlimited satisfaction and fulfillment - emotional or otherwise. But this is very often what people are looking for in sex. So sex may give them a measure of satisfaction, a measure of fulfillment; but it can't give satisfaction and fulfillment to the degree that people expect or hope.
Nagabodhi: But people look to sex at least for the enjoyment of emotional intimacy...
Bhante: Well, there is certainly physical intimacy in sex. Whether there is emotional intimacy is quite another matter. It is well known that all sorts of misunderstandings and confusions occur between people who are involved in sexual relationships. When a sexual relationship comes to an end, it often does so in a very unfortunate and emotionally negative way: the two people separate, perhaps with fairly negative feelings towards each other; their so-called intimacy might never have been.
Nagabodhi: So when people speak of their sexual partners as being their best friends, do you think they are absolutely deluded?
Bhante: Friendship and sexual infatuation are two very different things. Sexual infatuation can arise and reach its physical consummation very, very rapidly. Friendship is a plant of much slower growth; it takes much longer to develop. You become friends with someone as you really get to know them, as you develop confidence in them, as you come to feel that they really do know and understand you. This is very different from the process of sexual infatuation.
It may be that, when sexual infatuation subsides, if the two people are reasonably healthy, and if they have certain things in common, including the raising of a family, or if they have religious and spiritual ideals in common, they MAY be able to develop a friendship in the long run, especially as they get older. But, even so, a sexual relationship is a very different thing from a friendship. If anybody ever tells me that their wife is their best friend, or their girlfriend is their best friend, or their husband is their best friend, or their boyfriend is their best friend, I can't help feeling that they are using the word 'friendship' in a totally different sense from the sense in which I use it.
Nagabodhi: I believe you once said that the worst thing you can do to someone is to fall in love with them. Could you explain what you meant?
Bhante: Falling in love implies psychological projection, or seeing in the other person qualities and aspects which are in fact qualities and aspects of yourself, but of which you are unconscious. This means that you do not see the other person as they really are; in a way, you're not treating them as a human being; you are treating them as an object, a thing. Perhaps you're both treating each other in that way, and it may be that by that means you satisfy certain appetites. But there won't be any question of your development as a human being, much less still of any spiritual development.
Nagabodhi: Presumably, you have had to spend a fair amount of time over the years discussing this aspect of your pupils' lives?
Bhante: In the early days of the FWBO, especially, when people tended to bring their more everyday problems to me rather than to Order members, very roughly a third of my discussion time would be devoted to the subject of sex, and particularly to sexual relationships that had gone wrong or broken down.
Nagabodhi: Did you find that men and women have different problems and preoccupations in this area?
Bhante: It's not easy to generalise, but it does seem that achieving a sexual RELATIONSHIP was more important for women than for men. In the case of men, it was perhaps more a matter of gaining sexual satisfaction - not necessarily with one and the same woman.
In the case of women, sexual desire is very much bound up with the desire for children. At the back of the woman's mind all the time is the desire for a child, and there is therefore the desire to have someone to help her, and look after her, when she is having the child. That question doesn't arise in the case of the man - who has to be wary of adopting a purely self-indulgent and exploitative attitude with regard to sex. Men may want children, but rarely in the passionate sort of way that women very often do.
Over the years, I came very much to the conclusion that the reason why sexual relationships were so difficult, and sometimes ended so disastrously, was that people were investing far too much in them. Very often, they seemed to have built their lives around their sexual relationships, and had no other serious relationships: not with their parents, for example, and certainly not with their friends.
Nagabodhi: Is this a particularly Western syndrome? Or did you have to deal with similar problems in India?
Bhante: I don't remember having to, partly because people - if they did have problems concerning sex - might well have considered it inappropriate to bring them to me, a celibate monk. But I also think that people did not have that sort of problem - certainly the non-westernised people - because most Indians lived as members of a joint family; there was a good spread of relationships, even of important relationships, in their lives.
Nagabodhi: Could there be a lesson in that for us?
Bhante: In the FWBO we sometimes talk in terms of the 'mandala' (or, 'magic circle') The mandala, is your whole life, and what is within your mandala represents the contents of your life. A mandala has a centre, so there will be, in the mandala of your life, something which occupies a central position: the interest, activity, idea, or ideal around which your life is centred. Then, we include the other interests and activities of our lives, putting them nearer to the centre as they are more important, and nearer to the periphery as they are less important.
So, with regard to sex, I think we could say that, for most people, sex has a legitimate place somewhere near the periphery of the personal mandala. It certainly shouldn't be at the centre of the mandala; THERE we place the Buddha, representing the ideal of Enlightenment.
It is possible for a human being to develop spiritually while still engaging in a certain amount of sexual activity. But that is provided that not too much importance is attached to that activity, that our emotions are not invested in that sexual activity to a very great extent, and provided especially that there is a strong spiritual ideal seated right at the centre of the mandala.
Obviously, we have here to be very careful that we don't engage in rationalisation,- which is why I am sometimes very reluctant to admit that sex has a place in the mandala at all! I've heard so many men and women say that they are not very deeply involved in their sexual relationships, but who nonetheless absolutely broke down and were completely demoralised when their sexual partner left them.
Nagabodhi: But how is one to know when one is over-investing?
Bhante: You should ask your spiritual friends to tell you. It is very difficult to tell yourself. Of course, if you want to spend as much time as you possibly can with your sexual partner, then you've probably put them in the centre of your mandala.
You may also notice - or your friends will notice - that if you have a sexual partner and are very attached to them, you tend to relate in a certain way, engage in almost meaningless communication simply to reassure yourself that the other is still there. You find that people who are involved in a sexual relationship often do this. This suggests quite deep attachment and emotional dependence, which is not at all desirable.
Then, if you want to make sure that your sexual relationship really is towards the periphery of your mandala, you should be very careful not to spend too much time with the person you're having the sexual relationship with, and preferably not live with them. And you should ensure that you have strong friendships with members of your own sex.
In the FWBO, as you know, people who are having sexual relationships often live in separate communities, the man living in a men's community, the woman living in a women's community. I would say that this not only helps to ensure that the sexual relationship occupies only a peripheral place in those two people's mandalas, but also assures a happier, more truly human relationship between them, because they allow themselves space.
Nagabodhi: Would fidelity be an important factor in a 'successful' relationship?
Bhante: Fidelity is faithfulness over a long period of time, especially in the absence of the friend or sexual partner. It implies not only time: it implies space. It implies the ability, or the capacity, to behave in the absence of a friend, or a sexual partner, as though they were present. And you can only behave as though they were present if you have a strong sense of their existence when they're not actually there with you.
For this to be possible you must dwell much more on the 'mental' level - using that term in the Buddhist sense - than on the physical. You must be less susceptible to every passing physical stimulation, be less carried away by the senses, and live less in the present in a forgetful sort of way. Fidelity is a very human, very individual quality, like friendship or 'impersonal' love in the sense of metta. You are able to look ahead, able to imagine - or to feel - the presence of another person who is not physically with you. This suggests that you don't just see the other person as a body: you have some consciousness of them as a mind, as a 'spirit' if you like, and you relate to them in that way and on that level.
Fidelity is of course different from attachment. Perhaps it isn't always easy to distinguish between the two. Fidelity is a positive quality, whereas attachment is not. When you practise fidelity towards someone, you are, as it were, valuing them for their own sake. But when you're attached to them, you are wanting something from them for YOUR sake.
So I've observed that men and women can have very happy relationships, including sexual relationships, provided they live quite independent lives, and see each other just from time to time. When the man and the woman have each placed Enlightenment firmly at the centre of their mandala, they've got something to get on with; their lives don't centre around their sexual partners. Then, paradoxically, the relationship becomes more satisfactory, and they can relate more as human beings. You have to strike a sort of happy balance, where you see someone sufficiently often to keep up a continuity of contact, but not so often that you become attached, or become bored with each other's company.
Then, if you are committed to a spiritual way of life, or if you are committed to your personal development, and if you do see your sexual partner infrequently, and if you do both live in single sex spiritual communities, and if you have strong friendships with members of your own sex, and if you are making a very determined effort to develop spiritually, with the help of meditation, with the help of Dharma study, altruistic activity, retreats, and so on, then the danger of over-investment in a sexual relationship will be far less.
Nagabodhi: Obviously, many couples live together in order to bring up a family. They might argue that having and nurturing children is itself a spiritually challenging activity. Would you agree?
Bhante: Well, every human activity can be regarded as having a spiritually demanding aspect. There is always the possibility of a skilful, positive response, and of an unskillful, negative response.
Supposing it rains. You can have a positive response to the fact that it is raining, but does that mean that rain is, as such, a spiritual experience? In the same way, if you have children, you can be patient, forbearing, kindly, - and that can be a spiritual experience. But that does not mean that having children is, itself, a spiritual experience any more than the weather is.
Raising children and helping them to get on in the world can be a challenging and creative pursuit, but I would say that there are already far too many beings in the world who have never had that help, and who need that help; it would probably be much better for us to direct our attention towards THEM.
Nagabodhi: Even so, as you mentioned a moment ago, bearing children is a major issue - and a major source of conflict - for some women. Is there any general advice that you would offer?
Bhante: Some years ago I wouldn't have ventured to give a piece of general advice. Now I very definitely do. Quite a few women in the FWBO have experienced tremendous conflict between the very genuine desire to lead a spiritual life, and the desire for a child. I have come to the conclusion, after discussing the matter with quite a number of women, and observing women in the Movement who have children, that, if a woman has a genuine desire for the spiritual life, then having a child will not in the long run get in the way.
Of course, for two or three years, she will be very tied down by the child. She won't be able to go on retreats; she may not even be able to attend classes at the Centre, or able to attend Order meetings. She will have to be patient. But that period of almost total dependence of the child on its mother does come to an end; the mother does become more free with the passing of every year. And, if the mother's original interest in, or commitment to, the spiritual life has been genuine or sincere, it will re-emerge, and be free to express itself again.
Of course, if her involvement isn't very strong, the likelihood is that, even if she doesn't have a child, she will drift away from the spiritual life. Men often drift away from the spiritual life without even thinking about having children!
Nagabodhi: I believe you have said that heterosexual sexual activity and attitudes can have a polarizing effect on the individual, leading him or her to a one-sided kind of development. Could you say a bit more about this?
Bhante: If you're involved in a heterosexual relationship, you think of yourself as a man, the other person as a woman, or of yourself as a woman, the other person as a man. In other words, you don't relate to your partner so much as an individual, but as just a man or just a woman. So, within the relationship, only half your total 'nature', has an opportunity to express itself,- because a human being is not 'just a man', or 'just a woman': there are other potentialities too.
Then, if one relates predominantly as a member of THIS sex or THAT sex, the qualities and characteristics associated with the opposite sex are not developed; one becomes one-sided in one's psychological, and possibly even in one's spiritual, development. Thus you get the very 'macho' man and the extravagantly feminine woman, in whom the complementary qualities of the opposite sex have no opportunity to develop.
A human being should try to develop the whole range of human qualities: the so-called 'masculine' and the so-called 'feminine', and in this way become - to talk in these 'sexual' terms - androgynous. This doesn't necessarily mean that a man will become bisexual or a woman will become bisexual; they may continue to confine their sexual activities to partners of the opposite sex. But, nonetheless, they will have developed - if they're truly, psychologically androgynous - the psychological and spiritual qualities of, so to speak, both sexes.
Nagabodhi: Is there less risk of polarisation, attachment, or psychological projection in homosexual relationships than in heterosexual ones?
Bhante: It's very difficult to generalise. I get the impression that, among men who might be described as 'professionally gay', sexual relationships can become quite turbulent. But where the men concerned are not actually gay, or not gay in an extremely one-sided way, it is possible for them to have a relationship in which sex may play a part, if not a very important part.
The case of women is rather different. So far as I've observed - and of course I am generalising - sexual relationships between women can result in very powerful emotional attachments of a very 'heavy' kind. Sex, and the emotions associated with sex, play a much more important, and in a way constant, part in the life of a woman than in the life of a man. So when two women come together, you tend to get a much more emotionally charged relationship.
Nagabodhi: But do you think that people who are looking for a clearer sexual mode might at least benefit from experimenting with homosexuality?
Bhante: I don't think one can experiment with homosexuality - or even with heterosexuality come to that - on purely rational grounds. It simply doesn't work. The essence of the matter is that there is a natural, spontaneous attraction, whether sexual or non-sexual.
Nagabodhi: But is anybody 100% heterosexual or homosexual?
Bhante: There are people who appear to be 100% heterosexual, and to have not even the slightest homosexual inclination; but it is very hard to be sure. The least one can say is that the majority of people, under certain conditions, would be able to find at least some sexual satisfaction with members of their own sex.
But, you see, we've made it all into such a big deal; we've classified and labeled people as 'heterosexual' and 'homosexual'. You can speak of certain actions as homosexual actions, or others as heterosexual, but can you speak of individuals as either 'homosexual' or 'heterosexual'?
I don't like people being spoken of as 'gay', or speaking of themselves as 'gay', as though their sexual identity is the most important thing about them. I don't blame them too much, because that attitude is a reaction against years - even centuries - of oppression of people engaged in homosexual activities by people who did not engage in homosexual activities, but it is nevertheless unfortunate.
This raises an issue which is, I think, quite a serious problem for Western men, and especially perhaps for those involved in Buddhism. Spiritual friendship is important, and it can only arise on a basis of ordinary friendship. Friendship implies closeness, mutual confidence, intimacy, and even physical contact.
For most people in the West it would seem that physical contact occurs in association with sex. We consequently seem to confuse the two, or to regard the two as being inseparable. Purely physical contact is therefore quite difficult for people to obtain, especially, I think, for men to obtain from other men. Normally, in the case of other men, there's no 'danger' of sexual involvement. Even so, men find it quite difficult to experience physical contact with other men because of their fear of homosexuality.
I've observed cases where men are even afraid to give each other a brotherly hug! It may take them years to get through that. And when they succeed in doing it, they are quite overwhelmed and overjoyed, as if they've had a real breakthrough! This illustrates the terrible mess we've got ourselves into; such a simple thing has become an enormous problem.
During the time when I was living at the Hampstead Buddhist Vihara, I was quite celibate. Even so, I remember how bothered some people were by my close friendship with Terry Delamare. Actually, as they really ought to have taken for granted, that was a completely Platonic relationship,- in fact it wasn't a relationship in the ordinary sense at all, and certainly not a sexual relationship. The crux of the matter seemed to be people's inability to believe that there could be a close friendship between two men without their being a sexual element.
Women, generally, seem much less inhibited in this respect. They don't hesitate to put their arms round each other's waists or hug each other; they even kiss each other quite freely. Men normally would not dream of doing such things, and limit their contact. Because of that, they very often limit the possibilities of friendship with other men. And so, because they don't develop friendship with other men, they don't develop SPIRITUAL friendship with other men. And because they don't develop spiritual friendship with other men, they're not able to develop what the Buddha declared to be the most important element in the spiritual life.
Nagabodhi: So what can Western men do about this?
Bhante: They must break down their fear of homosexuality, by facing it, and by not being afraid of sexual contact with other men.
This is not necessarily to say that they should have sexual contact with men, but at least that they should not be afraid of the idea. They have to realise that physical, and even sexual, contact between men is JUST physical or sexual contact between men. It is a quite ordinary thing, and one's fear of that should not be allowed to get in the way of one's friendships.
Nagabodhi: Some while ago, I believe you did engage in some sexual 'experimentation' yourself. Could you say something about that?
Bhante: In 1967, when I returned from India to start the FWBO, there was a lot of talk about the place of sex in communication. I therefore thought I should perhaps experiment a little in this field.
In those days, everything seemed to be in the melting pot. I was, in a sense, free to do what I wanted, free to do whatever I felt was best. It was a very important period, a creative period: I was giving all those classes, all those lectures. This was also the period of my experimentation with psychedelic drugs, the period when I let my hair grow. . . You could say I was feeling my way, feeling my way around.
I think I've always been guided by instinct or intuition. I very much tend to DO, and then worry about the implications afterwards. I'm sure that appetite did play some part in the 'experimentation', but it was all definitely more to do with intuition than appetite.
Nagabodhi: The ancient Greeks encouraged 'educative', erotically charged, friendships, especially between older and younger men. Did you have something like this in mind?
Bhante: No, I don't think it was from this point of view at all. I have had hundreds of pupils and disciples without there being any sexual element entering into the relationship. When I engaged in my period of 'experimentation', it wasn't so much within a pedagogic context, as just in a context of ordinary friendship. Of course one can learn from friends, but the experimentation wasn't part of the education of some other person. I was just exploring certain things for my own benefit, for the satisfaction of my own curiosity.
But even now, I don't think I could really explain what it was that I was intuitively reaching for - without setting myself to write about it seriously, when I can really 'dig around' and ask myself what I really felt about things. I do in fact intend to describe this period in a volume of memoirs, which I hope to write in the next few years.
Nagabodhi: Did you come away from that period of experimentation with any conclusions?
Bhante: One of my conclusions was that sex didn't really play much of a part in human communication. Bodily contact sometimes functioned as a MEANS of breakthrough in communication, but it didn't result in a permanent breakthrough: it only gave one a certain opportunity, which one then had to develop. Sometimes the breakthrough came to an end and things were as they were before. In fact, that was almost always the came. So I came to the conclusion that sexual contact wasn't really much help in developing human communication, and again I ended up celibate.
At the same time, I CAN definitely say that, in the case of certain people, I found that having physical contact with them (and I'm speaking now of physical, not sexual contact) certainly did release them from their fear of homosexuality, and enabled them to develop friendships - by which I mean non-sexual friendships - with other men more easily.
Nagabodhi: In the early days of the FWBO you seemed to be very patient with our tendencies to sexual distraction and sexual indulgence. Were you as tolerant and patient as you seemed?
Bhante: I had no choice but to be patient! I was starting out - in the 'permissive' Sixties - with people who were, on the whole, completely fresh to Buddhism. I was more concerned that people should develop some sympathy for Buddhist ideals, and gradually bring their conduct into line with those ideals. I didn't take the view that, 'Well, you've got to give up all your present unskillful actions and mental attitudes, and THEN we can start thinking about Buddhism.' That would simply not have worked. So I mainly followed what I afterwards called the 'path of irregular steps'.
Nagabodhi: Were you ever afraid that the FWBO might disappear in a cloud of sexual permissiveness?
Bhante: Well, sexual permissiveness is not the only danger. We mustn't dwell too much upon that, even though we are at present dealing with the subject of sex. The FWBO could dissolve for all sorts of reasons, and there will always be the danger of it dissolving so long as, within the FWBO, and within the Order especially, we don't have a sufficient number of Stream Entrants. If you're not a Stream Entrant you can resile from the spiritual life, you can resile from your commitment to the Three Jewels; you can become anything, do anything.
Nagabodhi: But do you think that we in the West need to work harder at our understanding of the third precept than those from a more traditional, Eastern culture?
Bhante: I think we have to fight against a cultural message that overvalues sex and regards sex as an unqualified good. A lot of people still think that so long as you don't actually harm people you can have - should have - as much sex as you please. Because of this attitude, there's no understanding of the fact that if you want to develop spiritually, then sex has to take a peripheral place.
We're living in a transitional period. Formerly the great disincentive, particularly for the woman, was the fear of pregnancy. That fear has been largely removed, and people find themselves (or, at least until the advent of AIDS, found themselves) free to engage in sexual activity without the fear of consequences. This has certainly altered attitudes towards sex. But there have been side-effects: the contraceptive pill does have certain physical dangers for some women; then, it may be doubted whether promiscuous sex is necessarily very psychologically satisfying, or even healthy. Perhaps the freedom with which people can now have sex has resulted in an altogether disproportionate amount of attention being given to it.
Nagabodhi: More recently, you have been encouraging us to think more seriously about, and to aim ourselves more decidedly towards, celibacy.
Bhante: Well, in the early days, most of our early members were in their twenties or even in their late teens. One could not really expect or demand celibacy of people of that age. But those who were twenty-five or even younger when they joined us are now in their forties. People of that age can certainly start thinking seriously about celibacy,- and I have asked people to do no more than that: just to think about it seriously.
Nagabodhi: Though you do seem content that a few people are taking the Anagarika precepts - which include a 'vow' of celibacy.
Bhante: I'm not only content: I'm very pleased that they are. They are really nailing their colours, their saffron colours if you like, to the mast. But I never urge anyone to take the vow of celibacy. When people tell me they want to take such a vow, I almost invariably ask them to think about it for a while longer.
One can be a member of the Western Buddhist Order without being celibate. One is only asked to keep one's sex life at the periphery, or towards the periphery, of one's personal mandala,- or at the very least not too near the centre. But if one can be celibate in a non-neurotic way, in a positive and healthy way, I'm sure that will enable one - other factors being equal - to develop spiritually more rapidly, and enable one to be more free to be of use to the Dharma and of use to other human beings.
Nagabodhi: What would be the distinction between a 'neurotic' and a healthy, 'non-neurotic' celibacy
Bhante: You could be celibate because you were so absorbed by the beauty and attractiveness of the spiritual ideal, that sex just didn't interest you. That would be a very healthy sexual mode. But then you could be celibate out of guilt, or for the sake of some material advantage. You could be celibate for all sorts of quite negative reasons, which would be neurotic.
It certainly isn't just a question of being celibate. Being physically celibate by itself probably has very little value. What is more valuable is being RELATIVELY celibate because the main object of one's emotional energies is something of a higher order. You can't be healthily and happily celibate unless you are celibate for the sake of a higher cultural, artistic,, humanitarian, or spiritual interest. You could even say that sexual frustration takes place when you don't have at the centre of your mandala an interest or an ideal which absorbs your emotional energies.
Nagabodhi: In the Udana, Sundarananda complains that his mind is always dwelling on the beautiful girl he left behind when he became a monk. The Buddha takes him to a heavenly realm, and shows him goddesses of even greater beauty. What is the teaching there for us?
Bhante: Sundarananda's experience represents an experience of beauty more refined that ordinary human beauty. So he becomes less attracted, less attached, to lower, human beauty.
I don't think that while still remaining on the level of ordinary human beauty you can simply put it all behind you. You only have a reason for doing that if you have a glimpse of a higher, heavenly beauty.
Nagabodhi: So what are we to do? Pay more visits to the art gallery?
Bhante: A visit to the local art gallery is not to be despised. Then there is refined music, or engaging in a creative activity. This can certainly absorb one's energies.
Then of course there is meditation. So long as you haven't developed Insight you will be swaying between engaging in sex and experiencing sexual craving, and being free from that craving. So, in order to make spiritual progress while continuing to have sex, you have to ensure that the sex is peripheral, and that you are mentally free from the hindrance of sexual desire for sufficient periods, from time to time, to be able to achieve higher states of consciousness, and on that basis develop Insight. Once Insight starts being developed, then of course you are attacking the craving at the source. The more you do of that, then the weaker any craving will become.
Nagabodhi: So there is a sort of gradual path to celibacy: taking some of these things on, developing Insight, adding these refined elements to our lives?
Bhante: Yes indeed! - Like a caterpillar passing from leaf to leaf. While with his rear legs he is still adhering to one leaf, with his front legs he is grasping hold of another. And he doesn't pull his rear legs forward onto the new leaf until he has planted his front legs very securely on the front leaf.
It is quite impossible to give up everything all at once, though some spiritual disciplines seem to demand that: 'Give up everything to God: give up everything to the Guru...' I don't think that is humanly possible; you may have a nervous breakdown if you try. But at least seize hold of the spiritual, just like the caterpillar seizing hold of that leaf with his front legs. In a sense, it doesn't matter if you've got two front legs on that new leaf and twenty legs back on the old leaf: at least you've grasped hold of that new leaf. Then you can proceed to haul yourself slowly forward.
Psychologically and spiritually speaking, it's not so much a question of just giving up the old, but of seizing hold of the new while you are still, to some extent, involved with the old, even trapped in the old. Just make sure you do seize hold of the new, and try to seize hold of it more and more. Don't think there's no point in seizing hold of the new because you haven't yet completely relaxed your hold on the old. There are degrees of celibacy. Everybody is celibate to some extent, and everybody is non-celibate to some extent. No one is engaging in sexual activity all the time (I'm speaking here about physical celibacy), and nobody, except for Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, is celibate in body, speech, and mind all the time.
One should therefore understand the PRINCIPLE of celibacy, which in Buddhism is called Brahmacharya. This can be translated as the 'divine life', or even the 'angelic life'. It represents a transition from a lower to a higher sphere, from the kamaloka to the rupaloka, from the rupaloka to the Brahmaloka. Brahmacharya means, literally, walking with, or 'faring' with Brahma - Brahma meaning a very lofty, spiritual state. When you are celibate in body, speech, and mind, well, you dwell in that state. But you're TRYING to dwell in that state all the time. Some people make a nearer approach to it, others don't succeed in approaching so near. But everybody, one might say, is to some extent on their way - even if only by accident.
Of course, If you're leading a specifically spiritual life, if you've taken up the Brahmacharya, you can try to be more and more celibate. If, for instance, you normally engage in sexual intercourse once a week, then try to make it once a fortnight, or once a month, or even once a year, as some of our friends do. In that way you gradually detach yourself from attachment to the material world, from the senses, from unskillful pleasures, and you experience skilful pleasures more and more intensely, and pursue them.
I see the FWBO - and the Order especially - as never standing still. I would like too see everybody involved with the Movement, everybody involved with the Order, becoming more and more celibate, every day if you like.
I'm not asking anyone to give up sex all at once; I'm not expecting them to do that. But inasmuch as I expect people to progress a little every day, then I expect them, in a way, to give up a little bit of sex every day, so that over the years there is an appreciable difference - so that overt sexual activity plays a smaller and smaller part in their lives.
Nagabodhi: You've said from time to time that, so far as you can see, the monk's life is the happiest life you can imagine. To what extent is their celibacy a factor in that?
Bhante: Well, I must first define what I mean by 'the monk's life'. I don't mean a formally monastic life; I don't mean simply wearing yellow robes and shaving one's head; and I certainly don't mean being celibate in a neurotic way. By the monk's life I mean a life totally devoted to the Dharma, in one way or another, a life which is, so to speak, wedded to the Dharma. I certainly see THAT as the happiest life, and I've certainly seen many, many very happy monks - in the formal sense - in the East. Very often they did seem to be much happier than the lay people who were presumably indulging in the enjoyment of all the worldly pleasures. I won't say that the monks were always strictly celibate; sometimes they weren't. But they were certainly much more celibate than the lay people! And, at the very least, they were to that extent happier.
Reprinted from Articles Shabda May 2004