Greetings and metta to everyone,
I'd first like to express my appreciation of the very illuminating
comments to this interesting but off topic :-) discussion.
O.Y.P wrote:
Ven. Yuttadhammo brought up the point of gay people getting ordained
for wrong reasons. I think it is valid and relevant because I don't
think monasteries should endorse sexual acts of any kind by monks.
My comments:
That's a huge understatement. Sexual acts of any nature for monastics is
absolutely prohibited. There is no wiggle room. That section of the vinaya
is a very entertaining read, especially when you consider that every type of
sexual act they list, there was a sexually frustrated monastic trying to
find a loophole. It's a BIG DEAL if a monk even confesses to masturbation.
They have to get something like at least 3 monks of a certain rank to
convene some sort of council. In areas of the world where there's a shortage
of monks, they have to fly in ranking monks from far away. Just for
masturbation. Now, whether all monasteries follow the vinaya, that's a
different story. In my original posting on his Holiness, the Objective Pope
Benedict, to answer Ven. Yuttadhammo, I never meant to imply that Buddhism
has a perfect track record or as an institution is free from sexual
offenders in the monastic system. In every worldly or religious institution,
there will be sex offenders, unfortunately. Wherever sex offenders are
found, in my opinion they should be exposed and prosecuted to the fullest
extent of both the national law and applicable religious edicts. The
catholic priest child molesting phenomena in itself is a heinous crime, but
the far greater crime is the leadership of the church having full knowledge
of the sexual offenders and transferring them to different districts and
allowing the priests to prey again, and again(!) relocating more than once,
each one scarring up to scores of children for life. And when the supreme
leader of the Catholic organization fails to take responsibility and make an
honest attempt to fix and acknowledge the problem, it becomes clear that
their main objective is to protect their good name and reputation through
any sinful means necessary.
I feel a lot of sympathy for the catholic priests because they're asked to
attain very lofty standards of sexual purity through will power and faith
alone. That's a mighty tall order, a completely unrealistic goal for the
vast majority of people in the world.
The Theravadin Buddhist monk at least, is armed with an awesome arsenal of
tools to investigate and penetrate the underlying nature of lust, and attain
a state of purity and renunciation by means of cultivated wisdom. That,
coupled with the unworldly meditative bliss far superior to coarse sensual
pleasures is what drives a sustainable celibacy through voluntary choice,
rather than superhuman will power and/or repression. And even before those
two items have matured, the restrictive and cloistered nature of the vinaya,
effective mindfulness techniques such as guarding of the sense doors,
provides a stop gap measure. And if all else fails, and the worldly desire
for sensual pleasure still overwhelms, there is always the option to disrobe
without dishonor. The catholic priest on the other hand, has only one method
taught to them: avoid sexual impulse through prayer and sheer will power.
This is a recipe for failure, as a long and sordid history and current
events show.
While Theravada Buddhism does not have a perfect track record, one can see
how the mighty array of techniques and a sensible vinaya that limits
monastic exposure to tempting wordly desires can lead to a much higher
success rate in celibacy and observing laws against child molesting. In
Vajrayana, if you want to consider that under the umbrella of Buddhism, the
third initiation rites (tantric sex with real or imaginary consort), guru
disciple relationship giving unquestioned power to the guru, and the
potential misinterpretation of the concept of upaya/skillful means, can and
has led to some vile sex crimes.
As for laeity, I believe the rational and intelligent person can get a
pretty clear sense of how Theravadin Buddhism views homosexuality when they
consider these items:
1) Buddhist monastics do not perform marriage ceremonies, be they homosexual
or heterosexual.
2) Buddhism goes into great detail in promoting the understanding of the
nature of sensual pleasure and pointing out the disadvantages and suffering
that arise from indulging in them.
4) Without having to explicitly name every type of sense pleasure, whether
it be culinary, olfactory, sexual, it's clear that every type of sexual
activity falls under the 5 cords of sense pleasure.
5) The Buddha in great detail described a path that encourages the
abandoning of suffering and the pursuit of unworldly pleasures that far
surpass the 5 cords of sense pleasure. Objectively speaking, one who has
inferior roots, lacks humility, has no regard for true men, might mistakenly
conclude that the Buddhist path is "nihilistic" and "autoerotic" (guess who
said that).
6) Erroneous perceptions of reality are criticized. The general class of
actions that lead to favorable outcomes experienced here and now or in the
future are described, as well as the class of actions that lead to painful
and unfavorable results. However, there is a very conspicuous lack of
scripture describing absolutes, be it morality, reality. Concepts such as
"intrinsic evil", are seen as conditioned views, and are subject to the
limitations of all things conditioned.