Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Buddhism and homosexuality
What is the Buddhist approach to the lesbian gay transsexual and transgender community?
Thanks in advance
x
Thanks in advance
x
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Also, it's worth noting there is a forum at E-Sangha specifically for gay/lesbian/transgendered Buddhists, so it seems to have a pretty accepting attitude. I'm not a member of E-Sangha (I can't register for whatever reason), but you might check it out.
The simple ideology behind celibacy is to drop all worldly attachments and cling to nothing. Non-celibate beings are neither frowned upon, nor condemned, but in order to lead a monastic life, for some, it has to be taken into account.
This differs with regard to Catholic celibacy, in that sex is seen as a fruit of Original Sin, and therefore to be shunned in order to attain purity.
Homosexuality of whichever gender variety is discouraged but not necessarily condemned, in some sectors of Tibetan Buddhism only, but this does not form part of the Buddha's teachings, in his sutras or scriptures. It is merely a guidance in the doctrine of the particular school.
The Third Precept - Vowing to refrain from immoral or inappropriate sexual conduct - has no parameters specifically regarding gender or persuasion. Rather, it merely guides us in abstaining from abuse or disrespect towards others, and ourselves, whilst indulging in intimate behaviour.
That is all.
You will probably find that attitudes to different sexualities are generally culture-dependent. For example, in his earlier days in exile, it is notorious that His Holiness the Dalai Lama made condemnatory remarks about homosexuality, which he has since amended.
I think we have to be very careful not to confuse what is moral with what is cultural. Another example, which bears on another thread too, is the matter of the age of sexual consent which varies across the world. Indeed, in the UK, even when male homosexuality was decriminalised, a different age of consent was set for heterosexual and homosexual acts.
Thich Nhat Hanh, who uses the expression "mindfulness trainings" rather than "precepts", comments:
The key, here, is the word misbehaviour. It is incumbent on each individual to assess what they understand by right behaviour and act accordingly. It is not a matter of blanket permissions or injunctions.
As for Zen monks, the reasons that they are not celibate are political ones having to do with Japanese culture and absolutely nothing to do with the Vinaya (the rules of monastic living laid down by the Buddha himself). In fact, some Zen communities in the West, such as Shasta Abbey in California, have reinstated the vow of celibacy, which I think is great.
The idea behind celibacy, as well as the other vows of ordination, are to serve as an external aid to the renunciation of desire, which the Buddha taught was the principle cause of all suffering in the world. The rules are relaxed for lay people, however. For example, someone who took lay ordination could still have sex, but the rule would be not to cause any harm to anyone or to have sex indiscriminately.
Now back to the original question, while there are some Buddhists who are homophobes and who proscribe homosexuality, most are not. Again, you're dealing with Asian cultures which have sometimes very different attitudes than we do in the West. American Dharma teachers are pretty unanimous, at least in my experience, in their support of the g/l/b/t community. My teacher, an American woman, has a gay son, and she is very supportive. We have a gay outreach called the Variegated Jewels (which unfortunately is defunct at the moment mainly due to a lack of people to staff it). And as has been pointed out, many gay people are attracted to Buddhism because of its lack of judgmentalness on the issue of homosexuality. For most of us, it's just not an issue. In fact, a good chunk of the ordained community at my temple (which numbers about 40) are gay or lesbian.
Palzang
Liberal Western Buddhism is ahistorical in many ways and has done an about-turn on accepting LGBT people but the question of sexist practices in Buddhism remains pertinent. And Buddhist centres in African communities have to contend with local homophobia rooted in animist practices.
The liberation of most philosophies/religions in terms of a human rights culture is an ongoing struggle.
Mary
Yet, it's also important to remember that Buddhism has been adapted to highly disparate societies wherever it has gone. It merged with Confucianism/Taoism in China and carefully stratified Japanese society. It merged with the local dieties and philosophies when it came to Tibet. I think the emergence of a Western Buddhism, which reconciles Buddhist psychology/philosophy with modern humanism/physicalism, makes perfect sense. Buddhism as it has historically existed in Asian cultures stands no chance of survival here in the West if it is not reconciled with science/physicalism and our understanding of human rights. A lot of the cultural trappings will find no relevance here, but the essence of the dharma ("dukkha and the end of dukkha") will remain relevant so long as there is suffering in the world.
Mary, dear sister,
Do you not consider that Buddhism is generally "ahistorical" as you put it? It takes cultural stereotypes as embodied in, for example, deities such as Kwan Yin, and re-interprets them in a way similar to what Bultmann calls "breaking the myth" in modern Christian hermeneutics.
When asked to describe what I think Buddhism has to offer in the modern Westren democracies and beyond, the best that I have been able to come up with is the basic "stress and the end of stress" concept: that life is better when we walk the Noble Eighfold Path in humble acknowledgemnt of impermanence and ignorance. I have termjed this, elsewhere, "counter-intuitive utilitarianism".
Thus, when it comes to absolutist judgments such as "homosexuality is wrong (or right)", I am compelled to say "Sez who?" and certainly isn't the Buddha.
Palzang
Palzang
This is because sexuality is an obstacle to spiritual freedom. Buddha advised the bliss of sensuality is not worth 1/16 of the bliss of liberation. The view of the Buddha, as advised in the Dhamma, is one lets go of a lesser happiness to gain a greater happiness.
Religious practise leads to liberation. Religions do not require liberation.
In brief, if one must be sustained by sensuality, there is no need to impose one's sexual needs onto religion.
Religion holds the profound and the uncommon. The error of religion is to become overly involved in the worldy affairs of ordinary people (and visa-versa).
The general buddhist approach is one of acceptance.
There are no reports of the Buddha teaching anything about homosexuality (apart from in the rules for ordained monks and nuns).
In Thailand, many former homosexuals have become monks & nuns where their preceptors believe they can maintain celibacy.
Regarding laypeople, if one choses to take refuge in the Buddhist teachings, Buddhism encourages the cultivation of harmless and nurturing sexual relationships.
Buddhism teaches sexuality practised in an unskillful way will inevitably result in suffering.
We can observe both from our own lives and the lives of others the benefits & joys and sufferings that have resulted from sexuality.
Kind regards
DDhatu
I like that expression 'counter-intuitive utilitarianism'!
And the adaptive qualities or tendencies in Buddhism have been remarkable.
But questions around sexuality and sexual identity are always going to present certain difficulties as long as there is an ascetic trajectory -- not necessarily negative but a tension between indulging embodied desires, denying embodied desires, restraining embodied desires subject to certain ethical requirements. Theorising around celibacy is quite a minefield.
Good debate --
Mary
That she builds her nest in our hair - this we can prevent.
Notwithstanding cultural differences, social bias and prejudices, the fact is thet The Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path are completely non-partisan and global in their approach. They transcend any form of question or dilemma...
If we perceive division, difference, separatism and unconnectedness, that is our problem... it means that we are permitting ourselves to be influenced by matters that in the end, are trivial and unnecessary to our calling.
We can cite religious history and socio-cultural opinion until we're rainbow-hued all over.
It's irrelevant to the Path.
For some of us social freedoms are not just armchair concerns. And after working in Asia I know many very skilled Buddhists involved in political struggles.
In netiquette terms, those who don't like certain threads usually just scroll on by.
Mary
I think you know me better than that, my brother - or are you grumpy at me for some reason?
If you are, I am in no way impatient, and certainly, dismissiveness was not my intention...
And you most certainly have not offended me....I like you, amd enjoying the discussion....
Ah, the vagaries of posting mere black-on-white verbiage....! :rolleyes:
The key - vis-a-vis your Buddhist friends involved in Political struggles - is not the struggle, but the ability to detach from same when the moment has passed.
The struggle is all very well and appropriate, when it is necessary to apply it, but once that situation is done, the dedication may be abandoned until it is next required.
It's all mind-wrought.
Were it not, I feel sure the Dalai Lama - who is involved more than most in Political struggles - would be in a constantly hand-wringing state....
Pick it up, put it down......
Why would I not 'like this thread'? it is not my only contribution....
Oh.....
If you're not talking to me - forget I said anything!!
No, I was more concerned with those who don't know better who might read your post and think, oh, is that all there is? I well know that you know better. I just wanted to clarify. There is a tendency in some quarters to water down Buddhism and make it more "palatable" (whatever that means) to Western tastes, like throwing out the old "superstitions" of rebirth and karma. Of course, when you do that you no longer have Buddhism, you have New Age mumbo-jumbo that accomplishes nothing other than a bliss-ninny mentality. It's something that really irks me big time. So I'm sorry if it seemed like I was jumping on you. I really wasn't.
Palzang
Thanks--
Mary
Fede, am I allowed to once again declare my love for your posts? Am I?
You have a way of posting I've never come across before. Your style is really 'warm' and textured, if that makes sense.
And I'm not the type to gratuitously flatter people... :type:
Hugs
I'm also very, VERY proud to belong to a whole body of people who feel this way when so much of religion is about 'divide, rule and brainwash', so vocal on political affairs in such a partisan manner (the Archbishop of C. anyone and the Pope?), so intertwined in power (American leaders, Tony Blair, think of their rhetoric), the media (the Express and the Mail) and popular culture (Jade Goody's transformation into a believer at the point of her cancer diagnosis - understandable of course except the UK jumped onto it with a saccharine-populism usually reserved for the cult of Victoria Beckham or a new restaurant opening).
Buddhism remains pure: Love, compassion, kindness and a very real practicality. Always seeing things for what they are. Working at gnawing away our delusions.
October 11, 1995
I am Robert Aitken, co-founder and teacher of the Honolulu Diamond Sangha, a Zen Buddhist society established in 1959, with centers in Manoa and Palolo [macrons are over first a's in each word]. Our organization has evolved into a network of Diamond Sangha groups on Neighbor Islands and in North and South America, Australia and New Zealand. I am also co-founder of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship and a member of its International Board of Advisors. This is an association whose members are concerned about social issues from a Buddhist perspective. It has it headquarters in Berkeley, California, and has chapters across the country, including one here on O'ahu, as well as chapters overseas. I am also a member of the Hawai'i Association of International Buddhists.
I speak to you today as an individual in response to the Chair's request to present Buddhist views, particularly Zen Buddhist views, on the subject of of marriage between people of the same sex.
The religion we now call Zen Buddhism arose in China in the sixth century as a part of the Mahayana, which is the tradition of Buddhism found in China, Korea, Japan and to some extent in Vietnam. Pure Land schools, including the Nishi and Higashi Hongwanji, as well as Shingon and Nichiren, are other sects within the Mahayana.
The word Zen means "exacting meditation," descriptive of the formal practice which is central for the Zen Buddhist. It is a demanding practice, from which certain realizations emerge that can then be applied in daily life. these are realizations that each of us is a boundless container, a hologram, so to speak, that includes all other beings. The application of this kind of ultimate intimacy can be framed in the classic Buddhist teaching of the Four Noble Abodes: loving kindness, compassion, joy in the attainment of others, and equanimity.
Applying these Four Noble Abodes to the issue of same-sex marriage, I find it clear that encouragement should be my way of counseling. Over a twenty-year career of teaching, I have had students who were gay, lesbian, trans-sexual and bisexual, as well as heterosexual. These orientations have seemed to me to be as specific as those which lead people to varied careers. Some people are drawn to accounting. I myself am not expecially drawn to accounting. Some people are drawn to literature. I place myself in that lot. In the same way, some people are attracted to members of their own sex. I am not particularly attracted in this way. But we are all human, and within my own container, I can discern homosexual tendencies. I keep my checkbook balanced too. So I find compassion---not just for---but with [with is underlined] the gay or lesbian couple who wish to confirm their love in a legal marriage.
I perform marriages among members of my own community. Occasionally, for one reason or another, these are ceremonies that celebrate commitment to a life together, but are not legally binding. I have not been asked to perform a ceremony for a gay or lesbian couple, but would have no hesitation in doing so, if our ordinary guidelines were met. If same-sex marriages were legalized, my policy would be the same. I don't visualize leading such ceremonies indiscriminately for hire, but would perform them within our own Buddhist community.
Back in the early 1980s I had occasion to speak to the gay and lesbian caucus of the San Francisco Zen Center. It was in the course of this meeting that the seed of what is now the Hartford Street Zen Center was planted. This is a center that serves the gay and lesbian population of San Francisco, giving them a place for Zen Buddhist practice where they can feel comfortable. A number of heterosexual women also practice there, as a place where they will not have to deal with sexual advances from men who misuse other centers as hunting grounds for sexual conquests.
The Hartford Street Zen Center flourishes today as a fully accepted sanctuary within the large family of Zen Buddhist temples in the Americas and Europe. It sponsors the hospice called Maitri, a Sanskrit term meaning "loving kindness," that looks after people suffering from AIDS. Maitri is one of the significant care-giving institutions in San Francisco, and is marked by a culture of volunteers who serve as nurses, doctors, counselors, and community organizers in a large support system.
Historically, Zen Buddhism has been a monastic tradition. There have been prominent lay adherents, but they have been the exceptions. In the context of young men or young women confined within monastery walls for periods of years, one might expect rules and teachings relating to homosexuality, but they don't appear. Bernard Faure, in his cultural critique of Zen Buddhism titled The Rhetoric of Immediacy [underlined] remarks that homosexuality seems to be overlooked in Zen teachings, and indeed in classical Buddhist texts. My impression from my own monastic experience suggests that homosexuality has not been taken as an aberration, and so did not receive comment.
There is, of course, a precept about sex which Zen Buddhists inherit from earlier classical Buddhists teachings. It is one of the sixteen precepts accepted by all Zen Buddhist monks, nuns and seriously committed lay people. In our own Diamond Sangha rendering, we word this precept, "I take up the way of not misusing sex." I understand this to mean that self-centered sexual conduct is inappropriate, and I vow to avoid it. Self-centered sex is exploitive sex, non-consensual sex, sex that harms others. It is unwholesome and destructive in a heterosexual as well as in a homosexual context.
All societies have from earliest times across the world formalized sexual love in marriage ceremonies that give the new couple standing and rights in the community. The Legislative Reference Bureau, at the request of this Commission, has compiled a formidable list of rights that are extended to married couples in Hawai'i, but which are denied to couples who are gay and lesbian, though many of them have been together for decades. These unions would be settled even more if they were acknowledged with basic married rights. A long-standing injustice would be corrected, and the entire gay and lesbian community would feel more accepted. This would stabilize a significant segment of our society, and we would all of us be better able to acknowledge our diversity. I urge you to advise the Legislature and the people of Hawai'i that legalizing gay and lesbian marriages will be humane and in keeping with perenniel principles of decency and mutual encouragement [mutual underlined].
Honolulu Diamond Sangha
In Zen practice, we see what is as what is. Thus tensions and pulls that may have once ruled the roost, become the boons of liberation itself.
Gassho.
There will always be harm and suffering caused by not restraining or channelling embodied desires subject to certain ethical requirements.
A skilled Buddhist practitioner can separate quite easily the internal from the external. They can recognise easily the nature of internal instinctual drives and the consequences of acting upon those drives.
It is the same as when the thought arises: "I wish I could wring his neck or kill him". We of course do not act out that motivation or drive because we have the wisdom to understand the consequences of those actions.
It is the same with religion. Without wisdom that comprehends the consequences of actions, religion will always cause inner conflict and tension.
Wanting religion to accept you but being not willing to accept religion is quite a minefield.
Good debate --
DDhatu
~nomad
At the Tibetan Buddhist centres I'm familiar with, all people are accepted into the community.
Kind wishes,
Dazzle
Palzang
This one's 3 years old.....
A lot of the people above, are no longer here....