Intimacy and all that we perceive it as

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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kmath
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Re: Intimacy and all that we perceive it as

Post by kmath »

tiltbillings wrote:In 1979 in Barre, Massachusetts, during a question-and-answer session while on retreat, someone asked Ajahn Chah, "Is it necessarily a barrier to be in a sexual relationship? Can one not view sex in terms of it being the dance of the sacred marriage? Couldn't it be noble and mystical?" After Ajahn Chah had the question translated, he pondered for a moment and then started picking his nose in a very graphic and extended way. When everyone was rolling on the floor laughing and he was sure they definitely got the point, he pulled his finger out of his nose: "There's nothing more to it than that, except what the mind adds to it." Perhaps this story has been altered a bit in the telling, but it's still a good story.
What do you really expect when you ask that kind of question to Ajahn Chah?
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tiltbillings
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Re: Intimacy and all that we perceive it as

Post by tiltbillings »

kmath wrote:
tiltbillings wrote:In 1979 in Barre, Massachusetts, during a question-and-answer session while on retreat, someone asked Ajahn Chah, "Is it necessarily a barrier to be in a sexual relationship? Can one not view sex in terms of it being the dance of the sacred marriage? Couldn't it be noble and mystical?" After Ajahn Chah had the question translated, he pondered for a moment and then started picking his nose in a very graphic and extended way. When everyone was rolling on the floor laughing and he was sure they definitely got the point, he pulled his finger out of his nose: "There's nothing more to it than that, except what the mind adds to it." Perhaps this story has been altered a bit in the telling, but it's still a good story.
What do you really expect when you ask that kind of question to Ajahn Chah?
That is an Ajahn Chah response, from all the stories I have heard and read about him, but I would somewhat circumspect in generalizing from that demonstration of blunt, rural Thai humor.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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tiltbillings
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Re: Intimacy and all that we perceive it as

Post by tiltbillings »

Sanjay PS wrote:Everything in this world is sensations Tilt .Even sensational news or sensational events get the maximum attention :smile:

Whether we like it or not , accept this truth or not , it does not matter . That is why the Buddha said , we don't love anyone or anything , it is just the sensations that keeps fooling us to believe the contrary .
Quote the text.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
Thule
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Re: Intimacy and all that we perceive it as

Post by Thule »

Here's a talk where Ajahn Chah used "finger and nose" in a perhaps more suitable context:
Part VIII
Everything Is Teaching Us
Right Restraint

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai ... ah_web.pdf
Exercise restraint and caution about the six sense faculties of the eye seeing forms, the ear hearing sounds, and so forth. This is what we are constantly teaching about in so many different ways. It always comes back to this. But to be truthful with ourselves, are we really aware of what goes on? When the eye sees something, does delight come about? Do we really investigate? If we investigate, we will know that it is just this delight that is the cause for suffering to be born. Aversion is the cause for suffering to be born. These two reactions actually have the same value. When they occur, we can see the fault of them. If there is delight, it is merely delight. If there is aversion, it is merely aversion. This is the way to quell them.

For example, we attach special importance to the head. From the time we are born, in this society, we learn that the head is something of the utmost significance. If anyone touches it or hits it, we are ready to die. If we are slapped on other parts of our body, it’s no big deal; but we give this special importance to the head, and we get really angry if anyone slaps it.

It’s the same with the senses. Sexual intercourse excites the minds of people, but it really isn’t different from sticking a finger in your nostril. Would that mean anything special to you? But worldly beings have this attachment to the other entrance; whether it is animals or humans, it has special importance to them. If it were a finger picking a nostril, they wouldn’t get excited over that. But the sight of this one inflames us. Why is this? This is where becoming is. If we don’t attach special importance to it, then it’s just the same as putting a finger in your nostril. Whatever happened inside, you wouldn’t get excited; you’d just pull out some snot and be done with it.

But how far is your thinking from such a perception? The ordinary, natural truth of the matter is just like this. Seeing in this way, we aren’t creating any becoming, and without becoming there won’t be a birth; there won’t be happiness or suffering over it, there won’t be delight coming about. There is no grasping attachment when we realize this place for what it is. But worldly beings want to put something there. That’s what they like. They want to work in the dirty place. Working in a clean place is not interesting, but they rush to work in this place. And they don’t even have to be paid to do it!

Please look at this. It’s just a conventional reality that people are stuck in. This is an important point of practice for us. If we contemplate the holes and entrances of our nose and ears and the rest, we can see that they are all the same, just orifices filled with unclean substances. Or are any of them clean? So we should contemplate this in the way of Dhamma. The truly fearful is here, nowhere else. This is where we humans lose our minds.
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tiltbillings
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Re: Intimacy and all that we perceive it as

Post by tiltbillings »

Thule wrote:

It’s the same with the senses. Sexual intercourse excites the minds of people, but it really isn’t different from sticking a finger in your nostril. Would that mean anything special to you? But worldly beings have this attachment to the other entrance; whether it is animals or humans, it has special importance to them. If it were a finger picking a nostril, they wouldn’t get excited over that. But the sight of this one inflames us. Why is this? This is where becoming is. If we don’t attach special importance to it, then it’s just the same as putting a finger in your nostril. Whatever happened inside, you wouldn’t get excited; you’d just pull out some snot and be done with it.
Again, it something a life long celibate monk would say. I does not warrant a comment.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Viscid
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Re: Intimacy and all that we perceive it as

Post by Viscid »

It's a response we should expect from a celibate monk. If you've been celibate that long, you had to cultivate a strong dispassion (and/or disgust) toward sex, and any suggestion that sex provided a valuable mystical experience would be regarded as foolish.

The value of any mystical experience, sexual or otherwise, should be judged by its subsequent impact on the individual who had it. Does it make a person more wise, more insightful, or more capable of controlling greed, hatred and delusion? If some mystical sexual experience does make one more trusting and loving towards their partner, then it most certainly has value. However, if the mystical experience does not impart change upon the individual, then it should be regarded to be as vacuous as any sensual pleasure.
"What holds attention determines action." - William James
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tiltbillings
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Re: Intimacy and all that we perceive it as

Post by tiltbillings »

Viscid wrote:It's a response we should expect from a celibate monk. If you've been celibate that long, you had to cultivate a strong dispassion (and/or disgust) toward sex, and any suggestion that sex provided a valuable mystical experience would be regarded as foolish.

The value of any mystical experience, sexual or otherwise, should be judged by its subsequent impact on the individual who had it. Does it make a person more wise, more insightful, or more capable of controlling greed, hatred and delusion? If some mystical sexual experience does make one more trusting and loving towards their partner, then it most certainly has value. However, if the mystical experience does not impart change upon the individual, then it should be regarded to be as vacuous as any sensual pleasure.
It is not about mystical experience. It is, however, about relationship between two adults, and sex is just a part of that, and it is a bit more than just nose picking. Ajahn Chah, on so many levels, really had not a clue.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Viscid
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Re: Intimacy and all that we perceive it as

Post by Viscid »

tiltbillings wrote:It is not about mystical experience. It is, however, about relationship between two adults,
Oh, you're right. I read it too quick, I thought the questioner asked about something like tantra. And yes, Ajahn Chah in this instance does seem to disregard, (or more likely just be ignorant of,) the value of physical bonding.
"What holds attention determines action." - William James
daverupa
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Re: Intimacy and all that we perceive it as

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tiltbillings wrote:It is, however, about relationship between two adults, and sex is just a part of that, and it is a bit more than just nose picking.
wiki wrote:It is believed by many that sexual desire plays an important role in romantic love and that it may be an extremely important factor in strengthening the interpersonal dynamic of romantic relationships; recent studies have supported these theories and has also provided further insight into the various neurobiological substrates that influence the development of various types of relationships.
There is an interesting thing about this. In a recent Science article (Science 20 September 2013: Vol. 341 no. 6152 pp. 1336-1339) there is discussion of a difference between empathy and compassion:
When Singer asked (Matthieu) Ricard to "do his thing," focusing on compassion, in the MRI scanner, she got a surprise. The brain regions she saw light up were not the ones that she had seen time and again when subjects tuned into the suffering of another person. Instead, areas associated with romantic love or reward, such as the nucleus accumbens and ventral striatum, were activated.

Confused, Singer asked Ricard what he had been doing. He explained that he had put himself into a state of compassion, a warm feeling of well-wishing toward the world. When Ricard went back into the scanner and concentrated on the plight of children in a Romanian orphanage he had seen in a documentary, his brain showed the typical signature of empathy. But Ricard later said that the pain quickly became unbearable. "I felt emotionally exhausted, very similar to being burned out."
So there are at least two systems of goodwill, one of which can be quite weighty, even painful. What I wonder is, whether the romantic relationship and its features lean more towards empathic results or towards compassionate ones, as a general theme.

Empathy tends to be the result of a breakdown of interpersonal barriers such that the other is taken, at the neurological level at least, to be almost an appendage of the self - the pain of another is simulated as though it were one's own pain, and this is what leads to the burnout described above.

I wonder if romantic relationships foster one or another of these two systems more than the other, & I wonder if the brahmaviharas et al are similar or different with respect to that. I have my suspicions; sexual desire & activity is handled very differently than pervading space with goodwill, in my experience.
Last edited by daverupa on Thu Dec 19, 2013 10:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
binocular
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Re: Intimacy and all that we perceive it as

Post by binocular »

Perhaps once all these men, monks and lays, take birth in female bodies, maybe then they'll see things differently ...
Hic Rhodus, hic salta!
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Aloka
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Re: Intimacy and all that we perceive it as

Post by Aloka »

.

The Buddha didn't condemn loving relationships between lay couples. He said:

"Husband & wife, both of them
having conviction,
being responsive,
being restrained,
living by the Dhamma,
addressing each other
with loving words:
they benefit in manifold ways.
To them comes bliss.
Their enemies are dejected
when both are in tune in virtue.
Having followed the Dhamma here in this world,
both in tune in precepts & practices,
they delight in the world of the devas,
enjoying the pleasures they desire"

(AN 4.55)

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html
:anjali:
Thule
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Re: Intimacy and all that we perceive it as

Post by Thule »

binocular wrote:Perhaps once all these men, monks and lays, take birth in female bodies, maybe then they'll see things differently ...
So has she, too, Bhadda the Kapilani, gained for herself
The threefold knowledge and has vanquished death.
Having bravely vanquished Mara and his host,
It is the last formation of a body that she bears.

Seeing the world's deep misery, we both went forth
And are now both free of cankers, with well-tamed minds.
Cooled of passions, we have found deliverance;
Cooled of passions, we have found our freedom.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .hekh.html
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tiltbillings
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Re: Intimacy and all that we perceive it as

Post by tiltbillings »

binocular wrote:Perhaps once all these men, monks and lays, take birth in female bodies, maybe then they'll see things differently ...
One would hope that it work that way, but that would assume that that they would still male somehow looking through a woman's point of view. I think we bearers of the penis as such can do a little better with empathizing with women. it is always work in progress.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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tiltbillings
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Re: Intimacy and all that we perceive it as

Post by tiltbillings »

Aloka wrote:.

The Buddha didn't condemn loving relationships between lay couples. He said:

"Husband & wife, both of them
having conviction,
being responsive,
being restrained,
living by the Dhamma,
addressing each other
with loving words:
they benefit in manifold ways.
To them comes bliss.
Their enemies are dejected
when both are in tune in virtue.
Having followed the Dhamma here in this world,
both in tune in precepts & practices,
they delight in the world of the devas,
enjoying the pleasures they desire"

(AN 4.55)

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html
:anjali:
Thanks for that. There is also the quote from the Buddha about a married couple can travel through various lives together.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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PsychedelicSunSet
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Re: Intimacy and all that we perceive it as

Post by PsychedelicSunSet »

It's probably important to keep in mind that he was probably only capable of sexual desire whilst not in robes for about 5 years, which was over 40 years before this nose picking occurred. So this is the response of someone who has been practicing with incredible vigor to obtain enlightenment for almost their entire life, and hasn't been laid in AT LEAST 41 years. The fact that he responded the way he did isn't the least bit surprising, and I don't think his response should be considered insufficient. If anything the question was simply asked to the wrong person, or at least should of been clarified as to what it was a "barrier" too.



:anjali:
Metta
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