Wisdom Quarterly: sane ascetic practices

Friday, July 8, 2011

Some Buddhist advice on lust

Key passages from Buddhist texts translated by Wisdom Quarterly

What household-Buddhists do is one thing. What Sangha-members (Buddhist monastics) do is another. The Buddha advised renunciates (monks, nuns, novices, and those training intensively) to be extremely careful to avoid the snare of lust.

Of great advantage is restraint in body, of great advantage is restraint in speech. Of great advantage is restraint in mind, of great advantage is restraint everywhere. The renunciate restrained in everything is freed from all sorrow.

It would be far better to bore out your eyes with red-hot irons than encourage yourselves in sensual thoughts or look upon a man or woman's form with lustful desire.

The renunciate who has retired to a quiet of place [seclusion of heart/mind but not necessarily of body, unless that is needed], who has calmed mind/heart, who clearly perceives the Dharma experiences a joy transcending that of humans.

O renunciates, if you must speak with a [member of the other sex], let it be with pure heart, and think to yourself, “As a renunciate I will live in this corrupting world as the spotless leaf of the lotus, unsoiled by the mud it grows out of.”

If the [person] be old, regard that person as your [parent]; if young, as your [sibling]; if very young as your child.

O renunciates, cover your heads with the helmet of right intention, and abandon with fixed resolve the five [strands of sense] desire.

Lust clouds one's heart when it is confused with [form's] beauty and the mind is dazed.

One who is controlled in hand, foot, speech, and in the highest [head], one who delights in meditation and is composed, one who is solitary and contented -- that person is called a renunciate.

One who holds neither “I” nor “me” at all towards mind and body [a stream enterer or other noble disciple], who grieves not for that which one does not have -- that person, indeed, is called a renunciate.

As the jasmine creeper sheds withered flowers, even so, O renunciates, totally shed lust and hatred. More

(discovermagazine.com)

Gratification, Danger, and Escape – 1
Based on Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation in Anthology of Discourses
Before my enlightenment, O disciples, when I was still a bodhisatta (being striving for supreme enlightenment), this thought occurred to me:

“What is the gratification in the world, what is the danger in the world, and what is the escape from the world?”87

Then I thought:

“Whatever joy and happiness there is in the world [and there is plenty], that is the gratification in the world;
That the world is impermanent, pervaded by disappointment, and subject to change, that is the danger in the world;
The removal and abandoning of [sensual] desire and lust for the world, that is the escape from the world.”

So long, disciples, as I did not fully understand as they really are the world’s gratification as gratification, its danger as danger, and the escape from the world as escape, for so long I did not claim that I had awakened to the unsurpassed perfect enlightenment in this world with its devas, māras, and brahmās [light beings, adversaries, and divinities], in this generation [a biological not chronological reference] with its ascetics and brahmins, its [earthbound-] devas and humans.

But when I had fully understood all this, then I claimed that I had awakened to the unsurpassed perfect enlightenment in this world with…its devas and humans. The knowledge and vision arose in me:

“Unshakable is the liberation of my mind; this is my last birth; there is now no further re-becoming [rebirth].”

86. Ajjhupekkhati. This refers to the third itemupekkhā (equanimity, impartiality, unbiased observation], which literally means “onlooking,” that is, detached observation or examination.
87. These three terms, which often appear together in the texts, are in Pāli: assāda, ādīnava, nissaraṇa. The commentaries relate them to the Four Noble Truths in this way: “Danger” indicates the truth of suffering [dukkha or disappointment]; “gratification,” the truth of the origin (for pleasure is the stimulus for craving, the true origin of suffering); and “escape,” the truth of the cessation of suffering, or Nibbāna (Sanskrit, nirvana). Although the fourth truth, the truth of the path, is not explicitly mentioned in this triad, it is implied as the means or way of escape.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Escape? The seclusion illusion

Megan Johnston (smh.com.au, May 14, 2011)

(Illustration by Robert Duong. Photo: Robert Duong)

Sick of modern life? You're not Robinson Crusoe. But withdrawing from the world only makes things worse.

It has been almost 20 years since an idealistic drifter called Christopher McCandless trekked into the Alaskan wilderness and died. Seeking a period of contemplation and driven by a contempt for civilization, the young American gave away his savings and abandoned his possessions before embarking on what he saw as a noble odyssey.

Desperately ill-prepared, his quest lasted barely a few months before he perished from starvation.

His journey may have been doomed, but our fascination with it and the abundance of websites, books, and films that have immortalized his memory all speak to our longing for solitude.

The impulse is familiar to anyone who has felt overwhelmed by modern life. When disaster, over-information, or financial stress become too much, we retreat to soothing distractions and bunker down in personal affairs.

Instead of escaping to the wilderness, however, we usually seek solace in the cinema, in the meditation hall, or at a bolthole by the beach.

In many cases it's no more than a healthy diversion. No one could sensibly argue that an occasional break is anything other than good for our well-being.

But for some, seclusion can morph into long-term withdrawal. Solitude can tip into loneliness. Cocooning, it's often called. Or its close relation -- escapism. As inviting as both may seem, they rarely bring contentment. More