Sex, Sin, and Zen: A Buddhist Exploration of Sex from Celibacy to Polyamory and Everything in Between by Brad Warner

Author:Brad Warner [Warner, Brad]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781577319108
Publisher: New World Library
Published: 2010-10-11T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter 17

WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?

Oddly enough, in my interview with Nina Hartley we barely touched on the subject of love. That wasn’t a deliberate omission. It just never came up. But I do get a lot of questions about love, which I’ll try and address. Here’s an email I received that covers an aspect of the topic I often get asked about. I touched on it right at the beginning of this book, in fact.

It bugs me that Gautama Buddha left his family. The message I get from your books (and other Zen writing) is that you don’t need to run away to find enlightenment, the truth, or whatever. If you happen to be a prince with a wife and child, those circumstances are not obstacles to your practice — they are your practice. Also, you shouldn’t hurt or neglect the people and things in your life to pursue some abstract goal. It seems like this part of the historical Buddha’s story is inconsistent with these principles. The way the story is usually told, I get the impression that he wouldn’t have been able to find enlightenment if he hadn’t left his family — in other words, having a family life really was an obstacle to his practice. I’ve also heard stories of others who left their families to join his original group. So here’s the question: How do you think one should interpret the fact that the historical Buddha and others in his group left their families? Also, what would you say to someone today who wanted to leave his or her spouse and children in order to devote more time to sitting?

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