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Homosexuality, Sexual Practices And Attaining Realisations?

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I heard about the book from Jeffrey Hopkins "Sex, Orgasm, and the Mind of Clear Light: The Sixty-four Arts of Gay Male Love". It is based on the text of Tibetan philosopher Gedun Chopel "Tibetan Arts of Love", but adapted into a gay sex guide.

 

From what I gathered by now, to gain spiritual realisations we would need a man and a woman - but based on this book, it looks like a gay couple can also use sexual practices in a spiritual manner? To attain the realisation of Clear Light - as the book title claims? And is it really that simple - that we could attain Realisations by following advice in a sex guide - about positions and the best way to have sex? :blink:

 

Thank you :)

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I heard about the book from Jeffrey Hopkins "Sex, Orgasm, and the Mind of Clear Light

To my understanding, the practice of the Path of Tantra: 1. requires polarity man/woman, 2. is not a matter of usual sexual intercourse.

 

As long as one has the ego to identify with the appearance of the physical body, one can't pretend to practice the Highest Tantra at the level of using a sexual intercourse.

All what is done before between partners engaged into Buddhism is a "game", a simulation, eventually a preparation; but not the practice itself. And mixing a normal sexual intercourse with Tantra practice is a downfall among Tantric vows!

Buddhism doesn't discriminate homosexuals, but doesn't see homosexuality as a proper behaviour, and homosexual sexuality is considered as sexual misconduct, especially since it uses for sexual pleasure ways which are not meant for that.

This is the point I have been talking about many times: to differentiate the person and the behaviour. All persons should be in our field of Compassion, and worth our care. Yet, we can agree or disagree with some aspects or behaviours of a person. One doesn't exclude the other.

I have no problem praying for the well being of anyone. I consider that they are blinded by some negative causes, emotions, fears, etc. Their behaviour is not "them". I wouldn't condemn someone who would hurt me by extreme fear, or thinking s/he will save this way his/her children.

 

It could be that Jeffrey Hopkins - himself openly gay - tries to justify his orientation, and seeks a way to integrate it into the practice. If homosexuals find a way to deal with their desires in the best manner, following all other ethical principles explained in Dharma, becoming a good and happy person, then surely this book has a positive effect. But the way it is placed, with all possible misunderstandings, twists, on the market is, to my view, a transgression of many principles; and could bring more harm than benefit.

 

Why Tantras were highly secret? Not to hide any perversion, but because people not well prepared enough would misinterpret, as it is very often done in the West.

Some people turn to Tantra hoping to find new and exotic sexual techniques or spiritual justification for their obsession with sex.

We shall not fall in the trap of developing attachment and disguise this into practice. Doing so is an enormous mistakes! Tantra deals with energies, not with gross concepts.

In the depicted Buddhas in union, it's not about "having sex, but about recognizing the true nature of the mind. The union of father and mother signifies blissful awareness conjoined with the realization of Emptiness, the realization or understanding of Emptiness with a blissful awareness.

To achieve this, both partners shall have same level of realization, and control of the inner energies to bring them into the central energy-channel. Such practice results into a state of mind conducive to reach the most subtle state of one's mental continuum, the clear light. The depicted position in union, which goes with deep visualization methods, is only to enhance the practice, and surely not to experience any sexual orgasm. During such practice, the central channels join in a way virtually impossible for homosexuals.

 

Integrating the masculine and feminine principles, like method and wisdom, is required for giving birth to enlightenment, as union of father and mother is required to give birth to a child.

Thus, homosexual not being able to give birth to a child because lacking one of the principle, won't give birth to Enlightenment, as long as they remain in their current reactive patterns.

 

Any way to promote more attachment is not welcome, in any way, homosexuals or heterosexuals.

Tantra is viewing desire differently (than Sutra), but attachment the same way. We shall not forget that to enter Tantra one should have well understood the "Three Pillars of the Path": Renunciation, Bodhicitta, Emptiness.

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I think it is all well and good to talk about having compassion for homosexuals but unless we can accept that in past lives we were homosexuals and in some future life we could also be a homosexual, then our so-called compassion could easily be in reality simple pity. I suppose the same could be said of our relationship with animals - once we look upon ourselves as something superior than the object of our compassion then that compassion quickly turns out to be mere pity. Sometimes we are ill - sometimes we are well and sometimes we are happy and sometimes we are sad BUT our compassion must be independent of our present perceived state of being and the present perceived state of being of our object of compassion to really be worthy of calling it compassion.

When asked how he was feeling the sick Zen master replied "sun Buddha, moon Boddha" - form is form and emptiness is emptiness - but form is also emptiness and emptiness also form.

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I think it is all well and good to talk about having compassion for homosexuals but unless we can accept that in past lives we were homosexuals and in some future life we could also be a homosexual, then our so-called compassion could easily be in reality simple pity.

I agree that we must watch out and not mistake mere pity for compassion.

 

Yet, normally we don't develop compassion on the basis of our past lives as this and that. Simply, even if we admit we were this or that, or may become this or that in the future, it doesn't guarantee any positive kind of emotions towards any being. It may even generate negative feelings about ourselves ...

 

To generate compassion, we meditate on how these sentient beings were once our mothers, we remember how kind they were as a mother to us and how they took care of us, and how we wish to repay that kindness. From that we arrive to heart-warming love towards them, and from this, compassion and then Bodhicitta.

The whole meditation is described in the "Teachings" section, under "Six Causes for one Effect".

 

Best wishes :)

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Yes, thank you, I agree Six Causes for One Effect is the appropriate teaching for generating Bodhicitta but once the mind is the mind of Bodhicitta it surely becomes like a mirror in which everything is reflected. It becomes the mind of equanimity where we recognise that we were and will become that other being according to causes and conditions yet to ripen - we shall become that homosexual and indeed were once that homosexual - in fact we are that homosexual already because the causes and conditions have already been planted.

 

And yet there is nothing to fear in this realisation of the mirror-mind as we also develop the skillful means whereby we regulate what appears in the mirror-mind, and cut off the karmic spinning mind, and in doing so do not become a homosexual or even a muderer in some future life.

 

Yes I agree the Six Causes for One Effect teaching generates Bodhicitta, which leads to the realisation of the mirror-mind and excludes the possibility of acting out of mere pity.

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but once the mind is the mind of Bodhicitta it surely becomes like a mirror in which everything is reflected. It becomes the mind of equanimity where we recognise that we were and will become that other being according to causes and conditions yet to ripen - we shall become that homosexual

 

As I was taught, once we develop Bodhicitta, our aspiration is to become an Arya Bodhisattva and finally a Buddha, to liberate all sentient beings. On the way we also do our best to purify as many of the negative causes as possible. So I guess we also strive to remove the causes of homosexuality, because it is an obstacle to attaining realisations, as we can read above.

 

This discussion in fact isn't about accepting or rejecting homosexuality per se, it is about homosexuality as help/hindrance on the spiritual path. In this context, to automatically accept that we will possibly be homosexual in some future life includes a kind of fatalism, and this is exactly what we are trying to avoid - any causes we may have created in the past cannot prevent us from reaching Buddhahood. So we aren't working on accepting all possible causes we may have created and their "inevitable" results, but looking how to remove ourselves from these causes and results, and samsara altogether.

 

For this, of course, we should practice in accordance with the instructions of a qualified Spiritual Guide.

 

Best wishes. :)

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