Path: shell.portal.com!shell.portal.com!not-for-mail
From: !
Newsgroups: alt.zen,alt.philosophy.zen,alt.magick.tantra,alt.magick.tyagi
Subject: Sex and Religion (Was Re: Student/Teacher Sex - THE SCORE)
Date: 22 Dec 1995 09:58:29 -0800
Organization: Portal Communications (shell)
Lines: 35
Sender: tyagi@shell.portal.com
Message-ID: <4berk5$89h@jobe.shell.portal.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: jobe.shell.portal.com
Xref: shell.portal.com alt.zen:19913 alt.philosophy.zen:5182 alt.magick.tantra:384 alt.magick.tyagi:5690

|When we are hungry, the urge is to eat.  When we are tired, the urge is
|to rest.  Sex?

when we are horny, the urge is to fuck.  very simple

|If the teacher is truly an "enlightend Zen master, at one with that
|which is", then where is the power differential?  

the risk is that the power differential will remain in the mind of 
 the student and therefore influence hir development in harmful ways

|If the Zen Master is not, then what is the basis of the teaching and 
|the following thereof?

teaching: orthodox Buddhism teaches no sex for monks (as I understand
 it); this is intended as an ascetic measure designed to facilitate
 the awakening process, since sexuality and other intensely involving
 activities can at times make the action of detachment quite difficult

this says nothing about what people should do in the privacy of their
 own homes, but it may have something valuable to say about the risks
 involved


following: without the awareness of our own awakening we can never be
 sure that we are not deceiving ourselves about the relationship
 between teacher and student (in this case, rather than master/monk);

typically, as I understand it in my limited experience, sexual 
 involvement between a teacher and student is frowned upon by orthodox
 Buddhist establishment, so this may be an indication of not only the
 limitations of the organized social mechanism, but also of the difficulty
 of waking up while fucking like rabbits

some tantrics might of course disagree with the accuracy of this last :)