Posted by Matiz on December 06, 2000 at 11:30:30:
In Reply to: The Zen of Whoremongering posted by kendricks on December 06, 2000 at 09:31:34:
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Kendricks: "Recategorizing" sex as a "need" instead of a "desire" might help Clinton with the Special Prosecutor, but it won't cut it in a spiritual context. Utimately, in every spiritual tradition that I know of, you have to confront those desires and root them out in order to make spiritual progress. How you classify them is unimportant. The good news is that Zen doesn't actually preach the need for eliminating desires in the traditional sense (although it's often translated that way). Zen recognizes that anger, greed, and desire are a natural part of the fabric of the unenlightened human mind. Instead, it preaches transcending those desires and the objects of desire through non-attachment. The bad news is that non-attachment can't be achieved just by willing it, like giving up cigarettes or resisting the urge to eat the last piece of banana cream pie in the fridge. It can only be achieved through a spiritual life of moderation and observing the prescriptions for a spiritual life, i.e., right livelihood, right conduct, right speech, right thinking, etc. When these qualities are fully developed, base desires will naturally fall away (or so I'm told by reliable sources; obviously I'm not there yet). I have grappled, though, with this very issue for twelve years in my trips to TJ. I won't presume to give you advice. I'll just tell you from my own experience that rather than letting it become a source of added guilt (I have enough of that already from our Puritanical culture, thank you), I try to live a more moderate "right" life outside of TJ. Little by little, this "right living" has spilled over into my trips to TJ and colors the experiences I have there. "Progress" of this kind is always slow, frequently imperceptible, and often punctuated by sliding backwards. But, IMO, the true spiritual path is a continuous sequence of baby steps forward, not a couple of giant strides. As John Lennon said, "You know, we're all doing what we can."
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