What is your view on having sex as a Buddhist?
Are you, for example, allowed to have multiple sexual relationships?
I put the emphasis wrong.
I'm not allowed to have any sexual relationships, but are you means in general, right?
So in general, a lay person, put it in general, because sensual desire is evil.
It's an evil.
This is Buddhist word evil.
Because the meaning of the word evil is something that is going to lead you to suffer.
Now, the core of Buddhism is that desire leads you to suffer.
Wanting something leads you to try to get it.
When you try to get it, it changes your life.
You want to get something, so you have to work for it, and that changes your whole universe in some small way.
And that's going to create more stress.
It's going to create more dissatisfaction and suffering.
So undeniably it's a bad thing.
But the question is how bad?
Is it really going to get in the way of your meditation practice?
No, probably not.
Excessive sex or multiple sexual relationships can get in your way, whether it's with one person or with many people.
In fact, many people would be more deleterious for your practice.
It's not a horrible thing in Buddhism to have multiple sexual relationships.
The problem comes where you are deceiving people.
This is where real bad, this is where it gets really bad, and where it gets really, where you might really start to say, this is evil.
It's really evil when you start deceiving people.
And that's where it really cuts your practice and starts heading you in the opposite direction.
It doesn't just slow you down.
It starts heading you in the wrong direction.
When you're sleeping around.
When you have a monogamous relationship and are committed to it and then are cheating on that person.
Or someone else is in a monogamous relationship and you're sleeping with them.
This kind of thing, this is where it really gets trouble.
If you're in a polygamous relationship, this is not a corrupt evil in Buddhism.
And, you know, really, I don't know.
I've thought about this a lot.
And you look at it, it's really what never was seen as such.
And I don't know where it became, but it's kind of this
maybe even Protestantism that turned it into such a horrible thing to have a polygamous relationship.
If anything, it seems to be what God designed us for.
One man, many women.
Look at nature.
It's not always, but with monkeys, for example, chimpanzees,
It's very common to see polygamous relationships, right?
We see it all the time in the forest.
One big monkey and he's going around, he's got all these women.
So the problem isn't that it's a matter of... It's in a category of its own.
It's not in a category.
It's just fairly extreme.
The more sex and the more diverse sex you have, the more it's going to get in the way of your practice.
It hasn't crossed the line of being...
Immoral in the sense of leading you backwards yet.
It's not leading you in the wrong It is but it can still be be Worked out through meditation if you start cheating on people if you start lying and deceiving people breaking up relationships That makes your meditation very very difficult in a very different way.
So that's categorically different.
I
This has to be understood.
But it has to also be understood.
I don't want you to say that, oh, polygamy is fine, go for it.
It's really going to get in your way and it's going to make you, you know, sex in general, but for sure, promiscuity and polygamy will for sure drive you crazy.
Your mind will become more and more and more attached to it.
The best thing is to give it up and start looking at the sexual desire.
Give it up, be celibate, and start looking at the celibate
Looking at the desire.
If you happen to break your celibacy, just don't become a monk yet.
But start looking at it.
Try to be celibate for a while.
See what happens.
Watch the sexual urges and really learn about them.
Take it as a laboratory experiment.
It's much more conducive.
There's no reason to be promiscuous.
There's no reason to be polygamous.
It doesn't do you any good.
It doesn't make you more happy.
What good is it?
It just makes you less satisfied.
It doesn't make you a better person.
It doesn't make you a happier person.
It doesn't make you more content.
What good is it?
Better to go the other direction.