1
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Miriam says, I've heard of married monks.

2
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Do you think people should listen to the talks these monks give?

3
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I don't mean married monks, do you?

4
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What Tarindu was telling me earlier that he thinks the monks at Sri Mahabodhi are married.

5
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No, I think at Sri Mahabodhi it's those rishis, the guys that look like monks but have this thing on their Hindu or something.

6
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I saw some of those in Amarada Purva.

7
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And they might very well be married.

8
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In Zen, you are allowed to marry.

9
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I know Japanese monks, and they're married.

10
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They're very good monks, so you can't generalize.

11
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So there are traditions in Buddhism where they are allowed to marry.

12
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But there is some, I mean, the fact that they're married does give, I would say does kind of take away from the whole leaving samsara behind thing.

13
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Well, then you have to question Zen as such.

14
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Yeah, but Zen, do they really, sometimes they want to become Buddhas, I don't know.

15
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And then they have to go through everything again.

16
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Oh, yeah, so it's a whole different... I mean, what route are they going?

17
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What are they on?

18
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What are they doing that they have become married?

19
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But it seems that it would dilute the teachings to have a wife.

20
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I mean, there's this dating service that they have in Japan for monks.

21
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But it seems like it's just because they need more monks.

22
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So they have babies, and the babies become monks.

23
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That's what the article said.

24
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But okay, if you want to go with it.

25
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I mean, I know even in our tradition there are people who are married.

26
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S. N. Goenka is married.

27
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And he's a very well respected person.

28
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So yeah, I guess the marriage itself doesn't mean much.

29
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But the whole concept of marrying as a part of Buddhism, I think I would

30
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question as diluting the teaching.

31
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Because what is it to marry someone?

32
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Is there a function to it?

33
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I mean, is there a dharmic benefit to marrying?

34
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besides seeing the suffering of life.

35
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We don't want to go into that.

36
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Right.

37
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We don't want to go into that example.

38
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We have a meditator here right now who's... We don't want to go into that.

39
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Well, she's thinking of letting go and giving up the whole idea of getting married.

40
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So we were just talking about...

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about marriage.

42
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Yeah, let's stop there.