Ooku by Fumi Yoshinaga

I know just mentioning Buddhism in a works of art, will hardly lead one to enlightenment, but still it's rare enough in English for me to get a wee bit excited. Counterfactual history from 1603 and 1867, the Edo Period in Japan.

Ooku is a Netflix show, and graphic novel by Fumi Yoshinaga. The premise is that there's an illness that wipes out the male population and with so few men, the dynamics change. Women take over and are even the shoguns. The shogun has a harem of men. 

In the above panel, before he goes off to live in the harem, he is kind to sleep with women who want children. He has a female friend who discusses it with him. Some men charge for such an activity, but he takes all comers for free. He's conflated his kindness to a transcendence. His friend sees through this, but is also a bit harsh. 

I like the self serving aspect to it, and the harsh judgment. I love the commentary "BAZONK". A satyr is a sylvan (forest) deity in Greek mythology having certain characteristics of a horse or goat and fond of Dionysian revelry. Dionysus is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre.

In Buddhism you move away from rushing towards pleasure, and fleeing pain through development, and insight into conditionality. 

The teachings are developed and corrupted. The Buddha said it was better to stick your dick in a snake's mouth than in a woman. Then later in Mahayana it's a Bodhisattva who will sleep with an ugly woman they're not attracted to. It might not be literal, that's the weird thing about spiritual writing, it's all about attitudes, and not actual concrete suggestions. 

Triratna is a Buddhist movement without a lineage, started in 1967 by an Englishman with the ordained name of Sangharakshita, that is neither monastic nor lay, transcending that duality. Many order members are married or in relationships. In the swinging 70's it was perhaps just against harming people, and shucking off Christian prudery and negativity about homosexuality. 

In Transcendentalism there were a few people who we don't know much about their sexual lives, and that has led to speculation that they were gay. Thoreau's sexual life is unknown. He was rhapsodic about young male friendship, and that could be gayness leaking out or it could just be wholesome friendships. Alcott is unknown, people guess that she was gay. Whitman was openly gay. Dickinson gets a new ahistorical show that makes her in love with her brother's wife.

Sex and the Spiritual Teacher by Scott Edelstein is a good book to read about sexual misconduct in the spiritual community. Never do anything that you don't want to, and don't imagine a spiritual guru is going to help you with your genitals.

The above is why some people say only trust Theravada monks, though there are many Theravada sex scandals as well, so it's not a guarantee.

In Star Wars, Anniken is in Jedi training, and they are basically Samurai, and that is based on Zen, which doesn't have chastity always, but Anniken isn't supposed to get married, and he does.  

John Stevens writes Lust For Enlightenment, which is about sexuality in the Zen tradition. I reviewed an advanced copy of some erotica he wrote, and it seems to be pulled from the market because his Wikipedia page doesn't list it amongst his publications and the widget I put up with a photo of the book is gone. I found my advanced copy of Tantra of the Tachikawa Ryu.

I am fragile, my mating mind burns a lot of energy, no matter how much I try to focus on my body, feelings, thoughts and the Dharma. I have made mistakes, sexual misconduct, that I'm utterly ashamed of, very sorry for the pain I caused, and it has hijacked my spiritual life. Full disclosure, I'm not moralizing from up on high, I'm saying I've made these mistakes, and indeed there is a history of it in many people's lives, and in Triratna, and in Buddhism in general. There are the ideals and there's what people do. I don't think the ideals are harmed by messy humans. I don't think we need to get rid of the ideals even if people fall short. I can still aim for them even if I've fallen short in the past.

With simplicity, stillness and contentment I purify my body.

I'm only on the first graphic novel, but later in the show no Netflix, there's a monk who's forced to have sex or someone will be murdered. That's pretty intense choice.

168th Anniversary of publication of Leaves of Grass

 “I accept Time absolutely.

It alone is without flaw,

It alone rounds and completes all,

That mystic baffling wonder.”

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”

“Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me?

And why should I not speak to you?”

“This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,

Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,

Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best.

Night, sleep, and the stars.”

“I will sleep no more but arise, You oceans that have been calm within me! how I feel you, fathomless, stirring, preparing unprecedented waves and storms.”

“I am large, I contain multitudes”

“Do anything, but let it produce joy.”

Kobat-Zinn’s appreciation

About Analayo: “ his emphasis on gentleness and non-striving and openness, rather than contracting around any one view or teaching. Rather than striving to “attain” what is being pointed to and invited in a particular practice, his emphasis is always on recognizing that quality’s inherent presence. Whether it is breathing in or breathing out experiencing joy, or happiness, or impermanence, dispassion, cessation, or letting go, we simply invite that quality to manifest on its own as we attend to the inbreath and to the out-breath, and to the pauses between them.”

-From the Intro to Analayo's Mindfulness of Breathing (2019).

gobbledygook of my own making

Through the magic of technology, I'm meditating with a master. It's amazing. I'm so grateful. I hear birds in England and birds in New York City. 

I feel so lucky to have stumbled upon an online retreat. I met him in person probably 15 years ago. He's probably not taken u turns like I have, and just keeps developing. My spiritual life was 10 years of deepening, and then a 10 year detour. I'm hoping to coming back. I try to gently let go of that story and inhabit the breath. 

The usual feeling of my head coming out of warp speed when I start to meditate a lot. There's so much mental chatter. Coming into the body and I can't help but cry and cry. I have made mistakes I deeply regret, and struggle to forgive myself. I forgive myself for punishing myself. I don't know how to right wrongs of the past, the harm I've done. Forgive, forgive. Inside not forgiving is impatience and unrealistic expectations, not accepting conditions, resisting reality. I feel heat, like I'm burning off impurities. 

Out on my mindful walk, I have a brief flash of nausea from the coffee I gulped. That's the story I tell, and I'm painfully aware of how important it is for me to tell a story. Keep wanting to remember things to write about and blog, because when I actually sit down to do it, I panic that nothing is going to come sometimes. Obviously something comes, too much, this blog is just mental chatter. The culture around Buddhism has some interest. Everyone should express their insights, and then we could put it all into an AI and we could have an interesting artificial intelligence. 

No need to force anything. I want to add the word naturally because I think that word cuts through a lot of metaphysical gobbledygook I've inherited in the USA, that's too abstract, there's more recent clutter of my own making. America were founded by religious zealots. Vigor in the spiritual life is important, but there are a lot of New England horror stories. In a way Poe, the biggest critic of Transcendentalism, expresses that horror. Concord Transcendentalism is quite hard to read, but I really like ending up with naturalists cutting through Puritan excesses. Go for a walk. The brief pink sky as the sun rises. 

Where is the breath? Soothing the body. Nothing to exclude. Aware of the conditions of the body. Sensitive to delight. Train myself to calm mental fabrications. They calm naturally. Relax.

Seeing restlessness as a hindrance makes me want to do something about it, but seeing calming, I just relax in seeing restlessness decrease a little bit. Patience. Training. 

I feel gratitude. 

You can watch the meditation lead through on Vimeo. Second sit Vimeo.

Kamalashila's website