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.