THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DEATH of the great and small, powerfully influential but gentlest of Buddhist Monks, Thitch Nhat Hanh at age 95 was the opposite of unexpected. He's been living his last years in seclusion in his first monastery in Vietnam after some debilitating strokes had robbed him of his ability to communicate. A man who had given endless instruction in meditation and morality, written many books in several languages must have found that to be quite a change to mindfully accept. Considering he was a Buddhist, a monk in a religion that is among the most conscious of all religions about the inevitable end of our lives, he had a long lifetime to prepare for that. His reputation might be marred by his associations with the Western Buddhism fad in its Silicon Valley-celebrity school, but it is clear from his less publicized work that he wasn't just another jet-set guru.
He and his teaching about the methodology of meditation, particularly walking meditation, had a great effect on me in the years leading up to my adult conversion. I'd never been able to tolerate sitting meditation for long, it just never took for me at all. Adding the movement of walking got me started on something that worked for me far better, though I gave up his "mindfulness" objects of meditation for the sayings of Jesus, the Law and the Prophets which is the largest part of my current near daily practice. I honor the memory of TNH, for that and for the enormous advance in Buddhism in the "Engaged Buddhism" movement which he is often credited with. I would expect that he is in heaven, with God though, of course, Buddhism doesn't conceive of those things the way a Christian would. I'd expect to see him there before some of the more recently canonized Catholics. A couple of them Popes.
Perhaps it's not entirely a coincidence that his death came in the same week that I've been thinking of writing in profound disagreement with something said by another great figure of religion who has had a huge influence on me, the 4th century Cappadocian Father St. Gregory of Nyssa. I've been reading and re-reading him this winter and I came back to his long essay On Virginity. Specifically I'd like to go over this long paragraph from it.
But in writing this sad tragedy what will be a fit beginning? How shall we really bring to view the evils common to life? All men know them by experience, but somehow nature has contrived to blind the actual sufferers so that they willingly ignore their condition. Shall we begin with its choicest sweets? Well then, is not the sum total of all that is hoped for in marriage to get delightful companionship? Grant this obtained; let us sketch a marriage in every way most happy; illustrious birth, competent means, suitable ages, the very flower of the prime of life, deep affection, the very best that each can think of the other , that sweet rivalry of each wishing to surpass the other in loving; in addition, popularity, power, wide reputation, and everything else. But observe that even beneath this array of blessings the fire of an inevitable pain is smouldering. I do not speak of the envy that is always springing up against those of distinguished rank, and the liability to attack which hangs over those who seem prosperous, and that natural hatred of superiors shown by those who do not share equally in the good fortune, which make these seemingly favoured ones pass an anxious time more full of pain than pleasure. I omit that from the picture, and will suppose that envy against them is asleep; although it would not be easy to find a single life in which both these blessings were joined, i.e. happiness above the common, and escape from envy. However, let us, if so it is to be, suppose a married life free from all such trials; and let us see if it is possible for those who live with such an amount of good fortune to enjoy it. Why, what kind of vexation is left, you will ask, when even envy of their happiness does not reach them? I affirm that this very thing, this sweetness that surrounds their lives, is the spark which kindles pain. They are human all the time, things weak and perishing; they have to look upon the tombs of their progenitors; and so pain is inseparably bound up with their existence, if they have the least power of reflection. This continued expectancy of death, realized by no sure tokens, but hanging over them the terrible uncertainty of the future, disturbs their present joy, clouding it over with the fear of what is coming. If only, before experience comes, the results of experience could be learned, or if, when one has entered on this course, it were possible by some other means of conjecture to survey the reality, then what a crowd of deserters would run from marriage into the virgin life; what care and eagerness never to be entangled in that retentive snare, where no one knows for certain how the net galls till they have actually entered it! You would see there, if only you could do it without danger, many contraries uniting; smiles melting into tears, pain mingled with pleasure, death always hanging by expectation over the children that are born, and putting a finger upon each of the sweetest joys. Whenever the husband looks at the beloved face, that moment the fear of separation accompanies the look. If he listens to the sweet voice, the thought comes into his mind that some day he will not hear it. Whenever he is glad with gazing on her beauty, then he shudders most with the presentiment of mourning her loss. When he marks all those charms which to youth are so precious and which the thoughtless seek for, the bright eyes beneath the lids, the arching eyebrows, the cheek with its sweet and dimpling smile, the natural red that blooms upon the lips, the gold-bound hair shining in many-twisted masses on the head, and all that transient grace, then, though he may be little given to reflection, he must have this thought also in his inmost soul that some day all this beauty will melt away and become as nothing, turned after all this show into noisome and unsightly bones, which wear no trace, no memorial, no remnant of that living bloom. Can he live delighted when he thinks of that? Can he trust in these treasures which he holds as if they would be always his? Nay, it is plain that he will stagger as if he were mocked by a dream, and will have his faith in life shaken, and will look upon what he sees as no longer his. You will understand, if you have a comprehensive view of things as they are, that nothing in this life looks that which it is. It shows to us by the illusions of our imagination one thing, instead of something else. Men gaze open-mouthed at it, and it mocks them with hopes; for a while it hides itself beneath this deceitful show; then all of a sudden in the reverses of life it is revealed as something different from that which men's hopes, conceived by its fraud in foolish hearts, had pictured. Will life's sweetness seem worth taking delight in to him who reflects on this? Will he ever be able really to feel it, so as to have joy in the goods he holds? Will he not, disturbed by the constant fear of some reverse, have the use without the enjoyment? I will but mention the portents, dreams, omens, and such-like things which by a foolish habit of thought are taken notice of, and always make men fear the worst. But her time of labour comes upon the young wife; and the occasion is regarded not as the bringing of a child into the world, but as the approach of death; in bearing it is expected that she will die; and, indeed, often this sad presentiment is true, and before they spread the birthday feast, before they taste any of their expected joys, they have to change their rejoicing into lamentation. Still in love's fever, still at the height of their passionate affection, not yet having grasped life's sweetest gifts, as in the vision of a dream, they are suddenly torn away from all they possessed. But what comes next? Domestics, like conquering foes, dismantle the bridal chamber; they deck it for the funeral, but it is death's room now; they make the useless wailings and beatings of the hands. Then there is the memory of former days, curses on those who advised the marriage, recriminations against friends who did not stop it; blame thrown on parents whether they be alive or dead, bitter outbursts against human destiny, arraigning of the whole course of nature, complaints and accusations even against the Divine government; war within the man himself, and fighting with those who would admonish; no repugnance to the most shocking words and acts. In some this state of mind continues, and their reason is more completely swallowed up by grief; and their tragedy has a sadder ending, the victim not enduring to survive the calamity.
Who can argue with any of that? All of those venues of pain are a result of the choice to get married, to have children, to be constantly anxious for their welfare, to be constantly conscious of not only the possibility but the certainty that sooner or in the end we will lose those we love to death? And all of the terrible things about loving others in between, the pain, injustice, being victims of intentional wrongs and accidents, seeing those we love suffer the pain of being unloved.
We open up ourselves to all of those by making relationships and having children - those of us who have children. I believe that Gregory was speaking from personal experience, someone once speculated that of all the Cappadocians he was the one who had almost certainly been married. I greatly love and respect most of what Gregory of Nyssa said.
The trouble is, I don't believe his conclusions about that for a minute.
You don't have to have sex or marry or be the parents of children to suffer from the moral and responsible choice to love them, to care for them, to experience the sorrows that come from that attachment to them AND TO KNOW THAT TO WITHHOLD WHAT MAY BE THE MOST POSITIVE HUMANE RELATIONSHIP IN THEIR LIVES WOULD BE EVEN CRUELER and entirely selfish.
I think from the pains of even love that doesn't expect to get much of anything in return is proof that those pains are not only worth the price, they are an irreplaceable part of why we are here, why we are living our lives. I don't think we'd have been given that pain without there being a reason that our logical and practical calculations can't resolve and that what we are left with cannot become a satisfying statement in an argument for the supposed virtue of not having sex.
I remember reading about the Buddhist meditation on a list of components of the human body, various organs and tissues, fluids and excrement. It seemed to me to be designed as an aid to the practice of sexual abstinence by making you think about the body as a rather messy and unattractive object. Only one of the commentaries warned it was one of the most dangerous forms of Buddhist meditation suitable only for strict monastics because someone doing it risked becoming hostile or, perhaps worse, indifferent to the physical pain and suffering and conditions of other people as well as themselves.
Like people who change their gender, something I don't understand AND SOMETHING MY INABILITY TO UNDERSTAND IT SHOULD NOT FIGURE IN FOR A SECOND, I would not say that someone who chooses a life of sexual abstinence shouldn't decide that for themself. But I think that will never be something that is for most people, most people will have sex, most people will at least be open to giving birth to children, hopefully most of them ready to take care of those children they are responsible for. I don't think that that is in any way a less worthy thing than living a lifetime of virginity, it may be both the more admirable and the more difficult and, so, when well done, best way to heaven. Of course, doing it badly and selfishly is far worse than if they hadn't done it, but you can say the same thing about some of those who do chastity for bad things. I don't think the history of the Catholic priesthood after chastity was a requirement shows it's anything like a guarantee of moral superiority.
Virginity can be as sure a path of evil as sexual selfishness and irresponsibility. Being responsible and adult about sex and its consequences can be a lot more virtuous than chastity can be.
Virginity is also no safe guarantee of avoiding those pains Gregory of Nyssa enumerated and if you pursue virginity for that, you aren't living a life of virtue. If it's done the right way it certainly shouldn't be pain free. Any consecrated virgin who avoids caring for a child so they won't suffer along with the child is a selfish coward.
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