A Dharma Talk from our archives – by Christopher Kakuyo Leibow

A Dharma Talk: Sex, Sexual Ethics, and the Third Precept

I want to talk about sex today, and I want to start with this quote from the Buddha:

“One is not called noble who harms living beings. By not harming living beings one is called noble.”

Some of you might be thinking we were going to talk about sex, and we are. This will make more sense shortly, because sexual ethics in Buddhism is all about non-harming.

Today I want to share some ideas about Buddhist teaching on sexual ethics found in the Third Precept. This is especially important given our local Buddhist history of sexual misconduct by the sensei at the now-defunct Kanzeon Center, and given new revelations coming out of Shambhala and, more recently, accusations against Noah Levine at Against the Stream. At Kanzeon, misconduct was admitted. It appears the same is true at Shambhala, and currently in Los Angeles there is an active investigation. This is nothing new. There have been many accusations and many teachers stepping down over the years. It is important to see these things clearly, as they are.

These actions, especially by teachers, cause great harm to those they assault: psychological harm, spiritual harm. This brings us back to our quote:

“One is not called noble who harms living beings. By not harming living beings one is called noble.”

I think this quote is the heart of what the five precepts are about. They are not just practices of mindfulness, they are practices of non-harm.

For the past few Sundays we have been talking about Buddhist ethics, specifically the lay precepts. Some of you have formally taken the precepts. Others try to live by them informally. Others don’t think about them much at all. Regardless of where you fall on that continuum, the precepts are part of participating in our sangha. Our aspiration toward non-harm, in all its forms, unites us more than our individual beliefs do.

From the Buddhist perspective, mindfulness is only part of the path. Simply paying attention to how the mind works doesn’t do anyone else any good. Ethical conduct is interwoven with mindfulness, and ethical conduct centers on non-harm to other beings. We can think of ethical behavior as taking mindfulness off the cushion and into everyday life. Today I want to talk about the third precept: the training of refraining from sexual misconduct.

Historical context

For those who come from a tradition that treated sex as evil, at least outside marriage, this topic alone may be triggering. I want to be clear from the start: Buddhist teachings do not treat sex as dirty or sinful. And among Buddhists, there are about as many opinions on what counts as sexual misconduct as there are Buddhists. This training is not about abstaining from sex, unless you are a monastic in certain traditions. It is not about being a good Buddhist or a bad Buddhist. It is about non-harming.

Not all Buddhists agree here. Many hold a traditionalist view, with detailed prescriptions about when and with whom sex is appropriate.

Jose Cabezon, Dalai Lama Professor of Religious Studies at UC Santa Barbara, has written extensively on Buddhist sexual ethics. According to his research, for the first 800 years, sexual misconduct for lay Buddhists meant simply adultery, nothing else. After that, things changed: prescriptions emerged about who and when, along with bans on male homosexuality, premarital sex, oral sex, even dirty talk. He has interesting insight into what sparked that shift, but that’s a topic for another time.

Our context today

In the West, our situation is very different. Our society is drenched in sex, from advertising to free pornography, from sexual harassment to sex addiction, and our spiritual leaders are not exempt from becoming predators. There has probably never been a more sex-saturated country, even amid a strain of cultural puritanism. We love our sex, and maybe because of that we rarely talk about what healthy, open, non-harming sexuality actually looks like. How often do we reflect on how our relationship with sex affects our practice and our relationships?

One practice we can adopt is reflecting on non-harm within our sexual relationships.

Why do you think this belongs in our mindfulness practice?

If dukkha, suffering, dis-ease, disappointment, is caused by tanha, thirst for sense pleasure, craving, how does sexuality relate to that?

Has sexual desire ever caused discord in your life?

Applying the precept today

It would be overly simplistic in a modern context to limit the third precept to adultery alone. There are contexts today that didn’t exist in the Buddha’s time. We live with far more sexual freedom now, and that freedom can be healthy or unhealthy. The misconduct happening in some American sanghas needs to be addressed by the Buddhist community as a whole. Given our more liberal views on sexuality, it’s important to approach these situations through the lens of non-harm rather than through sexuality itself.

Two contemporary examples:

Masturbation, when not habitual, is generally seen as fine.

Pornography is more complicated. It isn’t inherently evil or sinful, and for some people it can even be therapeutic. From a Buddhist perspective, the question is one of non-harm.

When we look at pornography, are we seeing another human being, a subject, or only a projection of our own desire, an object?

Are we harming the object of our gaze?

Are we harming ourselves by seeing another human being as an object? What effect might that have on our practice?

Karma and true love

The principle of karma teaches that all intentional actions water certain seeds: seeds of fear, seeds of attachment, seeds of compassion, seeds of liberation. What seeds are we sowing in our sexual relationships?

I appreciate Thich Nhat Hanh’s teaching on the third precept, which he calls True Love.  This training commits us to responsibility and to protecting the safety of individuals, couples, families, and society. It reminds us that sexual desire is not love, and that sex driven by craving harms everyone involved. It calls us to only engage in sexual relations within true, long-term commitment, to protect children from abuse, and to care for our sexual energy the way we care for body and mind together, through loving kindness, compassion, joy, and inclusiveness.

What does this mean to you?

This is a modern teacher’s take on the precepts. It’s worth noting that in the earliest Buddhist texts, “being in love” was not a requirement for appropriate sexuality. Here again we can reflect on the teaching. For some it has been vital to their practice and healing. For others it isn’t. This teaching can also be read as an articulation of the importance of consent.

Precepts as undertakings, not commandments

Richard Gombrich has written that the precepts are not “norms” we’re judged by, but more like “undertakings,” practices we engage in at different levels. Our relationship with them changes as our practice deepens.

I want to say again: the precepts are not commandments. Wherever you are on the continuum of practicing them, there is no judgment. Come as you are. At the same time, engaging with and reflecting on the precepts is part of a holistic mindfulness practice.

It’s also important to know we will fail at times while practicing them, until we don’t. I fail, time and again, and I still try again.

There is something unique to our fellowship, words we’ve added to our precept ceremony:

Joyfully entrusting in Amida when I fall short, and simply starting again. We keep going no matter how many times we fail, because Namu Amida Butsu accepts us regardless. It gives me the freedom to never feel like I need to give up. I do what I can, not because I have to, but because I want to.

That is the spirit of each precept: the aspiration to live a life of non-harm, so that one day we might be called noble.

I want to close with the words I started with, from the Buddha himself:

“One is not called noble who harms living beings. By not harming living beings one is called noble.”

Namu Amida Butsu