Buddhist Tensions: the Poetry of Ho Xuan Huong

Picking Flowers

If you want to pick flowers, you have to hike.
Climbing up, don't worry about your weary bones.
Pluck the low branches, pull down the high.
Enjoy alike the spent blossoms, the tight buds.

Ho Xuan Huong (1772-1822 / Vietnam)

Vietnamese poet Ho Xuan Huong was a powerfully independent and outspoken woman living at a time when that was very rare. The energy and mastery of her poetry was so high that it helped elevate the status of Vietnamese to that of a literary language. Although her words are infused with Buddhist understandings and images, Ho Xuan Huong had a defiant, highly critical relationship with the Buddhism of her native Vietnam.

One of the tension points present in her work revolves around sex and sexuality. She was a frequent critic of the pious sounding Vietnamese monks who scoffed at women expressing themselves sexually, but then courted and slept with female devotees and concubines. In addition, she fiercely questioned the double standards of a patriarchal society where men did as they pleased when it came to romantic relationships, while women were confined to roles of dutiful quietude.

Ho Xuan Huong was anything but quiet about sexuality, as the following poem attests.

Swinging

Praise whoever raised these poles
for some to swing while others watch.

A boy pumps, then arcs his back.
The shapely girl shoves up her hips.

Four pink trousers flapping hard,
two pairs of legs stretched side by side.

Spring games. Who hasn't known them?
Swingposts removed, the holes lie empty.

Many of Ho Xuan Huong's poems read like expressions of freedom. Not longing for it, but actually living and breathing it. If you want to pick flowers, you have to hike. Climbing up, don't worry about your weary bones. Literally, there's the experience of climbing up a hill or mountain. Where I'm living right now, there is a small mountain that the locals like to climb to get exercise and look out over the city in the valley below. I have climbed to the top multiple times. Every time, there has been a point where I consciously chose to be ok with having some aches and pains, and then - as if by magic - I experienced a jolt of renewed energy that helped me reach the summit. Metaphorically, the same lines of the poem can taken as a directive for life. If you want to reach your dreams, you have to let go of fretting and obsessing over every, little obstacle that appears along the way.

As many great poets do, Ho Xuan Huong captures beautifully the fleeting quality of our lives. Particularly that of high moments, and how a wrong decision while on top of the mountain can bring you tumbling down. In another poem laden with sexual images and tension, Huong offers both high level pleasure and a caution to not go too far.

The Jackfruit

I am like a jackfruit on the tree.
To taste you must plug me quick, while fresh:
the skin rough, the pulp thick, yes,
but oh, I warn you against touching --
the rich juice will gush and stain your hands

Beyond pleasure, the richness of the natural world explodes from Huong's poems. Clearly in love with all the wonders of the waxing seasons, spring and summer, she readily invokes the beauty and vibrancy of each in her words.

Spring-Watching Pavilion

A gentle spring evening arrives
airily, unclouded by worldly dust.

Three times the bell tolls echoes like a wave.
We see heaven upside-down in sad puddles.

Love's vast sea cannot be emptied.
And springs of grace flow easily everywhere.

Where is nirvana?
Nirvana is here, nine times out of ten

Here, Huong offers a poem that appears to be passive, but actually is active and full of tension. A gentle, somewhat melancholy start paired with a fierce, declarative ending. Talk of sadness coupled with the deepest expression of love itself.

Overall, she leaves us with an overriding message pointing directly to spiritual liberation. One that isn't separated from the seemingly mundane and material world around us. The pulpy jackfruit is love. The sad puddles are love. The hike to pick flowers is love.

And love is liberation. Available to all, regardless of who we are perceived to be (or not be) in the world.

Queer Dharma: Thoughts on Buddhism and Sexuality

The author of the Open Sky blog, Rev. Lawrence Grecco, has spent a lot of time over the past week debating others about the content of this post. His contention is that the way the article, as originally worded, was biased against GLBTQ practitioners. That instead of being a statement of equal treatment, it was a subtly imbalanced argument that ends up privileging heterosexuality.

In a letter Grecco offers in his current post the following comments:

In the case of what I am addressing, some context needs to be applied here. It was only 40 years ago that homosexuality was de-classified as a mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association. Before that, there were many theories as to “why” someone is born gay or lesbian. All of those reasons have been proven incorrect time and time again, yet some still look for reasons to explain why LGBT people exist, but don’t pose the same question when any talk of heterosexuality arises.

So it is indeed offensive that when a simple question such as “Is it ok to be gay?” is asked, the answer and the comments that follow include statements about past life explanations, precepts, sex and lust. A correct answer would have simply been something like: “The Buddha never spoke about homosexuality so there is no scriptural references condoning homosexuality as might be found in the Christian bible.”

But instead, the author belied his/her prejudices in the second to last paragraph of the original post by inexplicably talking about "changing preferences over the course of many lifetimes", and saying people are “born gay/lesbian due to past life influences.” This implies that there needs to be some explanation for the very existence of an LGBT person, yet this has nothing to do with the initial question. When one tries to come up with causes they are pathologizing an entire group of people. And there are some who are still practicing reparative therapies (under the guise of psychology and/or religion) which have been repeatedly debunked both ethically and scientifically.

It's important to note that the original post has been altered, and much of the offending material has been re-written. Grecco wrote an earlier post, which contains the old material, which I can confirm is accurate, having read the post and comments the first day the post was up.

What do I want to add to this conversation? First off, I'd like readers to view the discussion on the original post. It's instructive in terms of what happens to people from sexual minorities who question interpretations of the dharma that involve sexuality. In addition, there are citations from the Pali canon that are worth reading and considering.

Secondly, who knows for sure what causes and conditions lead to any person's sexuality? The human mind loves to speculate, test, theorize, and the like, but as far as I'm concerned, whatever we come up with is partial. Furthermore, there is more fluidity to what we call "our sexuality" than many of us would like to admit. Some may always be attracted either to the opposite sex or the same sex, but how that looks, feels, and is engaged in across time is markedly different during different periods of a lifetime. Others experience attraction and intimacy more independently of biological body form. While still others may, for example, be attracted to men earlier in life, and then find their focus shifting to women in mid life, and then have a more mixed experience in the last third of their life. We could consider the myriad of combinations along a "spectrum of sexuality," where one's position can, and usually does, shift at least a little bit throughout a lifetime. My dharma friend Katie likes to think of it more as a "the field of sexuality," suggesting that the spectrum approach might not contain it all.

Whatever fluidity is present in sexuality, this is not a justification for the kinds of "sexuality conversions" promoted in some Christian communities, nor is it an excuse for arguments that suggest GLBTQ folks should suppress their attraction in any shape or form. Speaking of fluidity is about liberating sexuality from fixed notions and from the commonplace default binary of "gay" and "straight." In other words, I'm trying to complicate the standard narratives because my experience, and that of many of my friends and past lovers, confirms things are more complicated.

Thirdly, as Grecco says in one of his posts, "Gay and lesbian people are all too often viewed solely as sexual beings."

This is a vital point. Whenever discussions of GLBTQ dharma folks are underpinned by a focus on lust, desire, and/or sexual activity, things have often gone awry. Whereas heterosexual people are usually considered whole in and of themselves, members of the GLBTQ community frequently are reduced to being in sexual relationship with another person or people. Even if they aren't, currently, in such a relationship.

It's just about who I am with (or not with) romantically. It's about how I experience attraction and intimacy. It's really about the way I (each of us) view and engage the world.

I could say more, and perhaps flesh out some of my points more, but I want to get this out there. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.

The "Spiritual" Denial of Love and Sexuality?

I recently started my annual re-reading of selections from 20th Century Catholic monk Thomas Merton's journals. For the past few years, I have kept gravitating towards volume six, which arguably contains the most controversial section of Merton's life. Also, having read nearly all seven volumes from cover to cover over the years, number six is the most thought-provoking and revealing of Merton's life and how he understood the world.

At the center of this volume is the illicit relationship Merton had with a student nurse during the spring and early summer of 1966. I remember being shocked when I first stumbled on these entries in the journal, but now I find that there is something so shockingly human about it all that my shock has become reserved for why we're so unwilling to accept and work with the complexities of love, sexuality, and intimacy.

Author Mark Shaw came out with a new book in 2009 addressing this relationship, and how love, sexuality, and lack of both profoundly affected Merton's life and his views on religion and spirituality. Given the discussions about fallen Zen teachers like Genpo and Eido Roshi, as well as the numerous sex scandals that have rocked monastic communities of various religious traditions in recent decades, much of what Shaw has to say is important.

As some of you may know, Thomas Merton was broad in his interest of world religions, and dabbled to some extent in Zen towards the end of his life. He was visited by the Dalai Lama, and Thich Nhat Hanh, long before either were world renown figures. He read everything he could find on Buddhism, and was at a conference of spiritual monastics in Thailand when he was electrocuted by a fan and died in December 1968.

Of Merton's wild, fairly destructive young adult life, and his subsequent entry into the monastery, Shaw writes the following:

Becoming a monk was supposed to cleanse him of these sins, but from his own private journals, I knew this was not true. Instead, Merton’s failure to understand what loving, and being loved were all about caused him frustration, turmoil, and even depression. Beneath the mask of holiness, the plastic saint image promoted by the Catholic Church, was a sunken man who yearned for love while realizing he could never truly be one with God until he found it. Then, as I wrote in the book, the skies opened up and there was a gift, the love of a woman. It is no wonder Merton grabbed the chance to experience love despite the risks involved. And Margie taught him about loving, and being loved, opening up a path to freedom Merton never knew existed.

Anyone who reads the entries in Merton's journal about his time with Margie will immediately feel the profound struggle that went on for Merton between his understanding of the spiritual life and the manifestation of in the flesh love that was right before him. Although at times the way he words things sounds almost like a teenager in love, I really believe, like Shaw, that this was much more for Merton.

I have always found the deep split between the spiritual and sexual in nearly all religions, including Buddhism, very troubling. While it's possible to argue that Buddhism has less of this than Judeo-Christian traditions, I'm still convinced that there's a gap in the teachings that has lead to an enormous amount of confusion, condemnation, and suffering.

Merton took a vow of celibacy in a church that has has a long standing doctrinal split between sexuality and spirituality. The depth of sex scandals that have ripped through Catholic communities in recent years point to this split, and how destructive it can be.

But what if Merton had been a Buddhist monk? He still would have been breaking his vow. And yet, how does this vow square with a spiritual tradition built upon the awareness that everything in life is impermanent? In other words, what happens to a person who takes what might be viewed as a permanent vow (at least in this lifetime), and then discovers along the way that upholding that vow is causing more suffering than liberation?

It's too easy to say that Merton should have either dropped the relationship and kept his vow or should have left the monastery. This was no novice monk; by the time of his relationship with Margie Smith, he was a world renown spiritual writer who was, despite his independent, anti-authoritarian streak, considered to be an important asset by the Church. Walking away from the monastery would have proved to be very difficult, and returning to his vows as they were was impossible. The last two years of Merton's life, following the relationship, proved to be his most exploratory in a spiritual sense, and it's possible to argue that he may have been tossed out of the church at some point if he had lived longer. To suggest that the relationship with Margie had nothing to do with this late life spiritual journey would be a great spiritual denial in my opinion.

In writing this, I'm not arguing that vows of celibacy are wrong, or that breaking those vows should be done any time someone feels constrained by them. That's not my point at all. I do believe we should strive to uphold whatever vows we make in our lives as best as we can.

However, I'm also convinced that how vows manifest in life changes over time. And when it comes to sexuality and spirituality, how much clarity can most of us claim to have when our spiritual traditions are littered with prohibitions, shame, blame, and non-discussions about the intersection of the two?

Sexual Desire and the Platform Sutra

The root cause of purity
is the lust nature,
For once rid of lust,
the substance of the nature is pure.
Each of you, within your natures;
abandon the five desires.
In an instant, see your nature–
it is true.

from Hui Neng's Platform Sutra

Over at my other blog, I have been writing a lot about romantic relationships. It's kind of an endless topic if you think about, all the things that can and do happen between people who come together and make some form of partnership, however long or short, strong or weak it may be.

This morning's dharma talk at Zen Center referenced some lines from the Platform Sutra that sparked my interest. They were not those I have quoted above; in fact, when I heard them at 10 o'clock this morning, romantic relationships were not on my mind. However, as I took a look at the Platform Sutra this afternoon, I came across the quotation above, which comes almost at the end. (I flipped to the end for some reason.) And when I saw what you read above, something clicked in.

What, you may ask?

The fact that my mind still too often views "getting rid of" as meaning just that when it comes to sexual desire.

That my actions around sexual desire are still too often subtle shifts of avoidance or indulgence - and not coming from a liberation from those two.

Notice in Hui Neng's words the centrality of lust, of sexual desire - how it's considered the "root cause of purity." This is a long way from the land of prohibitions and shame that tend to follow from religious moral codes, even amongst some Buddhists.

Hatred and disgust of the body, and all that seems to come from it, are easy to locate in spiritual teachings. And of course, there is plenty of the opposite in the "everyday world" - obsession and indulgence of the body, and all that seems to come from it.

So, I see Hui Neng's words zeroing in on that dichotomy, and seeing it as a platform for complete liberation. For how could anyone truly be "rid of" sexual desire that has already arisen? Where could I possibly toss this albatross of energy that has already engulfed this body?

The five desires referenced in the last part of the quote above are basically these: comfort, sex, food, sleep, and good reputation. There are other slightly different translations of them, but this one seems to be the most flexible, but also easy to work with one.

When I think about romantic relationships, and consider those I have had in the past, all five of these desires played a role. More specifically, I can see how attachments to, or aversions towards, one or more of these played roles in causing a lot of suffering in those relationships. My attachments and aversions, and my partner's attachments and aversions.

For example, my early years as a vegetarian coincided with the first long term relationship I ever had. My girlfriend was neither vegetarian, nor terribly health conscious around food. And so, we often struggled around eating together. I judged her choices; she was irritated by mine, or felt guilty about mine. It was pretty damned unpleasant.

During the same relationship, I am well aware of times when I placed my own comfort over the well being of my girlfriend or the relationship itself. Once, having grown tired of staying in her parent's messy and noisy house, I basically made my girlfriend drive me home. We were nearly three hours away, and it was during the middle of winter. Not the proudest moment in my book.

In a more recent relationship, I frequently worried about my reputation as an ESL teacher because my girlfriend had been a student of mine. Never mind that she had long since left my classroom, I still wondered if my bosses and others at the school I worked at would judge me harshly for being with her.

These examples, and many others, are one of the reasons I see intimate partnerships as one of the most powerful practices a lay person can engage in. Both their presence and absence can be powerful catalysts, provided you approach intimate relationships as deep practices. In that way, they are like a monastery for us, exposing all the rough edges and hidden qualities - just as monks and nuns do in practicing and living together in monastic settings.

Even for those of us lay practitioners who are currently outside of those partnerships, there are still the memories of the past, the fantasies of the future, and the desires of the now to practice with.

The form of intimate partnership may or may not be present; the material coming up still seems to be fairly similar, doesn't it?

What are your thoughts?

The Red Thread of Passion: A Few Thoughts on Buddhist Sexuality

Rev. Harvey Daiho Hilbert-roshi, over at his blog, has been considered the Buddhist precepts, or ethical guidelines one by one. His current post is about the precept on sexuality, which tends to stir up a lot of confusion for most of us.

No sexual misconduct: I vow to use my sexuality to enhance and nurture the lives of others

Consider this vow as it is written. How often do we understand our sexual behavior in the context of its power to enhance and nurture? It seems to me we spend an awful lot of time fretting about the morality of sex and far too little time on considering its humanizing, spiritual, and healing potential.

This spring, our center was planning on having a class to examine these very issues. So few of us signed up that it was canceled. To me, that speaks volumes about our collective baggage around sexuality.

I remember after the debacle in our community, which among other things involved a sexual breach between a student and the former teacher, there was a ton of energy around developing a detailed set of policies and procedures for addressing issues like sexual misconduct. In and of itself, this was necessary, and the work done continues to be a benefit for the sangha. However, when reflecting on the comments Rev. Harvey made, as well as that canceled class, it strikes me that my sangha, collectively, represents the heavy lean in society towards prohibitive, puritanical views about sexuality.

A few upfront observations: Just as we are eating beings, sleeping beings, or breathing beings, we are also sexual beings. Just as killing and stealing can be disruptive to community life, sexual conduct has the power to destroy individual lives within community. Sex is at the center of much of our waking life. We spend an awful lot of time in denial about our sexual nature. We spend the rest of our time trying our best to act it out. Personally, I have little time and patience with our societal neurosis over sex. We do it or we don’t and we should not infuse sexual conduct with notions of moral purity or impurity.

Pretty strong language, don't you think? I personally like it. It's refreshing. No mincing words. No trying to massage things to keep people comfortable.

I don't want to be comfortable with puritanical thoughts about sexuality; I want to be liberated in all that I do. Sex can be wonderful, healing, joy producing, and maybe even a source of liberation. We all know about the horrors of misuse, but most of us haven't deeply explored the flip side. That's my guess. Tell me if I'm wrong. But all nudie mags, how to orgasm books, and sex toys aside, do you really feel like you have fully embraced and experienced your sexuality? Do you have a holistic sense of it? Or is it another part of you life compartmentalized, fragmented off as "not spiritual enough," a "hindrance," etc?

These questions go for those of us who have, or desire to have, active sex lives, and those who are celibate. No one gets around the red thread of passion. Best to go at it head on, with eyes wide open.

* Image is of the painting "Red Thread of Passion" by Patricia Brown. For more of her work, see this link.