The Red Thread (ebook)

Argumento de The Red Thread (ebook)

Is there a Buddhist discourse on sex? In this innovative study, Bernard Faure reveals Buddhism's paradoxical attitudes toward sexuality. His remarkably broad range covers the entire geography of this religion, and its long evolution from the time of its founder, Xvkyamuni, to the premodern age. The author's anthropological approach uncovers the inherent discrepancies between the normative teachings of Buddhism and what its followers practice.

Framing his discussion on some of the most prominent Western thinkers of sexuality--Georges Bataille and Michel Foucault--Faure draws from different reservoirs of writings, such as the orthodox and heterodox "doctrines" of Buddhism, and its monastic codes. Virtually untapped mythological as well as legal sources are also used. The dialectics inherent in Mahvyvna Buddhism, in particular in the Tantric and Chan/Zen traditions, seemed to allow for greater laxity and even encouraged breaking of taboos.

Faure also offers a history of Buddhist monastic life, which has been buffeted by anticlerical attitudes, and by attempts to regulate sexual behavior from both within and beyond the monastery. In two chapters devoted to Buddhist homosexuality, he examines the way in which this sexual behavior was simultaneously condemned and idealized in medieval Japan.

This book will appeal especially to those interested in the cultural history of Buddhism and in premodern Japanese culture. But the story of how one of the world's oldest religions has faced one of life's greatest problems makes fascinating reading for all.0Introduction 3 The Two Roads 4 Buddhist Sexualities 8 Ch. 1 The Hermeneutics of Desire 15 Protean Desire 16 The Buddhist Economy of Desire 23 Ascetic Lust 29 The Trend Reversal 39 The Ambivalent Body 54 Ch. 2 Disciplining Sex, Sexualizing Discipline 64 Law, Order, and Libido 65 Sexual Offenses 74 The Rise of Mahayana Precepts 89 Ch. 3 The Ideology of Transgression 98 The Rule of Antinomianism 100 Crazy Cloud 111 Transgression - Sublime or Sublimated? 118 Ritual Infractions 124 Feminine Transgression 129 Ch. 4 Clerical Vices and Vicissitudes 144 Monastic Decline and Anticlericalism 145 The Demonic Priest 161 The Juridical Background 172 Nyobon 181 Order or Freedom 197 Ch. 5 Buddhist Homosexualities 207 The New Sodom 207 The Social and Cultural Context(s) 227 The Quest for Origins 233 Ch. 6 Boys to Men 241 The Literary Tradition of the Chigo 241 The "Divine Child" Mystique 249 Head or Tail 265 Afterthoughts 279 Glossary 289 Bibliography 293 Index 333