What is the Zen approach to sex? The Zen people seem to have a neuter gender, or asexual aura about them.
Zen has no attitudes about sex, and that is the beauty of Zen. To have an attitude means you are still obsessed this way or that. Somebody is against sex – he has an attitude; somebody is for sex – he has an attitude. And for and against go together like two wheels of a bullock cart. They are not enemies, they are friends, partners in the same business.
Zen has no attitude about sex. Why should one have any attitude about sex? That’s the beauty of it – Zen is utterly natural. Do you have any attitudes about drinking water? Do you have any attitudes about taking food? Do you have any attitudes about going to sleep in the night? No attitudes.
[…] man has created his own artificial world around him. Animals are naked – that’s why we don’t want to be nude. And if somebody is nude suddenly he hits our civilization totally, he cuts the very roots. That’s why there is so much antagonism against naked people, all over the world.
If you go and move naked in the street, you are not hurting anybody, you are not doing any violence to anybody; you are absolutely innocent. But immediately the police will come, the whole surroundings will become agitated. You will be caught […] and put into jail. But you have not done anything at all! A crime happens when you do something. You have not been doing anything, simply walking naked! But why does the society get so angry? The society is not so angry even against a murderer. This is strange. But a naked man, and society is absolutely angry.
It is because murder is still human. No animal murders. They kill for eating […] So it is human, the society can accept it. But nudity the society cannot accept, because suddenly the naked man makes you aware that you are all animals. Howsoever hidden behind clothes, the animal is there, the nude, the naked animal is there, the naked ape is there.
You are against the nude man not because he is nude but because he makes you aware of your nudity.
Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope … and that enables you to laugh at all of life’s realities.
I moved to London in 1973 to study Chemistry at University College, London. Here, if nothing else, I learnt that at degree level, Chemistry is Physics, Physics is Maths and Maths is impossible.
Questions and Answers: 1. What’s your lucky/favorite number? 7 2. In what month were you born? January 3. Favorite tv show/movie? Time Team 4. What time did you wake up today? 0930 5. Favorite book? A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell 6. Favorite animal? Cats 7. An important date to you? Christmas Day 8. Favorite day of the week? Saturday 9. Favorite month? June 10. Favorite sound? The Sea 11. One thing in your refrigerator right now. Fennel 12. You write your own question here! Why?
I’ve recently picked up a couple of books by the mystic teacher Osho* and have been flicking through them. This is from his volume Intimacy; it seems strangely relevant:
This society is a power-oriented society. This society is still utterly primitive, utterly barbarian. A few people – politicians, priests, professors – are dominating millions. And this society is run in such a way that no child is allowed to have intelligence. It is a sheer accident that once in a while a Buddha arrives on the earth […] Somehow, once in a while a person escapes from the clutches of society. Once in a while a person remains unpoisoned by society. That must be because of some error, some mistake of society. Otherwise society succeeds […] in destroying your trust in yourself. And once that is done, you will never be able to trust anybody.
* Better known to those of us brought up on a diet of 60s/70s culture as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.
This week’s self-portrait: 52 Weeks 31/52 (2008 week 39).
This is the collection of metal I wear permenantly; this scan was the first time they have all been removed in years — even the last couple of times I’ve had operations I’ve kept my wedding ring (middle right) on (but taped over).
Eccentric looks at life through the thoughts of a retired working thinker
