masturbation what's wrong?

[Macavity]

It must be interesting to be like those who've found both their sexual experience and their relationships to be sufficiently monotone that it could be conceivable to make rationally moral and ethical pronouncements about sensuality and responsibility that make sense in the context of awareness of the truth about the nature of being beyond remaining constant in an awareness that one is simply avoiding what are clearly knowable to oneself as obvious forms of abuse of oneself or others.

That's quite a sentence.

[tiltbillings]

Hi Tilt,

And that was in response to your finding "redeeming values" in a list of things such as tea drinking and novel reading, but none in self-pleasuring. The notion started with you.

You're mistaken about this. If you seach the thread for the phrase "redeeming values," you'll find that you made first mention of it.

Sure, but it was to draw out the point of what you said earlier:

Don't we self gratify all the time? Drinking a favorite tea while reading our favorite author? Listening to a beautiful piece of music? Company of good friends? The high that come from exercise? Wearing one's favorite shirt? Playing with one's grandkids? Petting one's dog?

. Because it seems as if a person who engages in masturbation sets out solely in pursuit of sense pleasure without any other motivating factor. If you play with your grandkids, there's some opportunity there for metta, or karuna. If you're reading a book and drinking some tea, there's the opportunity to educate oneself. If you exercise, there's the opportunity to stay healthy and create a better physical foundation for one's own practice and to help others. If you're having sex with your wife, then you're creating a better marriage relationship. And so on.

But if you're masturbating for self-gratification, I just don't see where there's anything skillful there at all. It just seems like a pursuit in entirely the opposite direction as Dhamma. I don't see how it compares with those other activities you mention. In that respect, I highly doubt that it's possible to masturbate and yet maintain sampajanna. I think either you'd stop masturbating, or you would no longer have sampajanna. I don't think the same necessarily must be said about having sex with one's wife. . . That's the thing I'm not so sure about. Because it seems as if a person who engages in masturbation sets out solely in pursuit of sense pleasure without any other motivating factor.

And you make my point. Interestingly, you left out listening to music in your response to the list of things, but is sense pleasure all that bad that we cannot abide in it once in a while? No bowl of popcorn, no video games, no looking at sunsets, no movies, no anything that has no redeeming value.

While you did not use the words ”redeeming value” first, the highlighted above points to the fact you used the concept first to distinguish some activities from others.

[tiltbillings]

It must be interesting to be like those who've found both their sexual experience and their relationships to be sufficiently monotone that it could be conceivable to make rationally moral and ethical pronouncements about sensuality and responsibility that make sense in the context of awareness of the truth about the nature of being beyond remaining constant in an awareness that one is simply avoiding what are clearly knowable to oneself as obvious forms of abuse of oneself or others.

That's quite a sentence.

Yes it is, but what does it mean?

[Macavity]

It must be interesting to be like those who've found both their sexual experience and their relationships to be sufficiently monotone that it could be conceivable to make rationally moral and ethical pronouncements about sensuality and responsibility that make sense in the context of awareness of the truth about the nature of being beyond remaining constant in an awareness that one is simply avoiding what are clearly knowable to oneself as obvious forms of abuse of oneself or others.

That's quite a sentence.

Yes it is, but what does it mean?

I don't know. One would need to be a German to decipher a sentence with so many unpunctuated sub-clauses.

[tiltbillings]

Yes it, but what does it mean?

I don't know. One would need to be a German to decipher a sentence with so many unpunctuated sub-clauses.

Maybe the Individual has been studying too hard, though I think there is something in that sentence that might be teased out, but I must go to bed. I have electral wiring to do when I get up and I don't want it to end up like that sentence.

[nathan]

That's quite a sentence.

Yes it, but what does it mean?

I don't know. One would need to be a German to decipher a sentence with so many unpunctuated sub-clauses.

I'll see if I can get one of my German friends to write a translation for you guys.

[Jechbi]

While you did not use the words ”redeeming value” first, the highlighted above points to the fact you used the concept first to distinguish some activities from others.

2 points:

1) You wrote earlier: "If one is genuinely mindful, one is not going to beat up another." So you also distinguish some activities from others. We all do that. You're the one who applied the phrase "redeeming values" as a label for those distinctions. But regardless, there are in fact distinctions between activities. Why deny it? Murdering someone, beating someone up, raping someone are one extreme. From there to lovingkindness are countless gradations. The question is, where would masturbation fall along that continuum? I cannot imagine that you're trying to say all activities are the same in this respect. And I cannot understand why you think masturbation is really no different from enjoying a book or passing the time with a cup of tea.

2) If it is not true that a person who engages in masturbation sets out solely in pursuit of sense pleasure without any other motivating factor (bearing in mind the context of masturbation as it generally has been discussed in this thread, not as a medical procedure), then I have a question: What other motivating factor inspires the practice of masturbation besides the pursuit of sense pleasure?

Perhaps you could make a list of other motivating factors besides the pursuit of sense pleasure that might inspire masturbation in the sense it's generally been discussed in this thread.

This has become a bizarre discussion. Good luck with the wiring.

[Jechbi]

Well, here's the sentence that caught my attention:

To be entirely honest I would probably have to say that it was about a million hours of increasingly unspeakably great sex that really cured me of the deepest forms of desire for it and not any of the time I spent pretending I wasn't a fundamentally sensual creature, I realize that isn't by the book dhamma but it worked like a charm in my case.

Worked like a charm to what end? Satiation? Or did the poor thing finally fall off?

btw, nobody is suggesting "pretending" is the answer ...

[tiltbillings]

.

This has become a bizarre discussion. Good luck with the wiring.

Yes it is strange, but some here took it far too seriously, reading far too much into what was written rather than taking it as it was written, but that is my opinion of what I wrote and my intention. Life is far too short to try untangle the what you have presented. What I wrote is a bit simpler than all that in your two points. The last word is yours.

Like self-pleasuring, wiring is fairly simple, but potentially shocking. Thanks.

[cooran]

Hello Jechbi, Tilt, all,

The Buddha assumed that in any community there were people who were looked up to, respected, and whose words were taken seriously and an attempt was made to live up to them.
He called these people the Viññū (The Wise).

Regarding The Viññū (The Wise), Thanissaro Bhikkhu says:
...."Traditions are not to be followed simply because they are traditions. Reports (such as historical accounts or news) are not to be followed simply because the source seems reliable.
One's own preferences are not to be followed simply because they seem logical or resonate with one's feelings.

Instead, any view or belief must be tested by the results it yields when put into practice; and — to guard against the possibility of any bias or limitations in one's understanding of those results — they must further be checked against the experience of people who are wise.
The ability to question and test one's beliefs in an appropriate way is called appropriate attention.
The ability to recognize and choose wise people as mentors is called having admirable friends. According to Iti 16-17, these are, respectively, the most important internal and external factors for attaining the goal of the practice."

Drinking a favorite tea while reading our favorite author, listening to a beautiful piece of music, the company of good friends, exerise, wearing one's favorite shirt, playing with one's grandkids, petting one's dog, abowl of popcorn, video games, looking at sunsets, movies, are not seen by the Viññū (The Wise) as unwholesome actions to be avoided. But within our societies, past or present, I don't know of any culture or religion where the Viññū (The Wise) state that masturbation is a good and wholesome thing to be practised, pursued or encouraged.

metta
Chris

[Jechbi]

Well said, Chris.

The last word is yours.

Then I better choose carefully. How about:

It has to be medical experiments for the lot of you.

phpBB .

[tiltbillings]

Well said, Chris.

The last word is yours.

Then I better choose carefully. How about:

It has to be medical experiments for the lot of you.


When it comes to sperm, I am a heathen.

[tiltbillings]

But within our societies, past or present, I don't know of any culture or religion where the Viññū (The Wise) state that masturbation is a good and wholesome thing to be practised, pursued or encouraged.

The nice thing about the wise, well, the Buddha, anyway, is that he did not for the laity, proscribe masturbation. It is not even mentioned. What he did specifically proscribe for the laity was sex with a certain groups of people who are not appropriate. Interestingly, he did not say that sex must be between a married man and woman.

It would seem as an activity, self-pleasuring in terms of the precepts is of rather minor consideration. And there are and were cultures where self-pleasuring was not looked upon with Victorian disdain.

[chownah]

Are we to assume that masturbation is a solo activity or does this discussion also include activity between consenting adults and does this include masturbation as foreplay (between consenting adults) which is then followed up by other sexual acts?

Are those giving warnings about the downside of masturbation willing to extend their comments to ALL sexual activity of EVERY kind...and to go one step further are some willing to suggest that all procreation should be by artificial insemination with the sperm being collected from nocturnal emissions?

Are those giving warnings about the downside of masturbation willing to extend their comments to ALL pleasurable activity like eating ripe fruit or regularly exercising?...and are they of the mind that anything which is pleasurable should be held as suspect and the more pleasurable it is the more suspect it should become?

What about the "middle path" between indulgence and denial..? Where does masturbation fit into on this continuum?

Although it may seem that these questions are rhetorical...they are not....replies will be apprecitated.

chownah

[Jechbi]

Are those giving warnings about the downside of masturbation willing to extend their comments to ALL sexual activity of EVERY kind ...

Of course not. We don't live in a black-and-white world. There are nuances, and it's always going to depend on the situation. But I think we can agree that sexual activity is kamma, right? And kamma has to do with volitional action, flavored with underlying intent. So in general, what intent does one bring to solo masturbation? What intent does one bring to the act of sexual union in the context of a loving relationship? Is it the same kamma?

The assertion has been made here that the kamma of solo masturbation is equivalent to enjoying a cup of tea or reading a book. I don't think your word "warning" is quite correct in this context, but the counter-argument has been that the kamma of solo masturbation is not equivalent to these things, and is generally in fact less wholesome, at least in the context of masturbation as it commonly is discussed (and not, for example, as a medical procedure).

What about the "middle path" between indulgence and denial..?

What middle path are you talking about? How would you apply that middle path to unwholesome activities such as killing and stealing? Would the middle path entail a little bit of each?