I suppose you might. And at some time in the long round of saṃsāra you might also get to meet Archbishop Makarios or Aimee Semple McPherson or Dr. Wellington Koo or Moses or Napoleon or Cleopatra.Ven. Subhūti's article wrote:If you cannot do the real commitment and the consensual marriage thing, you still need the guardian's permission. Remember, if you are not ready to commit in this life, you might meet again in another life, and another and another.
I take it, however, that you don’t mean anything quite as trivially true as that. Presumably you mean that there’s a good chance of its happening. But wouldn’t this be almost the opposite of what the Buddha taught Nakulapitā and his wife? To them the Buddha taught that getting reunited with one’s partner in the next life takes considerable effort and an equality in the couple’s moral and mental virtues. It also entails wanting to meet one’s loved one again:
But you seem to be saying that this will happen even with someone you’re just having a casual fling with and whom you don’t especially wish to meet again. To me this sounds more akin to the Christian doctrine expounded by C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape:“Householders, if both husband and wife wish to see one another not only in this present life but also in future lives, they should have the same faith, the same virtuous behaviour, the same generosity, and the same wisdom. Then they will see one another not only in this present life but also in future lives.”
C.S. Lewis wrote:“The truth is that wherever a man lies with a woman, there, whether they like it or not, a transcendental relation is set up between them which must be eternally enjoyed or eternally endured.”
(The Screwtape Letters, XVIII)
To me it sounds egregiously creepy.Ven. Subhūti's article wrote:Restraint is always better than no restraint at all. A way around such an awkward question to the guardians is to have the woman ask the parents privately herself if she is granted her own sexual freedoms and control of her body. The man should get a recording of this so he knows for sure what was said by both parents. Does this sound a little creepy?
A kamma of a particular type comes to be called ‘habitual’ only when it has been ‘accumulated’. It comes to be accumulated only through having been repeated both often and over a long duration. As such, it is not necessarily the case that habitual kamma is “always being generated.” It might be that a certain kind of kusala or akusala kamma is done frequently but only for a short duration, or is done over a long duration but only occasionally. Or it might be that someone’s actions over a long duration are too morally heterogeneous for any single one of them to stand out as ‘habitual’. It would be quite possible for someone to live a morally mediocre sort of life in which he didn’t accumulate any habitual kamma at all.Ven. Subhūti's article wrote:After this freedom is granted, you will be following the precept according to specification. However, keep in mind that kamma and habitual kamma are always being generated.
To summarise the conditions needed for the accumulation of habitual kamma:
On the akusala side:
1. One of the first nine of the unwholesome courses of action (akusala kammapatha).
2. Not weighty (i.e., not one of the five anantariyaka kammas or one of the wrong views of fixed outcome).
3. Performed frequently (abhiṇhaso kataṃ).
4. Performed for a long time (dīgharattaṃ kataṃ).
And on the kusala side:
1. One of the three or ten bases of merit (puññakiriyāvatthu).
2. Not weighty (i.e., in the case of bhāvanā it must fall short of the eight samāpattis)
3. Performed frequently (abhiṇhaso kataṃ).
4. Performed for a long time (dīgharattaṃ kataṃ).
As I understand it, rebirth in the lower realms is due to the ripening of one or other of the ten akusala kammapathas. Sexual misconduct is one of the ten, but having too much sex is not. Having too much sex has a number of undesirable outcomes, such as the strengthening of the latent tendency to lust, but a bad rebirth isn’t claimed to be one of them.Ven. Subhūti's article wrote:Sexual behavior is very close to the animal realm. In fact, we have idioms and words depicting animal behavior for sex and sex organs, some which are quite crude. The mascot for Playboy has the iconic bunny ears. In the forests of Sri Lanka, you will inevitably see monkeys having sex to the point where it becomes clear that it is a distinctive animal behavior. If you wish to have "all the sex you can eat," you might end up as a monkey.
Getting reborn as a trafficked child prostitute would be the ripening of an akusalakamma patha, not the result of wishing for unlimited sex (unless of course you wished for unlimited sex with somebody else’s wife, in which case it would be the akusala kammapatha of covetousness).Ven. Subhūti's article wrote:So be careful for what you wish for. Suppose you are lucky to be human, but still wish for unlimited sex, in the next life you might be sold off as a trafficked child prostitute.
Ambapālī, for example, was reborn as a trafficked child prostitute because of the vipāka of harsh speech: she is reported to have insulted an arahant bhikkhunī during the time of Sikhī Buddha. If someone wishes for unlimited sex and performs sufficient deeds of merit, then he may well get what he wants; if he neglects the deeds of merit, then he won’t, but his unfulfilled wish would not be the cause for any particular kind of rebirth because it wouldn’t amount to either an akusala kammapatha or a puññakiriyāvatthu.
Puṇṇa imitated oxen; it was his companion Seniya who imitated dogs.Ven. Subhūti's article wrote:There was once an ascetic named Puṇṇa who imitated dogs thinking it would lead to a favorable birth.
Yes.Ven. Subhūti's article wrote:In Review:
You now know:
What the original rule completely says.
No. The article explains how it is understood by modern Burmese – an explanation that has altered the meaning of “protected by father, protected by mother…”Ven. Subhūti's article wrote:How abstaining from sexual misconduct was applied for the past 2500 years (and much longer before that).
Yes.Ven. Subhūti's article wrote:How things have changed only in the past 50 years since civilized human history.
These parts of the article aren’t explained very well because they conflate the distinction between habitual akusala kamma and non-kammic habitual behaviour. The subject of habitual kamma is better expounded in your teacher’s book, The Workings of Kamma. Although the sayadaw’s exposition is incomplete (e.g., he doesn’t state what conditions must obtain for any type of kamma to be called ‘habitual’) it is at least correct as far as it goes. I think your own is both incomplete and confused.Ven. Subhūti's article wrote:Habitual kamma and its effects for multiple lives.
The multi-life consequences from having multiple partners (soul mates) in this life.
The effects of a multi-life habit if consent from the partner and guardians is given.
It’s taught in many different ways in Asia, even just within the Theravada countries. For example, in the popular understanding, the Thais, Laotians and Khmers don’t agree with the Burmese and the Sinhalese about whether homosexual acts transgress the precept.Ven. Subhūti's article wrote:I invite you to spread this word about sexual misconduct in your communities and to all you know. It is such a basic fundamental rule that is not being taught correctly. At a minimum, one should know how the rule is taught in Asia.
But I expect by ‘Asia’ you mean ‘Myanmar’. How it’s being taught in Myanmar may be of some anthropological interest, but for a reliable understanding of how it was taught by the Buddha it’s important to look at how the texts define key terms like piturakkhitā, rather than just gullibly assuming that 21st century Burmese have got it right. With that in mind, let me conclude with the very earliest definition of this term:
Now when young Thin Thin is reading chemistry at Keble College, Oxford, while her daddy sits smoking cheroots in Mandalay, in what (uncontrived) sense can it possibly be said that the latter is guarding, watching over or wielding authority over his daughter?Piturakkhitā nāma: pitā rakkhati gopeti issariyaṃ kāreti vasaṃ vatteti.
“Guarded by the father” means: the father guards, watches over and wields authority over her; he has her in his power.
(Vin. iii. 139)