The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality - Softcover

Faure, Bernard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0691059977 ISBN 13: 9780691059976

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1998

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

Bernard Faure is Associate Professor of Religion at Stanford University. He is the author of The Rhetoric of Immediacy, Chan Insights and Oversights, and Visions of Power (all from Princeton University Press).

Reviews

The author of major works on Zen, Faure (religion, Stanford) here turns his gaze to sexuality in Buddhism, which binds its practitioners to human existence as if by a red thread. His focus is on Chinese and Japanese Buddhism, with lesser emphasis on India, Tibet, and Korea. Progressing through an examination of passion and discipline, transgression and vice, the book culminates in two chapters dealing largely with the tradition in Japan of "male love" (nanshoku) and its manifestations both in and beyond the monastic life. The principles that passions are no different from awakening and that ultimate truth is beyond good and evil receive a thoroughly documented, cross-cultural explanation. Faure's examination also touches on other transgressions, such as drinking or eating meat. The relative silence on transgressions by females emanates from their irrelevance in the system. Faure plans a companion volume in which women will play a more prominent role. Recommended for academic collections.?D.E. Perushek, Northwestern Univ. Lib., Evanston, IL
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691059977
• ISBN 13: 9780691059976
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 324