The Red Thread

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.

<TR>Introduction3<TR>The Two Roads4<TR>Buddhist Sexualities8<TR>Ch. 1The Hermeneutics of Desire15<TR>Protean Desire16<TR>The Buddhist Economy of Desire23<TR>Ascetic Lust29<TR>The Trend Reversal39<TR>The Ambivalent Body54<TR>Ch. 2Disciplining Sex, Sexualizing Discipline64<TR>Law, Order, and Libido65<TR>Sexual Offenses74<TR>The Rise of Mahayana Precepts89<TR>Ch. 3The Ideology of Transgression98<TR>The Rule of Antinomianism100<TR>Crazy Cloud111<TR>Transgression - Sublime or Sublimated?118<TR>Ritual Infractions124<TR>Feminine Transgression129<TR>Ch. 4Clerical Vices and Vicissitudes144<TR>Monastic Decline and Anticlericalism145<TR>The Demonic Priest161<TR>The Juridical Background172<TR>Nyobon181<TR>Order or Freedom197<TR>Ch. 5Buddhist Homosexualities207<TR>The New Sodom207<TR>The Social and Cultural Context(s)227<TR>The Quest for Origins233<TR>Ch. 6Boys to Men241<TR>The Literary Tradition of the Chigo241<TR>The "Divine Child" Mystique249<TR>Head or Tail265<TR>Afterthoughts279<TR>Glossary289<TR>Bibliography293<TR>Index333