Curing Lust (satire)

Imagine the flesh of someone you lust rotting away, turning into a rotting corpse, and decaying until all that's left is a skeleton of a human being.

Bring this to mind every time you lust for that person until you do not even think of the object of your desire, lest you conjure of that horrible vision of a person dying and rotting, and becoming bone.

I'm pretty sure that such an extreme meditation practice would ruin your libido for good. Indeed, it is a meditation practice for Buddhist monks and nuns. They who faithfully practice this meditation never experience sexual misconduct within a Buddhist monastery.

In a worst case scenario, this practice might be the Buddhist cure for sex addiction, except Westerners mistake meditation practice for religion & mdash; as opposed to Christianity, where a sinner may be shamed and made to feel guilty for natural sexual behavior, which purportedly causes psychological hang-ups and manufactures from one of out of every twenty-five church members a sociopath who might work his way up in the religious hierarchy.

A priest becomes a sociopath when he breaks his celibacy vows, and lies to his bishop. A bishop becomes a sociopath when he turns church bingo into a multimillion-dollar business. A Pope becomes a sociopath when he hides being a soldier in a war in his youth.

However, being gay does not stop a man from becoming a priest. It might cause him to fight for the rights of all living beings on this earth. It all depends on the man.

Perhaps this meditation could be modified for drug addiction: just imagine the worst-case scenario where you take your drugs in a homeless shelter and are prey to black boys speaking Haitian Creole.

Sure, like that's going to work.

If you believe in the fallacy that "all sociopaths are evil" when the truth is, only unsuccessful sociopaths are deemed evil by Western society when they get caught. Once caught, these people might be thrown under the bus by a few mainstream media journalists who promote a moral panic about sociopaths under the guise of responsible journalism.

Sometimes, karma is a bitch when you let lust control your life, be it for sex, drugs, and even money. Most of the time, we think the libido is normal and natural, and that repressive means of controlling it is tantamount to the abuse of a person's individual human rights.

It is not psychological abuse for Buddhist monks and nuns to practice this kind of meditation, because they do so willingly. Yet it would be abuse if such meditation practices were mandatory for unprepared people, even in a clinical setting.

This is why no Buddhist organization endorses such a practice, and rely only on the Five Precepts of the Buddhist code of ethics (abstain from killing, abstain from theft, avoid sexual misconduct, abstain from false speech, and abstain from consuming alcohol and drugs).

For this meditation practice is not for laypeople, and could potentially harm any Buddhist who practices it outside of a monastery. I do not endorse its practice, but mentioned it here to show how preposterous it would be to serve as the cure for lust.

It is safer for the Buddhist practitioner to practice the Five Precepts than to become a monk or nun in a Buddhist monastery. Indeed, it is harmless, provided the practitioner keep all the precepts and practice them diligently while repenting from minor infractions (lying, gossipping, and consuming alcohol and drugs).

Perhaps this explains the practice of Pure Land Buddhist practitioners who chant the Buddha's name (Nianfo or Nembutsu) to burn off the evil karma of past wrongful actions. In this way do they purify their mind. For this is a path of easy practice that helps them achieve peace of mind.

In my opinion, these diverse Buddhist practices of chanting and meditation are examples of sexual sublimation, and positive expressions of libido.

YMMV

---

References:

Five Precepts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Precepts

Truth of the Name-that-calls

Calling out to Amida Buddha,
I hear Amida calling out to me
With each and every utterance
Of the Name-that-calls.

A foolish sentient being
such as this one cannot achieve
Nirvana in this Age of Decadent Hedonism.
All he can do is utter
The Name-that-calls
With the belief
that he shall be born
in the Pure Land of Bliss.

In the Pure Land
All who are born there
Sit listening to Amida Buddha
Preach his Buddhadharma,
And, according to his karma,
Aspire to become Bodhisattva.

With all the suffering
in Samsara, the Bodhisattva
vows to be reborn in
the realm where he is needed,
be it in the Hells to
rescue hell beings,
in the Hungry Ghost realm
to rescue hungry ghosts,
in the Animal realm to
rescue animals,
in the Human realm to
rescue human beings,
in the Demon realm to
rescue demons, and
in the Godly realm to
rescue the gods.

By rescuing all sentient beings
in the Realms of Desire — Samasara —
the Bodhisattva gains karmic merit
which aids his transformation
into Buddha, thus freeing him
from rebirth in the Realms of Desire.

This is why this one, devoted to Amida,
Calls out to him endlessly,
So that after this life, rebirth
in the Pure Land of Bliss is assured!
Namu Amida Butsu!

Buddha Recitation as Mind Tool

With each breath I take, I let go of attachment, and cease constructing in my mind all conceptions detrimental to understanding the nature of reality as it is.

Thus, "I, me, mine" are pronouns that describe the person writing these words, yet this person is not attached to such words. For "I, me, mine" are empty of inherent permanent reality.

Then, being the practice to prepare the mind, Buddha Recitation is also empty of permanent reality.

Also, the desire to be reborn in the Pure Land of Bliss is impermanent.

Thus the desire for rebirth inspires me to practice Buddha Recitation, a mindful practice.

Being a mindful practice, it settles my mind and helps me to prepare for meditation.

Thus Buddha Recitation ceases to be a pervasive mental construction, and becomes one of many tools in the Buddhist's tool kit to free the mind.

For it helps me to develop the Pure Mind that is pacified by the pure heart of compassion. This compassion is reflected in the idea that when I call out to Amida, it is actually him calling to me. Realizing this, I will continue to maintain the practice of Buddha Recitation before meditation.

Buddha Recitation helps me to remember the Buddha. As Buddha Remembrance is essential to my meditation, I practice daily.

As well, having realized the importance of always maintaining happy thoughts through understanding the essence of Master Hui-Neng's advice on the topic, I endeavour to remain in the present moment.

For all of this I am grateful to Amida Buddha.

The Buddha is not a God but Inspiration for Buddhahood

Regarding Buddhism, the Buddha is not a god, yet Buddha-essence is like a gift given to everyone on birth. She who accepts this wisdom shall uncover the Buddha within.

It takes listening carefully to the Buddha's story to awaken this essence, and every Buddhist who keeps his own story a secret is turning the Buddha away. For everyone is free to become a Buddha, yet few of them are ready.

For they who are not ready have yet to understand what the Buddha means to them.

For me, the Buddha means peaceful bliss and the aspiration to be of service to anyone seeking the calm awakening that meditation provides.

If this is a turn-off to atheists, then that's their karma for confusing Mahayana Buddhism with monotheism.

In my opinion Zen Buddhists are closet atheists. They achieve their Buddha-hood by self-power.

Because self-power sometimes leads to ego delusion, this may explain why Zen Buddhists do not think much of chanting a mantra or Buddha Remembrance (repeating the Nembutsu (Nian-fo) until one reaches samadhi).

Yet the fathers of Zen and the Chinese Ch'an master before them praised the Nian-fo practice since it quickly hastens the practitioner's path to Buddha-hood due to intent to be reborn in the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss.

Zen masters do not understand this as their self-power path blinds them, and thus prevents them from considering the easy way to Buddha-hood.

I on the other hand find zazen practice to only contribute to hemorrhoids rather than satori. YMMV

For Nian-fo practice quickly aids the mind-stream in achieving Buddha-hood, as the Pure Land that in which the practitioner believes he will be reborn is surely the optimal place to swiftly achieve Buddha-hood.

Any Zen master who doubts this is thus blinded by the ego delusion arising from his flavor of self-power.

Indeed, it is the Other-power of Nian-fo that helps the Nembutsu practitioner to achieve what the Theravada and Zen practitioners cannot: rebirth in a Pure Land that helps all Buddhists who have faith in Other-power to quickly help them achieve Nirvana and ultimately, Buddha-hood.

For the Pure Land is conducive to achieve Buddha-hood.

Thus it is by Buddha Remembrance that Nembutsu practitioners become Buddha.