"Aware of the suffering caused by sexual misconduct, I undertake to
cultivate responsibility and learn ways to protect the safety and integrity
of individuals, couples, families, and society. I am determined not to engage
in sexual relations without love and a long- term commitment. To preserve the
happiness of myself and others, I am determined to respect my commitments and
the commitments of others. I will do everything in my power to protect children
from sexual abuse and to prevent couples and families from being broken by sexual
misconduct."
So many individuals, children, couples, and families have been destroyed by
sexual misconduct. To practice the Third Precept is to heal ourselves and heal
our society. This is mindful living.
The Fifth Precept -- not to consume alcohol, toxins, or drugs -- and the Third
Precept are linked. Both concern destructive and destabilizing behavior. These
precepts are the right medicine to heal us. We need only to observe ourselves
and those around us to see the truth. Our stability and the stability of our
families and society cannot be obtained without the practice of these two precepts.
If you look at individuals and families who are unstable and unhappy, you will
see that many of them do not practice these precepts. You can make the diagnosis
by yourself and then know that the medicine is there. Practicing these precepts
is the best way to restore stability in the family and in society. For many
people, this precept is easy to practice, but for others, it is quite difficult.
It is important for these people to come together and share their experiences.
In the Buddhist tradition, we speak of the oneness of body and mind. Whatever
happens to the body also happens to the mind. The sanity of they body is the
sanity of the mind; the violation of the body is the violation of the mind.
When we are angry, we may think that we are angry in our feelings, not in our
body, but that is not true. When we love someone, we want to be close to him
or her physically, but when we are angry at someone, we don't want to touch
or be touched by that person. We cannot say that body and mind are separate.
A sexual relationship is an act of communion between body and spirit. This is
a very important encounter, not to be done in a casual manner. You know that
in your soul there are certain areas -- memories, pain, secrets -- that are
private, that you would only share with the person you love and trust the most.
You do not open your heart and show it to just anyone. In the imperial city,
there is a zone you cannot approach called the forbidden city; only the king
and his family are permitted to circulate there. There is a place like that
in your soul that you do not allow anyone to approach except the one you trust
and love the most.
The same is true of our body. Our bodies have areas that we do not want anyone
to touch or approach unless he or she is the one we respect, trust, and love
the most. When we are approached casually or carelessly, with an attitude that
is less than tender, we feel insulted in our body and soul. Someone who approaches
us with respect, tenderness, and utmost care is offering us deep communication,
deep communion. It is only in that case that we will not feel hurt, misused,
or abused, even a little. This cannot be attained unless there is true love
and commitment. Casual sex cannot be described as love. Love is deep, beautiful,
and whole.
True love contains respect. In my tradition, husband and wife are expected to
respect each other like guests, and when you practice this kind of respect,
your love and happiness will continue for a long time. In sexual relationships,
respect is one of the most important elements. Sexual communion should be like
a rite, a ritual performed in mindfulness with great respect, care, and love.
If you are motivated by some desire, that is not love. Desire is not love. Love
is something much more responsible. It has care in it.
We have to restore the meaning of the word "love." We have been using
it in a careless way. When we say, "I love hamburgers," we are not
talking about love. We are talking about our appetite, our desire for hamburgers.
We should not dramatize our speech and misuse words like that. We make words
like "love" sick that way. We have to make an effort to heal our language
by using words carefully. The word "love" is a beautiful word. We
have to restore its meaning.
"I am determined not to engage in sexual relations without love and a long-term
commitment." If the word "love" is understood in the deepest
way, why do we need to say "long-term commitment"? If love is real,
we do not need long or short-term commitments, or even a wedding ceremony. True
love includes the sense of responsibility, accepting the other person as he
is, with all his strengths and weaknesses. If we like only the best things in
the person, that is not love. We have to accept his weaknesses and bring our
patience, understanding, and energy to help him transform. Love is maitri, the
capacity to bring joy and happiness, and karuna, the capacity to transform pain
and suffering. This kind of love can only be good for people. It cannot be described
as negative or destructive. It is safe. It guarantees everything.
Should we cross out the phrase "long-term commitment" or change it
to "short-term commitment"? "Short-term commitment" means
that we can be together for a few days and after that the relationship will
end. That cannot be described as love. If we have that kind of relationship
with another person, we cannot say that the relationship comes out of love and
care. The expression "long-term commitment" helps people understand
the word love. In the context of real love, commitment can only be long-term.
"I want to love you. I want to help you. I want to care for you. I want
you to be happy. I want to work for happiness. But just for a few days."
Does this make sense?
You are afraid to make a commitment -- to the precepts, to your partner, to
anything. You want freedom. But remember, you have to make a long-term commitment
to love your son deeply and help him through the journey of life as long as
you are alive. You cannot just say, "I don't love you anymore." When
you have a good friend, you also make a long-term commitment. You need her.
How much more so with someone who wants to share your life, your soul, and your
body. The phrase "long-term commitment" cannot express the depth of
love, but we have to say something so that people understand.
A long-term commitment between two people is only a beginning. We also need
the support of friends and other people. That is why, in our society, we have
a wedding ceremony. The two families join together with other friends to witness
the fact that you have come together to live as a couple. The priest and the
marriage license are just symbols. What is important is that your commitment
is witnessed by many friends and both of your families. Now you will be supported
by them. A long-term commitment is stronger and more long-lasting if made in
the context of a Sangha.
Your strong feelings for each other are very important, but they are not enough
to sustain your happiness. Without other elements, what you describe as love
may turn into something sour rather soon. The support of friends and family
coming together weaves a kind of web. The strength of your feelings is only
one of the strands of that web. Supported by many elements, the couple will
be solid, like a tree. If a tree wants to be strong, it needs a number of roots
sent deep into the soil. If a tree has only one root, it may be blown over by
the wind. The life of a couple also needs to be supported by many elements --
families, friends, ideals, practice, and Sangha.
In Plum Village, the practice community where I live in France, every time we
have a wedding ceremony, we invite the whole community to celebrate and bring
support to the couple. After the ceremony, on every full moon day, the couple
recites the Five Awarenesses together, remembering that friends everywhere are
supporting their relationship to be stable, long-lasting, and happy. Whether
or not your relationship is bound by law, it will be stronger and more long-lasting
if made in the presence of a Sangha -- friends who love you and want to support
you in the spirit of understanding and loving kindness.
Love can be a kind of sickness. In the West and in Asia, we have the word "lovesick."
What makes us sick is attachment. Although it is a sweet internal formation,
this kind of love with attachment is like a drug. It makes us feel wonderful,
but once we are addicted, we cannot have peace. We cannot study, do our daily
work, or sleep. We only think of the object of our love. We are sick with love.
This kind of love is linked to our willingness to possess and monopolize. We
want the object of our love to be entirely ours and only for us. It is totalitarian.
We do not want anyone to prevent us from a prison, where we lock up our beloved
and create only suffering for him or her. The one who is loved is deprived of
freedom -- of the right to be him or herself and enjoy life. This kind of love
cannot be described as maitri or karuna. It is only the willingness to make
use of the other person in order to satisfy our own needs.
When you have sexual energy that makes you feel unhappy, as though you are losing
your inner peace, you should know how to practice so that you do not do things
that will bring suffering to other people or yourself. We have to learn about
this. In Asia, we say there are three sources of energy -- sexual, breath, and
spirit. Tinh, sexual energy, is the first. When you have more sexual energy
than you need, there will be an imbalance in your body and in your being. You
need to know how to reestablish the balance, or you may act irresponsibly. According
to Taoism and Buddhism, there are practices to help reestablish that balance,
such as meditation or martial arts. You can learn the ways to channel your sexual
energy into deep realizations in the domains of art and meditation.
The second source of energy is khi, breath energy. Life can be described as
a process of burning. In order to burn, every cell in our body needs nutrition
and oxygen. In his Fire Sermon, the Buddha said, "The eyes are burning,
the nose is burning, the body is burning." In our daily lives, we have
to cultivate our energy by practicing proper breathing. We benefit from the
air and its oxygen, so we have to be sure that non-polluted air is available
to us. Some people cultivate their khi by refraining from smoking and talking
a lot. When you speak, take the time to breathe. At Plum Village, every time
we hear the bell of mindfulness, everyone stops what they are doing and breathes
consciously three times. We practice this way to cultivate and preserve our
khi energy.
The third source of energy is than, spirit energy. When you don't sleep at night,
you lose some of this kind of energy. Your nervous system becomes exhausted
and you cannot study or practice meditation well, or make good decisions. You
don't have a clear mind because lack of sleep or from worrying too much. Worry
and anxiety drain this source of energy.
So don't worry. Don't stay up too late. Keep your nervous system healthy. Prevent
anxiety. These kinds of practices cultivate the third source of energy. You
need this source of energy to practice meditation well. A spiritual breakthrough
requires the power of your spirit energy, which comes about through concentration
and knowing how to preserve this source of energy. When you have strong spirit
energy, you only have to focus it on an object, and you will have a breakthrough.
If you don't have than, the light of your concentration will not shine brightly,
because the light emitted is very weak.
According to Asian medicine, the power of than is linked to the power of tinh.
When we expend our sexual energy, it takes time to restore it. In Chinese medicine,
when you want to have a strong spirit and concentration, you are advised to
refrain from having sexual relationships or overeating. You will be given herbs,
roots, and medicine to enrich your source of than, and during the time you are
taking this medicine, you are asked to refrain from sexual relationships. If
your source of spirit is weak and you continue to have sexual relations, it
is said that you cannot recover your spirit energy. Those who practice meditation
should try to preserve their sexual energy, because they need it during meditation.
If you are an artist, you may wish to practice channeling your sexual energy
together with your spirit energy into your art.
During his struggle against the British, Gandhi undertook many hunger strikes,
and he recommended to his friends who joined him on these fasts not to have
sexual intercourse. When you fast for many days, if you have sexual relations,
you may die; you have to preserve your energies. Thich Tri Quang, my friend
who fasted for one hundred days in the hospital in Saigon in 1966, knew very
well that not having sexual intercourse was very basic. Of course, as a monk,
he did not have any problem with that. He also knew that speaking is an energy
drain, so he refrained from speaking. If he needed something, he said it in
one or two words or wrote it down. Writing, speaking, or making too many movements
draws from these three sources of energy. So, the best thing is to lie down
on your back and practice deep breathing. This brings into you the vitality
that you need to survive a hundred-day hunger strike. If you don't eat, you
cannot replenish this energy. If you refrain from studying, doing research,
or worrying, you can preserve these resources. These three sources of energy
are linked to each other. By practicing one, you help the other. That is why
anapanasati, the practice of conscious breathing, is so important for our spiritual
life. It helps with all of our sources of energy.
Monks and nuns do not engage in sexual relationships because they want to devote
their energy to having a breakthrough in meditation. They learn to channel their
sexual energy to strengthen their spirit energy for the breakthrough. They also
practice deep breathing to increase the spirit energy. Since they live alone,
without a family, they can devote most of their time to meditation and teaching,
helping the people who provide them with food, shelter, and so on.
They have contact with the population in the village in order to share the Dharma.
Since they do not have a house or a family to care for, they have the time and
space to do the things they like the most -- walking, sitting, breathing, and
helping fellow monks, nuns, and laypeople -- and to realize what they want.
Monks and nuns don't marry in order to preserve their time and energy for the
practice.
"Responsibility" is the key word in the Third Precept. In a community
of practice, if there is no sexual misconduct, if the community practices this
precept well, there will be stability and peace. This precept should be practiced
by everyone. You respect, support, and protect each other as Dharma brothers
and sisters. If you don't practice this precept, you may become irresponsible
and create trouble in the community at large. We have all seen this. If a teacher
cannot refrain from sleeping with one of his or her students, he or she will
destroy everything, possibly for several generations. We need mindfulness in
order to have that sense of responsibility. We refrain from sexual misconduct
because we are responsible for the well-being of so many people. If we are irresponsible,
we can destroy everything. By practicing this precept, we keep the Sangha beautiful.
In sexual relationships, people can get wounded. Practicing this precept is
to prevent ourselves and others from being wounded. Often we think it is the
woman who receives the wound, but men also get deeply wounded. We have to be
very careful, especially in short-term commitments. The practice of the Third
Precept is a very strong way of restoring stability and peace in ourselves,
our family, and our society. We should take the time to discuss problems relating
to the practice of this precept, like loneliness, advertising, and even the
sex industry.
The feeling of loneliness is universal in our society. There is no communication
between ourselves and other people, even in the family, and our feeling of loneliness
pushes us into having sexual relationship will make us feel less lonely, but
it isn't true. When there is not enough communication with another person on
the level of the heart and spirit, a sexual relationship will only widen the
gap and destroy us both. Our relationship will be stormy, and we will make each
other suffer. The belief that having a sexual relationship will help us feel
lonely is a kind of superstition. We should not be fooled by it. In fact, we
will feel more lonely afterwards. The union of the two bodies can only be positive
when there is understanding and communion on the level of the heart and the
spirit. Even between husband and wife, if the communion on the level of the
heart and spirit does not exist, the coming together of the two bodies will
only separate you further. When that is the case, I recommend that you refrain
from having sexual relationships and first try to make a breakthrough in communication.
There are two Vietnamese words, tinh and nghia, that are difficult to translate
into English. They both mean something like love. In tinh, you find elements
of passion. It can be very deep, absorbing the whole of your being. Nghia is
a kind of continuation of tinh. With Nghia you feel much calmer, more understanding,
more willing to sacrifice to make the other person happy, and more faithful.
You are not as passionate as in tinh, but your love is deeper and more solid.
Nghia will keep you and the other person together for a long time. It is the
result of living together and sharing difficulties and joy over time.
You begin with passion, but, living with each other, you encounter difficulties,
and as you learn to deal with them, your love deepens. Although the passion
diminishes, nghia increases all the time. Nghia is a deeper love, with more
wisdom, more interbeing, more unity. You understand the other person better.
You and that person become one reality. Nghia is like a fruit that is already
ripe. It does not taste sour anymore; it is only sweet.
In nghia, you feel gratitude for the other person. "Thank you for having
chosen me. Thank you for being my husband or my wife. There are so many people
in society, why have you chosen me? I am very thankful." That is the beginning
of nghia, the sense of thankfulness for your having chosen me as your companion
to share the best things in yourself, as well as your suffering and your happiness.
When we live together, we support each other. We begin to understand each other's
feelings and difficulties. When the other person has shown his or her understanding
of our problems, difficulties, and deep aspirations, we feel thankful for that
understanding. When you feel understood by someone, you stop being unhappy.
Happiness is, first of all, feeling understood. "I am grateful because
you have proved that you understand me. While I was having difficulty and remained
awake deep into the night, you took care of me. You showed me that my well-being
is your own well-being. You did the impossible in order to bring about my well-being.
You took care of me in a way that no one else in this world could have. For
that I am grateful to you."
If the couple lives with each other for a long time, "until our hair becomes
white and our teeth fall out," it is because of nghia, and not because
of tinh. Tinh is passionate love. Nghia is the kind of love that has a lot of
understanding and gratitude in it.
All love may begin by being passionate, especially for younger people. But in
the process of living together, they have to learn and practice love, so that
selfishness -- the tendency to possess -- will diminish, and the elements of
understanding and gratitude will settle in, little by little, until their love
becomes nourishing, protecting, and reassuring. With nghia, you are very sure
that the other person will take care of you and will love you until your teeth
fall out and your hair becomes white. Nothing will assure you that the person
will be with you for a long time except nghia. Nghia is built by both of you
in your daily life.
To meditate is to look into the nature of our love to see the kind of elements
that are in it. We cannot call our love just tinh or nghia, possessive love
or altruistic love, because there may be elements of both in it. It may be ninety
percent possessive love, three percent altruistic love, two percent gratitude,
and so on. Look deeply into the nature of your love and find out. The happiness
of the other person and your own happiness depend on the nature of your love.
Of course you have love in you, but what is important is the nature of that
love. If you realize that there is a lot of maitri and karuna in your love,
that will be very reassuring. Nghia will be strong in it.
Children, if they observe deeply, will see that what keeps their parents together
is nghia and not passionate love. If their parents take good care of each other,
look after each other with calmness, tenderness, and care, nghia is the foundation
of that care. That is the kind of love we really need for our family and for
our society.
In practicing the Third Precept, we should always look into the nature of our
love in order to see and not be fooled by our feelings. Sometimes we feel that
we have love for the other person, but maybe that love is only an attempt to
satisfy our own egoistic needs. Maybe we have not looked deeply enough to see
the needs of the other person, including the need to be safe, protected. If
we have that kind of breakthrough, we will realize that the other person needs
our protection, and therefore we cannot look upon him or her just as an object
of our desire. The other person should not be looked upon as a kind of commercial
item.
Sex is used in our society as a means for selling products. We also have the
sex industry. If we don't look at the other person as a human being, with the
capacity of becoming a Buddha, we risk transgressing this precept. Therefore
the practice of looking deeply into the nature of our love has a lot to do with
the practice of the Third Precept. "I will do everything in my power to
protect children from sexual abuse and to prevent couples and families from
being broken by sexual misconduct." Adults who were molested as children
continue to suffer very much. Everything they think, do, and say bears the mark
of that wound. They want to transform themselves and heal their wound, and the
best way to do this is to observe the Third Precept. Because of their own experience,
they can say, "As a victim of sexual abuse, I undertake to protect all
children and adults from sexual abuse." Our suffering becomes a kind of
positive energy that will help us become a bodhisattva. We undertake to protect
all children and other people. And we also undertake to help those who abuse
children sexually, because they are sick and need our help. The ones who made
us suffer become the object of our love and protection. We see that until the
sick are protected and helped, children are going to continue to be abused sexually.
We undertake to help these people so that they will not molest children any
longer. At the same time, we undertake to help children. We take not only the
side of children who are being molested, but the other side also. These molesters
are sick, the products of an unstable society. They may be an uncle, an aunt,
a grandparent, or a parent. They need to be observed, helped, and, if possible,
healed. When we are determined to observe this precept, the energy that is born
helps us to transform into a bodhisattva, and that transformation may heal us
even before we begin to practice. The best way for anyone who was molested as
a child to heal is to take this precept and undertake to protect children and
adults who may be sick, who may be repeating the kind of destructive actions
that will cause a child to be wounded for the rest of his or her life.
THICH NHAT HANH is a Zen Buddhist monk, peace activist, scholar, and poet.
He is the founder of the Van Hanh Buddhist University in Saigon, has taught
at Columbia University and the Sorbonne, and now lives in southern France, where
he gardens, works to help those in need, and travels internationally teaching
``the art of mindful living.'' Martin Luther King, Jr., nominated him for the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1967, saying, ``I do not personally know of anyone more
worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize than this gentle monk from Vietnam.''
Reproduced from For a Future to Be Possible: Commentaries on the Five Wonderful
Precepts (1993) by Thich Nhat Hanh. Copyright 1993. Reprinted with permission
of Parallax Press, PO Box 7355, Berkeley, CA 94707.
Source: http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/dharma/