FAQ about monastic life

 

Do satsang allow LBBT people? What about sexual activity in satsang?

Sexual orientation is a matter of body-mind, it does not define you. You are a soul, unlimited by gender. So-called sexual orientation is not unlike food preferences and we know that upon entering satsang one will conform to the dietary and other norms of that society. Satsang is all about soul and spiritual development. Satsang is not the place for body hobbies like sexual games. Those belong to the realms of secular life and must be put on hold while attending at satsang.

The urges of body-mind are both distractions  and learning opportunities. We learn how to repurpose body-mind and body energies for soul and spiritual development. That is the purpose of satsang—to learn these skills. Body chemistry and body-mind reactions to it are acknowledged as a sort of “necessary evil”, likened to having to fill up one’s vehicle or aeroplane with questionable fuels that are really not good for our precious planet and our neighbours. Soul-mind learns to take charge of body-mind and disciplines it, giving in to its (often incessant, sometimes childish) demands only when it is required to maintain the body and its mind in good health. That is what we learn at satsang.

Thus said:
"If sexual orientation (gay, bi, hetero) does not matter at all, according to Wayist wisdom and logic, the immediate follow-up questions must be,
“Why do you separate genders for young people?”
The answer is that young people, generally speaking, have a long way to go to learn how powerful body urges can be and how body chemistry can convince body-mind of things and lead one to make mistakes. We know that this is true, but what then about the next logical question,
“Why don’t you put girls with a lesbian orientation together with boys of a heterosexual orientation?”
OK, see, this is why body-mind reasoning is good for a while but it gets tied in knots after a time. There are very few answers that body-mind is capable of in life. To attempt a defence of the aforementioned; perhaps the girls need protection from the boys because the boys don’t care about the lesbian’s sexual orientation and are physically stronger (perhaps). Nice, but that does not explain why we don’t put homosexual boys together with heterosexual girls. Body-mind cannot stop itself and Wayist logic dictates that it asks,
“Where do we put bisexual people if we don’t want to tempt them with sexual distraction?”
I guess this is about where we will stop because the case in point has been proved. Sexual orientation is fluid, it is a body-mind distraction and its energy can be repurposed once you know how. But really, we have to just take life day by day and do what we can to make sense of it for every day brings its own challenges and opportunities. Very few things about so-called moral rules make any logical sense at all, but we have to try.

Can married people in secular life be ordained monks and nuns? Can a person with a secular career be ordained?

It happens. It depends on one’s sangha Master teacher. The general rule of thumb is that it requires both partners to commit even if only one partner is ordained, and the yogi must know that the spiritual career comes first, and consumes more than 50% of the his/her time and effort and the secular career is secondary.

Some married couples are equally committed to the satsang and both are ordained.

How do satsang keep paedophiles and perverts at bay?

We have rules that aim to protect all people in a satsang from abuse and from malicious allegations of abuse. One such rule is that you never go anywhere alone, always take a (designated) peer with you. This follows that you are never alone with someone that is not a peer whom you regard as a chaperone. Additionally, you are never behind closed doors with anyone who is not a trusted peer. Slanderous allegations against devotees may happen but the innocent devotee will always have a witness.

The word pervert, on the other hand is dangerous because it is based on the particular moral values adopted by the accuser at that time. Sometimes it relies on the norms of the accuser’s culture. Therefore, a so-called pervert in one person’s book can be a normal person in another person’s book. One example: while it is a right protected by the Constitution of Canada for women to go about in public bare breasted, nobody does it because Canadians think it is perverted, therefore regarded as abnormal and unacceptable. The result is that bare breasts are eroticised in Canada and even a little bit of cleavage or a “nipple slip” (wardrobe malfunction) is cause for media attention and apparently warrants masturbatory indulgence among some men. In many other countries around the world, bare breasts of male and female alike are regarded as normal, beautiful and natural. In those communities the idea of eroticizing bare breasts is perverted. Therefore, Canadians would be called perverts in those countries because they eroticize bare breasts, while in Canada those breast friendly cultures would be called perverts because they consider breasts to be natural, beautiful, and not eroticized. Cultures with more balanced views on this aspect tend to regard (some) bare breasts as erotically beautiful in the same way as they would look upon a sexy movie star, without the body-mind flipping out of gear and making a big sexual guwaff about it; like appreciating beautiful art or nature. Another culture, unfortunately, will react by stoning a bare breasted woman because she “caused the onlooker man to sin in his filthy thoughts”, thus acknowledging that the men in that society have no control over their body-mind and are not expected to ever have such control. Who then are perverts in these various cases?

The word “pervert” says more about the accuser than the person it is said about. Wayist have a really hard time with ethics because we are obliged to consider other angles before we judge. In the end, however, we all have to live in a community according to its particular values and standards—and, advises our Primary Text, “if you don’t like it, then either you change it or leave but while there, follow their rules.” In short, we have to make sure that all people attending a satsang know the rules of the community at large and adapt to it, or go elsewhere.

How does a non-Wayist (actually, everyone is a Wayists, some are not yet aware of it) or a lay person conduct him/herself in the presence of a Wayist monk or nun?

The same way that one would conduct oneself in the presence of people who are known to hold to different values in life, perhaps like one’s grandparents for example. Treat them like they treat you, and all will be well.

Bear in mind that they are generally regarded as vulnerable people (for various reasons, right or wrong) and for their own protection (safety, reputation, satsang reputation, etc) they usually do not move about alone. You will do them a favour to not conduct associations with them that could be construed by onlookers as disrespectful, sexual or frivolous. People have many different expectations of how monks and nuns “should” conduct themselves. Even though your encounter may have been totally innocent, someone else may just run to the satsang and lay a complaint against the devotee. That will be the start of retraining, investigations and possible disciplinary actions—not something one would want to inflict on someone else for no good reason. An elder in secular community will do a young monk/nun a favour to warn him/her of conduct that may perhaps be committed in innocence but may be construed as unseemly by some critical onlookers.

Sometimes, a monk or nun may feel secure in temporarily moving the rules of conduct closer to that of secular society. Typically, this may happen when they want to meet students at their level, or break the ice to indicate their comfort at that level, making themselves more approachable. After a while, the monk/nun will have to move back to his/her usual space to continue their career at that level. Keep in mind that they are not holier than thou and they don’t think they are. If anything, they are more aware of their own struggles with the human condition than most people. If you find them aloof, it is not because they ‘look down on you’ but because they are working at holding on to that mind space they require to work on their spirituality.

Some men think that they ‘fall in love’ with nuns. It is unfortunately a very base animal instinctive reaction to the idea of a submissive, seemingly pristine female. Some women think they fall in love with monks and spiritual teachers. Often, this is because they project them to be great husbands who listen very well, are not overbearing, are sensitive to their needs, knows them inside out, and with whom they can share their innermost secrets. The easy cure for this affliction is to bring into the equation the fact that the person, the object of devotion, is already devoted to another, the Lord. If you really like the person so much, you will respect that.

You can learn a lot from them. Some may be shy but under the proper circumstances they can be a source of amazing energy, wisdom and insight.