In Defense of Promiscuity Part II

<== click here for Part I

"So where shall we meet," asked the Swedish girl, firm in her conviction.

"I live at the monastery," I said, "In the Catskills. Beautiful land, beautiful space. Have my own cabin on the property one mile down the monastery drive, though," I added with a smile. "Perk of being the vice-abbot."

"And you're not celibate?"

"I never sell a bit of it"

She laughed. The Zen priest made another joke.

"Seriously," she pressed.

"I'm single and uninvolved with anyone right now," I said. "I'm celibate by choice only, not by vow."

"That's good," she said.

"And you're not married or engaged or planning on getting engaged or any such things my dear?"

She shook her head. "I'll see you in a week," she said coyly, and left. I watched her lean, long form walk away, and felt into both my desire and the deep sense of play she had invoked. Who was this beautiful and bold creature who so skillfully struck at the heart of my ego, while reminding me of my deepest self? Who, I wondered, was teacher, and who was student? Was it possible a 19-year-old girl could teach something to a Zen priest nearly 30 years her senior? Was it ethical?

A week later she appeared at Dai Bosatsu, the monastery run by my abbot, Eido Shimano Roshi, 82nd Patriarch of the Rinzai Zen school. In my cabin, she sat on my bed, barefooted and crossed-legged. The physical attraction, our pheromones, and our deep mutual curiosity were perfectly aligned, sniff sniff.

"So what are our terms of endearment," I asked her. My desire for her was palpable, but my years of mind training allowed me to sit with it, although I admit it was not a comfortable sit. In order for the relationship to be clean, we had to agree on some terms, I knew, to ensure we were able to stand in and stay in integrity. What would be our terms of endearment?

She intimated she was drawn to my playfulness, wisdom, fierceness, and clarity, and I shared I was drawn to her beauty, intelligence, certainty, independence, and sexuality. Sitting and looking into each other's eyes we both saw that we could and would fall in love.

"My intention," she said slowly, chewing on the words, "Is to fall in love with you, to make love to you, and to see you whenever our schedules line up for as long as it makes sense for the two of us."

I swallowed.

"I know I'll fall in love with you," I admitted. "But I won't fall into confusion, fear, jealousy, co-dependency, hyper-autonomy, or fantasy."

"Fantasy?" she asked.

I laughed. "You're nearly 30 years younger then me. We will take no prisoners with our love, stand outside of social convention without apology, not hide what is happening between us from our community, and will respect each other's independence. This is a sexual embrace as an investigation into divine union and what it means to love another as one might love God."

"Freedom. Clarity. Honesty," she said. "I'm all chips in, Jun Po, at least until the game's over."

Over the next two years, we met 9 times. We rock climbed in the New York Shawangunk Gunk Mountains and Chamonix in the French Swiss Alps, swam in the warm waters of the Mediterranean, dined on the streets of New York and Paris, and made love passionately and with a total commitment to our agreements to one another.

We met as Zen priest and Divine Goddess, as archetypal masculine and feminine, as lover and loved, as divine and human, as giver and receiver of love. Those roles changed fluidly and frequently as we played in our divine embrace, and together we did touch the very face of God.

Yet it was not always equal, for I was her Zen Dharana concentration, her Dhyana meditation, her Asana Yoga teacher, and 30 years her senior with a lifetime more experience under my belt, and far greater insight into the Non-dual nature of our minds. In those places, I was her teacher even though she was never a formal student of mine. We were each other's sexual Tantra teachers. She spoke 5 languages, was absolutely brilliant, had lived all over the world, and she taught me about Arabic, poetry, international politics, far greater and more liberated European ideas on sexuality, and just how powerful and grounded the feminine could be. She taught me about impermanence, for while we tend to view a nearly 50-year-old man as the "lucky" one when he's with a woman half his age, that man must also live with the knowledge that such things are not meant to last. As such, she kindly and gently taught me how to love without condition, and as a true expression of Spirit. She was, then as now, never angry, nor injured, nor disempowered, nor getting from me something she could not find within herself. Our dance was a Tango of unconditional loving, a conscious mutual affair that breathed the fire and love of God directly into our hearts.

When she ended our sexual union, I was 50, she 22. She broke my heart wide-open, and when it was time for her to go, we wept — together. I could not keep her or possess her, and our dance had come to a close. She said she was "all chips in until the game was over", and so it was. She returned to her culture and family, married her first sweetheart, and is this day back in Sweden living a chosen life of monogamy with a husband and two lovely children. I still feel her in my heart, and feel gratitude for all she gave me.

Sexuality between a spiritual teacher and a student can be experienced and shared in the light of unconditional loving and as divine play. Ours was.

This was a simple case, though. After all, neither of us were married or in relationships. We set our conditions consciously and lovingly. And when it was time to end, it did so cleanly and definitively, both the wiser for our encounter.

What happens when things are not so clean? What happens if the teacher is married, or his student is? What if both are single, but the student is a formal one who has taken vows? How much responsibility lies with the teacher, and how much with the student? And what of the "other" parties, the collateral damage of sexuality in sanghas? The lied-to wives, the cheated-on husbands, the wider sangha that can feel used and abused by a teacher that is having trouble staying true to the very vows they expect their students to keep?

Before we answer this, let's get straight on what love is, and is not.

Should spiritual teachers sleep with their students?

Let's start with this abstract question, often asked, and get into the thornier other points in a moment. As an Integralist, perhaps we can see how all of this ranting and raging within our community about sexual behavior is missing the point. We're asking the wrong question. The Integral question is not "should teachers sleep with their students". The question is: How do we take a compassionate and firm stand on the Truth, which includes sexuality between consenting adults?

It should be noted there already are Amber vows that a priest or roshi (or lama) must take. There already is a prohibition on sleeping with students, cheating on spouses, and lying about sexual activity. And yet these rules don't seem to amount too much more then a hill of beans with the dozens of teachers who have been unable to keep them. If you came here looking for a different list of "thou shall nots" and "thall shalls", you are in the wrong place. The Integralist must, by definition, offer answers that speak to the complexity of the issue, not issue decrees that tell us how to behave.

I tell my students, with only a hint of humor, "If you can't tell which students to sleep with, don't sleep with any of them." If you cannot tell the difference between lusting and loving, if you cannot touch in with your own Enlightened mind that is always Clear, if you cannot see that it is not just about you, keep your pants zipped.

Perhaps we need to find a way to put a warning label on our teachers, "Touch with caution, Unenlightened! This teacher is a horny old dog or bitch who cannot discern the difference between love and lust: BEWARE!" Those immature teachers that cannot tell the difference, risk lawsuits and scandal, toxic gossip that undermines the power of their teachings, easy attacks on their integrity, and never ending charges of hypocrisy that, it must be admitted, tend to stick. The spiritual teacher is like the captain of a Navy vessel: ultimately, s/he is responsible for what happens on their ship, no matter the circumstances.

Because of Enlightened but unwise teachers, who are not fully Awake, tantric and beautiful sex between consenting adults need not end. Eros is not here to be feared and denied but understood and celebrated. Yet she is not kind, and will tear to pieces those who treat her lightly or foolishly. The rule no sexual activity between mentor and mentee is necessary in an ignorant, mythically-bound culture. It is necessary in a culture where sex is interpreted as power politics. Yet to the Integralist, sexual union can be a healing and enlightening practice free of these arbitrary mental categorizations.

We, as Integralists, need to hold a more Enlightened view. When and where is sexual union part of loving interaction permitted? Where within Integral can we study this? Why is sex taboo even here, the one place where one would expect to find a nuanced and honest take on sex that could see things as they really are? Perhaps ISE 3, we could have sexual union as a sporting event: ISE tantric coitus competitions, demonstrations, and events? (That's a joke, people.) Perhaps not, but perhaps we could begin to bring light to this huge shadow, and bring our mental and emotional sophistication to bear on this too-long ignored topic.

A Better Perspective on Sex

Sexuality is about honesty and responsibility. Sex is playful, delight-filled. Anger, as projected violence toward those who do not understand the sacredness and responsibility of sex, is just rape of another order — do you get that? We are not here to argue about what mature sexual expression is or to condemn other's personal sexual preferences and missteps; we are here to embody mature sexual expression in our own lives.

Conscious mature sexuality is loving, not lusting. To withhold to deny sexual communion to gain control (over oneself, or one's student) is cruel and self-defeating. To offer sex as trade is prostitution. Sex is only and always Love's divine play.

Sexual arousal is a subtle energy field, an expression of divine procreation, two-becoming-one in the possibility of the literal karmic creation of a child. Sex education needs to be part of Integral training. And this sex education needs to begin now, across the Integral universe, so we can stop gossiping about who fucked whom and who is guilty, innocent, a victim, an aggressor, a manipulator of women, someone who is easily manipulated. Divine sex has nothing to do with manipulation. Integralists need to understand how and why to hold teachers accountable; teachers need to admit when and where they fuck up and be willing to stay in the spotlight to demonstrate, to all who care to see, how their mistake has led to insight and transformation and shadow-becoming-light.

Sexuality needs to be a conscious and disciplined affair. Sexual union is where the individual ego can be transcended. Sexual touch transcends time. Experiencing unconditional loving in a relationship makes jealousy inconceivable — if you don't get that, I tell you with iron certainty you have never freely loved.

Eros understood and respected will lift you to heights you can never reach alone, to the very face of God where you will be dismantled and put back together again in ways that words like gratitude and humility can only begin to express. And she will tear you to pieces if you treat her any other way.

Now that we're straight on love: who wants to play?

To Be Continued: Married Teachers, Married Students, Scorned Spouses, Jilted Sanghas, and other messes the real world serves up… An Integral View

Part 3

Jun Po Kelly Roshi

Jun Po Denis Kelly began his Buddhist practice at Zen Center San Francisco in the early '70s, later becoming a student of Eido Shimano Roshi in New York and subsequently a monk. He received his Zen Master recognition in 1992. Interested in bringing his Zen lineage (Rinzai tradition) into American culture without the Japanese cultural bindings, Jun Po left the monastery and founded the lay Buddhist Hollow Bones order, of which he is abbot. A yoga instructor as well, he traces his lineage to BKS Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois. He established the Hollow Bones seven-day Zen retreats for the Mankind Project.