Why don't grown men just live in a fraternity together instead of with a woman?
12-31-2018, 04:42 AMQuote: (12-30-2018 03:27 PM)RIslander Wrote:
An interesting question to the forum and perhaps a mod can turn this thread into a poll thread:
What is more important to a man in life?
A. A positive relationship with a female companion, a family life, but no friendships with other men?
B. Negative relationships with women consisting of meaningless sex but a strong group of solid men whom you can rely on and routinely meet with.
That's a difficult question if you really think about it.
I can give you the Buddhist answer.
B. All day long.
Buddhism has a strong history of the single-sex principle. It is far more important for a man to have strong bonds of friendship with other men than to have much to do with women.
Obviously there is the monastic tradition where men are separated physically and live together but even groups as different as the forest renunciants and the lay peasants understood that men needed to socialise, hunt, worship, discuss and work closely with other men and women needed their own groups for their needs also.
As for men and women's physical relations, buried in the sutras is an exchange where someone tells the Buddha that one of his disciples, a rich young man, is keeping 'women for pleasure'.
In the context of the time that rich young man would still have done his business with other men, had close male friendships, male tutors and trainers.. the difference was that rather than marrying one women he was having hedonistic sex with lots of young pretty ones that he quartered nearby him to serve his needs.
Locals were scandalised.
The Buddha's response was - Don't worry about 'X''s practice, he's doing fine.. worry about your own.
Close male friendship and hedonistic relations with several attractive women for its own sake is not frowned upon in the Buddhist world view. Provided that the intention to socialise in this way is human and healthy and the mind states that result are human and healthy then there is no problem.