2.4.3. Wrong Sexual Behavior (kāmesu micchācāra)

[Full title: The Noble Eightfold Path (Ariya-aṭṭhaṅgika-magga)—(4): Right Action—(c): Wrong Sexual Behavior (kāmesu micchācāra)]

He avoids sexual misconduct and abstains from it. He has no intercourse with such persons as are still under the protection of father, mother, brother, sister or relatives, nor with married women, nor with female convicts, nor lastly, with betrothed girls.^[1]

The final training precept here of Right Action is to abstain from wrong sexual behavior. What are needed are more self-control rather than sermons and books on the subject. In this chapter on Right Thought we discussed at length sense indulgence with reference to renunciation. Here we shall try to understand in brief what, according to Buddhism, sexual wrong is.

Let us first listen to the opening discourse of the Aṅguttara Nikāya,^[2] another original collection in Pāli:

‘Monks, I know not of any other single form (rūpa), sound (sadda), smell (gandha), flavor (rasa), and touch (phoṭṭhabba) by which a man‘s heart is attracted as it is by that of a woman. A woman‘s form, sound, smell, flavor, and touch fill a man‘s mind.’

‘Monks, I know not of any other single form, sound, smell, flavor, and touch by which a woman‘s heart is attracted as it is by the form, sound, smell, flavor, and touch of a man. Monks, a woman‘s mind is filled with these things.’

Here is a sermon on sex explained in unmistakable language, the truth of which no wise man dare deny. Sex is described by the Buddha as the strongest desire in man. If one becomes a slave to this impulse even the most powerful man turns into a weakling; even the sage may fall from the higher to a lower level. The sexual advice, especially in youth, is a fire that needs careful handling. If one is not thoughtful and restrained, it can cause numberless harm. ‘There is no fire like lust.’^[3] ‘Passions do not die out: they burn out.’

Since the Buddha was a practical philosopher he did not expect his lay followers to lead ascetic lives. Indeed, he called them ‘enjoyers of sense pleasures’ (gihikāmabhogā). Being well aware of man’s instincts and impulses, his appetites and urges, the Buddha did not prohibit sexual relations for the laity as he had done for monks. But he warned man against wrong ways of gratifying the sexual appetite. He went a step further and recommended the observation of the eight precepts with special emphasis on the third one for the laity during days of retreat (uposatha) or as the occasion demanded.

If a person makes up his mind to live an unmarried life he should make a real effort to be innocent in body, speech and thought. If he is not strong enough to remain single, he may marry, but he should refrain from such sexual relations as are wrong and harmful. As the Buddha explains in the discourse on ‘downfall’:^[4]

‘If a person is addicted to woman (given to a life of corruption), is a drunkard, a gambler, and squanders all his earnings -this is a cause of his downfall.’

Not satisfied with one‘s own wives, if one has been with whores and the wives of others -this is a cause of one’s downfall.

Being past one’s youth, to take as wife a girl in her teens, and to be unable to sleep for jealousy -this is a cause of one’s downfall.

Two verses in the Dhammapada enumerate the training precepts and in a word make plain the evil consequence of their violation:

Whoever in this world takes life, (pāṇātipāta)
Speaks what is not truth, (musāvāda)
Takes what is not given, (adinnādāna)
Goes to other‘s wives, (kāmesu micchācāra)
Indulges in drinking
Intoxicating liquors, (surā meraya majja pāna)
He even in this world
Digs up his own root.^[5]

This is the five precepts (pañca-sīla), the minimum moral obligetion expected of a layman who becomes a Buddhist by taking as his refuges the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha.

There are four components of sexual intercourse:

1. The inviolable person,
2. The thought of indulgence,
3. The effort to indulge, and
4. The tolerance of sexual union.^[6]

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

AN X, p. 176

[2]:

AN I, p. 1

[3]:

Dhammapada, Ver. 262

[4]:

Suttanipāta, p. 16, 18, 20 (Parābhava sutta)

[5]:

Dhammapada, Verse 246, 247

[6]:

The Five Rare of Occasions