The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality [Paperback]

Bernard Faure (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 26, 1998

Is there a Buddhist discourse on sex? In this innovative study, Bernard Faure reveals Buddhism's paradoxical attitudes toward sexuality. His remarkably broad range covers the entire geography of this religion, and its long evolution from the time of its founder, Xvkyamuni, to the premodern age. The author's anthropological approach uncovers the inherent discrepancies between the normative teachings of Buddhism and what its followers practice.

Framing his discussion on some of the most prominent Western thinkers of sexuality--Georges Bataille and Michel Foucault--Faure draws from different reservoirs of writings, such as the orthodox and heterodox "doctrines" of Buddhism, and its monastic codes. Virtually untapped mythological as well as legal sources are also used. The dialectics inherent in Mahvyvna Buddhism, in particular in the Tantric and Chan/Zen traditions, seemed to allow for greater laxity and even encouraged breaking of taboos.

Faure also offers a history of Buddhist monastic life, which has been buffeted by anticlerical attitudes, and by attempts to regulate sexual behavior from both within and beyond the monastery. In two chapters devoted to Buddhist homosexuality, he examines the way in which this sexual behavior was simultaneously condemned and idealized in medieval Japan.

This book will appeal especially to those interested in the cultural history of Buddhism and in premodern Japanese culture. But the story of how one of the world's oldest religions has faced one of life's greatest problems makes fascinating reading for all.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This book opens with an intriguing question: Why have so many prominent Buddhist leaders in recent times (e.g., roshi Richard Baker, Osel Tendzin, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche) been involved in scandals of excess, especially sexual? Faure's answer is that behind such "antinomianism" there is a deep-seated ambiguity in Buddhism, rooted in the pivotal place that desire (the "red thread" of the title) holds in the Second Noble Truth. The author, a religion professor at Stanford, finds this ambiguity at its height in the Mahayana tradition, particularly in its notion of the Two Truths (bodhisattva-ultimate and lay-conventional), and most especially and predictably in Tantric Buddhism. But more telling, perhaps, is the evidence in the canonical and extra-canonical stories of Gautama himself, as well as in the ostensibly rigorist Vinaya (monastic discipline) of the more conservative Theravada school. Though the book is informative and at times entertaining with its numerous anecdotes and stories from Buddhist tradition, the warning to the reader in the introduction is well founded: the thesis and line of argumentation tend to get lost, sometimes hopelessly, in the veritable barrage of source material, most of which is far more illustrative than probative and is thus ultimately distracting.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

The author of major works on Zen, Faure (religion, Stanford) here turns his gaze to sexuality in Buddhism, which binds its practitioners to human existence as if by a red thread. His focus is on Chinese and Japanese Buddhism, with lesser emphasis on India, Tibet, and Korea. Progressing through an examination of passion and discipline, transgression and vice, the book culminates in two chapters dealing largely with the tradition in Japan of "male love" (nanshoku) and its manifestations both in and beyond the monastic life. The principles that passions are no different from awakening and that ultimate truth is beyond good and evil receive a thoroughly documented, cross-cultural explanation. Faure's examination also touches on other transgressions, such as drinking or eating meat. The relative silence on transgressions by females emanates from their irrelevance in the system. Faure plans a companion volume in which women will play a more prominent role. Recommended for academic collections.?D.E. Perushek, Northwestern Univ. Lib., Evanston, IL
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 324 pages
• Publisher: Princeton University Press (October 26, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691059977
• ISBN-13: 978-0691059976
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #651,585 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An Embarrassment of Riches, April 8, 2006

By 

Crazy Fox (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality (Paperback)

Well, you have to hand it to him. Faure has done his homework here. Sure, he can't pass up an obligatory mention of Foucault, but he manages for the most part to make his obsession with French "theory" take a back seat to real solid work in original source materials. And the result is sometimes a real blast to read because he has an audacious knack for digging up the strangest, most bizarre (and often shocking) stuff from the Buddhist tradition--seriously jarring the reader's preconceptions of this religion. But as everyone notes, this is also what gets him in trouble; he seems to have such a profusion of material (none of which he can resist sharing with the reader) that he keeps losing the thread of his argument, making the reading experience of "The Red Thread" simultaneously frustrating as well as fun, confusing as well as illuminating. That said, it is one of the few books I know of that really takes on these issues of sexuality, desire, and gender in Buddhism with gusto after Liz Wilson's excellent work "Charming Cadavers" (which is limited to India), so despite its lack of coherence it is still a book with which anyone interested in Buddhism should aquaint themselves.

10 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A bit confusing, December 23, 2000

By 

John R. Thomas (Swarthmore, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality (Paperback)

Faure's treatment of various Buddhist approaches to sexuality (he often trails away from the particular subject of sexuality into Buddhist approaches to desire, which are often not the same thing) is often verbose, confusing, and, all in all, poorly stated.