It seems Buddha wasnt so much on anti procreate per se but He does in a way repulsed of rebirth .
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He was repulsed by Samsara, and rebirth is a part of it. So I think.
But procreating is ok, new human births must be arranged somehow.
Appreciated, Kheramato. I think it depends on how you define the concept of rebirth. Do you look at it as a kind of transmigration of souls (or whatever part of the former being that gets reborn) or do you just consider a new similar being being born and making similar experiences a rebirth. My teacher is of the second oppinion and thinks that the first was foreign to the historical Buddha and only made it into teachings later. Of course that places him outside orthodox Theravada Buddhism.
In any case I admit to having been uncareful in my statement since I of course do not know what the historical Buddha really tought. But I stand by my statement as my personal view.
Very True. Human Birth is indeed rare and beneficial.
The normal perception is that if after death if one is born as a Brahma then it’s like a promotion.
But the Buddha said that If a Brahma, after death, is reborn as a human then it’s real promotion for him (Brahma) because only Human species have that capability to understand the Mind Matter Phenomenon and practice Samatha which leads to release from the Bondages (Sankharas).
Regards,
Amit
But he wasn’t. He initially intended to create a Four-part following: upasakas, upasikas, bhikkhusangha and bhikkhunisangha. So, he initially intended to allow women to go forth.
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Sexism, Racism, Supremacy etc are deeply entrenched defilements that have plagued human society for millenia. I was surprised to see so many western thinkers and philosophers from Aristotle, Descartes, Hegel to Locke, Hume, Darwin, Freud and others had mysogynist thinking and ideas. (Wikipedia)
Growing up in a Buddhist family with some contact with Buddhist culture I do not see much senior householder Mahapajapati’s bowing to a younger monk as necessarily sexist. Here’s why. The male monastic Sangha in Buddha’s time was already established for 5 years with many Arahants and noble ones. In my experience I have seen a few times individual monks in India irrespective of age is believed to represent the whole (bhikkhu) sangha and not an individual person. Older people (including mother or father) bows to even young boys who just took the robe in temporary ordination often after funeral of father or mother (as is the custom), because they do follow the vinaya during short term novice ordination. It is considered a great honor for the lay community and any Buddhist family to offer their children to monastic Sangha (even temporarily) out of reverence for the triple gem.
In the US, I’ve seen a Srilankan monk accept the offering of a meal to him on behalf of whole bhikkhu sangha. This rubbing off of the individual self is part of the culture.
Also some languages in India use gender neutral pronoun as in Pali and Bengali, which softens gender bias. I learned that from a nun who uses the word ‘bhante’ with her monastic name.