We're here, we're queer, we're here to help you

Duality in Buddhism is a common concept, one you can find references to regardless of vehicle. It's also one of those Buddhist concepts that gets misused, is misunderstood, and which can easily lead the unskilled into dangerous complacency.

I mean, seriously, I'm sorry that my eyes roll whenever I hear someone pontificate that, "Like, there's no wrong or right, you know? Those are just false concepts that are forced by a society that wants to, like, control you. You know?"

Gnarly, dude.

On the one hand, the idea that duality is a false concept in most of our experience is right on. Jim Wilson in his essay for the second volume of Queer Dharma provides a really nice explanation of duality and how it's a fabrication tenuously held together by a collective acceptance that it exists. Wilson, in his essay "Practicing Buddhism As A Gay Man," uses the former "border" between East and West Germany to illustrate his point. For year's, the world accepted the duality there was an East Germany and a West Germany. Then one day, there was one Germany. Where did the line go? Was it even there except in our minds? For one period of time, the world agreed there were two Germanies, then one day, the world agreed there was one Germany.

Just like that.

Something a little more difficult for many to grasp is the notion of race and precisely how fluid it really is. In her excellent recent article in Salon, "The History White People Need to Learn," Mary-Alice Daniel reveals that even the idea of "white people" hasn't always been clearly defined as a separate race. In fact, it wasn't until people with white skin started to encounter with greater frequency people with skin other than white did "whites" perceive a need to collectively identify themselves as "white." Prior to that, races were divided according to nationalities (another fabrication, I know): For example, the Germans were a race different from the Italians, who were different from the Celts, etc.

So, yes, race is a construct, a creation of mind. Having said that, there is a problem with being too ready to accept that as the way things are. Saying this is the way things are is not the same as seeing things as the way things are, and, frankly, I am skeptical when I hear Buddhists, in particular white Buddhists, say that. It makes one lazy, providing an excuse to be unmotivated to tackle the real issues surrounding such "theoretical constructs" like race, gender, and sexuality in our sanghas.

Wilson's essay is exceptional for another reason beyond the way he describes the concept of dualism, and that is the role lesbigay practitioners play in disrupting the dualism surrounding gender identity.

"Because gay men, and other sexual minorities, do not fall within the categories of how the mind has structured male and female, the presence of gay men, simply by that presence, calls into question the dualistic consciousness upon which that division rests. I believe this goes a long way towards explaining why the presence of gay men provokes strong hostility from many people."

Just by showing up we completely disrupt long-held notions of not just sexuality, but gender roles - we turn them on their head! And just when some people think they've figured out the idea of gay and straight, we turn things upside down again with transgendered people, asexual people, and whatever amorphous method of gender and sexual orientation we can come up with. It freaks people out because some folks obsess themselves with why there's an apparent obsession over gender identification. The amazing thing is that this is nothing new, there's always been those who do not conform to the duality of male and female and the roles thereby assigned. Only now are people willing to say something about it and demand acceptance of their existence.

And even though race has always been somewhat fluid, it's become even more fluid as people are no longer accepting limited categorizations based on skin color. No, we are Hispanic black or Asian brown or Latino mulatto or whatever. On one hand there are those who say, "stop all this nonsense! These are all just theoretical constructs!" But on the other hand, forcing the recognition of these differences pushes people out of their comfort zones, which had successfully insulated them from engaging other human beings as they are without first compartmentalizing them into easily recognized boxes of existence.

It can seem like alphabet soup out there when we talk about race, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexuality. And it's understandable that it can be frustrating. But so what? It becomes a problem only under two circumstances.

One is when others push back against this process of self-identification. The reason for pushing back is defensive and selfish because these "new" labels disrupt and challenge previously held sacred beliefs about who and what people are. Such self-identification also challenges the power structure that remains largely under the control of straight white males, both in and out of the various Buddhist communities.

The other is when people present a facade that they are beyond prejudice and privilege by retreating to the position that these are all fabrications that we just need to relinquish. Because such a position is not letting go; the fabrication is, in fact, retained and strengthened into an even more-secure delusion.

And besides, our Buddhist precepts demand that we do this. The Fourth Precept encourages us to refrain from lying. Ignoring our personal identities would be a violation of the precept. As everyone one of us now out of the closet knows, denying our sexual identity is to relegate ourselves to a personal hell. Coming out is freedom, it's liberation, and Buddhism is all about liberation.

So yeah, we're here, we're queer, and we're here to help you.

Guilty of simply being

Amelia is a blogger at Huffington Post and under this pseudonym she has been writing about her 7-year-old son. The kicker here is that her son self-identifies as gay.

"Huh? What? That's nuts! How can a 7-year-old self-identify as gay? He hasn't even hit puberty!"

o_O

I know. It's really amazing some of the things people say. Because I find it completely plausible that Amelia's son identifies as gay despite his age. I knew I was gay when I was 4 years old. I just didn't have a word for it. Being gay is not about sex. Our being gay is about who we are as a human being, it's a fundamental trait about ourselves that we intuitively know. We don't need anyone to tell us who we are, we just know.

The words come later. I knew I was a boy even before people labeled me as "boy." And when people started using that word, I began to use it. But I was a boy before I learned that word. Learning the word did not make me a boy.

And I did not become gay once I knew the word. I knew already who I was. Had I known what "gay" meant when I was 4 years old, I would have readily accepted it as a label for who I am, just as Amelia's son accepts the word. By the time, however, I did learn about words like "gay" and "homosexual," I was also learning about words like "fag" and "sissy." So even though I intuitively knew those words were about me, I did not "identify" as such. Rather, I became a ghost.

But enough of that. I want to get to Amelia's most recent post in which she talks about the conversations she knows she'll have to have with her son even though she dreads the moment when they will occur. Nothing very surprising here, these are the conversations we all know about. That yes, there are people who hate us even though they never met us. That we can't give blood, even to a family member. That we cannot marry the person we love. We might not be able to visit that person in the hospital too, and when they die, we might not have any say about what happens to them.

That's not what caught my eye in Amelia's post, however. It was this line:

"My child is guilty of nothing but simply being."

This is such a beautiful statement and its sentiment is at the heart of why Buddhism has been a lifesaver for me. Because unlike other religious doctrines, at least in my experience, Buddhism allowed me to simply be. It showed me how to be a human "being" rather than a human "doing." And it showed me how to escape the pain I was fettering myself with.

Life is unsatisfactory and events seldom go the way I want them to.

The angst I feel day to day about this is self-created because it's my choices that have brought me to where I am right now.

If I can learn to make better choices and become less attached to things and feelings that are merely temporary, I will be happier.

By following the Buddha's path I will free myself of this self-induced drudgery by accepting things as they really are and understand better how my actions now influence what happens next.

So simple, but as Amelia and the world show us every day, not so easy to implement. Dealing with the world around us is no easy task. And for children who identify as gay, it can be brutal. That's because the world is ruled by delusion. Most people are either incapable or simply refuse to see things as they really are. But once you start doing that in even the smallest ways, the transformation is incredible. And what is more astounding is as we begin to see things as they really are, something begins to bubble up from deep inside us, something that was always there, but was blocked and smothered by our deluded egos.

Compassion. And once we have compassion, it doesn't matter what the world throws at us. We become unflappable.

If you haven't read Amelia's blog on Huffington Post, you should. It's a delight.

When will it end?

Bob Dylan had a million great lines within the lyrics to his songs and unfortunately, one of those lines is all too perfect for the moment.

“And how many deaths will it take till we know that too many people have died?”

That comes from “Blowing in the Wind,” and it came to mind when I learned yesterday that, again, another gay teen took his life.

Kenneth Weishuhn was a 14-year-old from northwest Iowa who dreamed of being married one day to another boy.

It seems that about two weeks ago, Kenneth, who was very well-liked at his school, decided to come out to his friends. They must not have been very good friends because after telling them he was gay, Kenneth became their target of ridicule and hurt.

Kenneth lasted one week and then he killed himself.

Once the news spread, complete strangers have been flocking to Kenneth’s Pinterest page to leave heart-felt words.

The list is getting too damn long. And that’s just the list of those who make the news. The It Gets Better Project is a great response to help these teens wrestling with hatred and despair – there’s even a new one produced by gay Mormon students who attend BYU – but I can’t help but notice the irony that at least two videos in the project were made by teens who later killed themselves. That has to be a huge weight on these teens. And I thought I was carrying an unbearable burden when I was a teen. Or maybe I just found a way to carry it.

Buddhism tells us we are the owner of our feelings, but that’s really difficult to understand and accept when the bad feeling you have is connected directly to others who relentlessly and gleefully taunt you, then hunt you down to taunt you some more. What can make it easier is having others around you that can support you, even protect you. And yet, Kenneth thought he had friends like that. That’s why he came out to them.

I’m kind of rambling right now.

How many deaths does it take? I bet at least one more.

Are they all wicked little towns?

Some of you may be surprised, but we gays know all about “going forth,” but I bet most of us don’t realize it.

The Buddha talked a lot about leaving the householder life behind, about “going forth” to follow the path to release. Hence, “going forth” became a euphemism for leaving the lay life and becoming a monastic. The person taking up the robes was “freed” from the constraints and distractions of lay life despite the fact it often meant taking up a regimented life in the sangha. There were so many new things to learn, new rules, new expectations, new ways of behaving.

Kind of like coming out of the closet, isn’t it? Very similar to leaving all those wicked little towns we grew up in to find freedom in the larger gay community. But, just as I wrote in my very first post, it doesn’t take long for our new-found sense of freedom to be overwhelmed by all the games, rituals and shallowness we encounter within the gay community: instead of being a refuge, it turned into another fetter.

That’s not to say there is no refuge in the gay community. There’s plenty of refuge for us to find. But there are plenty of thickets to become ensnared by as well – thickets of views.

Many of us come from “wicked little towns,” like those portrayed in the movie “Hedwig and the Angry Inch.” I remember while living in West Yellowstone, Montana, someone warning me about the town. “Be careful about this place,” he said to me. “It will swallow you up and you’ll never get out.”

I know when I graduated from high school, which was located near a town with a population of about 800, I couldn’t wait to get as far away as I could. “They’re pious, hateful, and devout, you’re turning tricks ‘til you’re turned out, the wind so cold it burns, you’re burning out and blowing ‘round.”

Not everyone escapes. Remember Jonah Blechman’s character, Arthur Gayle, in “This Boy’s Life”? But despite his realization that he may spend the rest of his days in Concrete, Arthur helped Leonardo DiCaprio’s character escape.

The thing is many of us create new wicked little towns, and they reside in our heads: “You’re running up and down that hill, you turn it on and off at will, there’s nothing here to thrill or bring you down…”

Often, when I listen to this song, I can picture the Buddha (or maybe Rahula cuz he was such a hottie!) singing to me the refrain. “And if you’ve got no other choice, you know you can follow my voice, through the dark turns and noise of this wicked little town.”

There’s always refuge to be found.

The video is Tommy’s version of the song, sung to Hedwig near the end of the movie. I love the line, “There is nothing you can find that cannot be found.”

Tommy sings to Hedwig

Photo is courtesy of my friend Jimmy Huang

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Gaining momentum

This really doesn’t have a lot to do with Buddhism, but it has everything to do with compassion. This is a long video, but it is worth watching all the way through. And when you’re done, share it.

ItGetsBetter

To all the homophobes, the bullies, and those who hide behind a religious dogma that they really don't understand - to you I say you are irrelevant.

Coming out day 2010

“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” MLK

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Edmund Burke

“The pink triangle was established as a pro-gay symbol by activists in the United States during the 1970s. Its precedent lay in World War II, when known homosexuals in Nazi concentration camps were forced to wear inverted pink triangle badges as identifiers, much in the same manner that Jews were forced to wear the yellow Star of David. Wearers of the pink triangle were considered at the bottom of the camp social system and subjected to particularly harsh maltreatment and degradation. Thus, the appropriation of the symbol of the pink triangle, usually turned upright rather than inverted, was a conscious attempt to transform a symbol of humiliation into one of solidarity and resistance. By the outset of the AIDS epidemic, it was well-entrenched as a symbol of gay pride and liberation.” From the Silence=Death page at ACT UP.

“Hope will never be silent.” Harvey Milk

“It takes no compromising to give people their rights. It takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no survey to remove repressions.” Harvey Milk

"And what other five conditions must be established in himself?

[1] "Do I speak at the right time, or not?

[2] "Do I speak of facts, or not?

[3] "Do I speak gently or harshly?

[4] "Do I speak profitable words or not?

[5] "Do I speak with a kindly heart, or inwardly malicious?

"O bhikkhus, these five conditions are to be investigated in himself and the latter five established in himself by a bhikkhu who desires to admonish another." The Buddha, AN V

You give me fever

There was a time in my practice when I wanted to do everything. I would meditate, chant, follow the eight precepts during an Uposatha day, design a very special shrine with all the proper objects, and read the Dhamma so I could have meaningful discussions with others about the Buddha’s teaching.

Yeah, I know. That lasted like maybe a month. And I almost gave this whole Buddhist thing up. After all, I like to drink and eat meat and I wasn’t too keen on giving those up. And sex? Even meaningless serial sex?

But I always came back to the fact that Buddhism saved me.

“Wait a minute, saved you? Isn’t that what Jesus freaks say? Born-again Christians? That’s what they say.”

You’re right, that’s what they say. But that’s not what I mean. Someday, I will go into the sordid details of what brought me to Buddhism, but not now. All that I need to say is that Buddhism did save me. It saved me because it showed me how I fucked up my own life, AND it showed me how I could fix it. It was my responsibility. And unlike the born-again Christian, there wasn’t a Santa Claus out there to fix things for me; I had to do it on my own.

Disclaimer alert! I’m still trying to fix things. But I digress.

I believe that many of us find something very special in Buddhism that immediately connects with us, and that is what draws us to the teachings. But I also understand how many get burned out by their practice. I was almost there. Because it’s easy to slip into this mode of doing everything Buddhist to the point that, by god, I’m gonna let everyone know I’m a goddamned Buddhist and they ain’t gonna give me any shit about it.

It’s very much like coming out. In my early out-of-the-closet years I wore a pink triangle lapel pin on my suits (there was a time when I dressed in a suit and tie every day for work, and let me tell you, I was very stylish!). On National Coming Out Day one year, I wore a T-shirt to work with my blazer that proclaimed “Nobody Knows I’m Gay.”

Nobody at work said anything about the shirt either.

But that didn’t stop me. I turned into a dancing circuit boy who bought all the right clothes (even if I couldn’t afford it – hey, that’s what credit cards are for) and who marched in all the right parades. I attended a vigil on the day it was revealed that Matthew Shepard was brutally beaten and left for dead tied to a split rail fence in the cold dark expanse of the Wyoming prairie. I gave the right speech. I spoke at an alternative school about being gay. And I wrote columns for a local newspaper advocating for gay rights. I decorated my apartment with all the right gay symbols and icons. And I finally accepted the fact that, yes, I really did like Barry Manilow.

I’m not saying any of those activities are bad or were a waste of time. All I’m saying is that I caught the fever. I caught the fever when I found Buddhism too, just like a lot of folks. And just as I mellowed in my gay world, I mellowed out in my Buddhist world too. And what happened was I began to practice in a manner the Buddha describes to Bhaddali in the Bhaddali Sutta (MN 65).

This sutta primarily is concerned with how the monastic code was developed, but within this text is the simile of the young thoroughbred colt. In general, this simile describes how a skilled horse trainer is very methodical when training a colt. The trainer takes very concrete and deliberate steps, and does not advance the colt until it has sufficiently adapted to the current step. For example, the trainer puts a bit into the colt’s mouth. The colt rebels against this initially, but eventually comes to accept the bit and calms down.

Our practice is like that. When we attempt something like meditation for the first time, our mind rebels; it doesn’t want to sit still. But with determined practice, eventually it does. And just like the unbroken colt, if we try too many things at once with our practice, we will fail, just as the colt will totally freak out and the horse trainer will be forced to give up.

So when I felt like I was being overwhelmed by my new practice, I selected a few very basic behaviors to focus on: A daily meditation practice in which the goal was just to sit for 20 minutes a day, and to do something for others. For the second part, I travelled to my new-found Sangha to help them build a new meditation hall. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

Now my meditation is more focused. I’m actually at a point where I can sustain a deliberate thought. And that is an interesting breakthrough, about which I will be blogging soon.

Right Speech -Timing is everything

Some years ago, well before my mother had died, I had the opportunity to spend a week with her in a small cabin by the shore of Lake Huron. We covered a lot of ground during that week; reconciled many issues. And we did it in a loving and kind way.

Among the topics we covered was my coming out to her. She explained that at the time I told her I was gay, she was ready to hear and accept that. But, she added, if I had told her while I was still in high school, her reaction would not have been welcoming. In fact, she admitted that had I done it then, her reaction would have been ugly.

Most of us were taught since childhood that telling the truth is always the right course of action. But as we grew older, speaking the truth, we learned, was a complicated matter. Our culture attempted to simplify this with colloquialisms like, “If you can’t say anything nice, it’s better to say nothing at all.”

Trouble is for most of us, we are incapable of remaining silent when silence is called for. The Buddha recognized this, and his teachings on Right Speech reflect that while it is important we speak only truth, knowing when to do that is equally important. A relevant case can be found in the Abhayarajakumara Sutta (MN 58).

Prince Abhaya was goaded by Nigantha Nataputta to test the Buddha by asking whether one should always speak the truth, even if the truth would piss someone off (think Devadatta). But when Prince Abhaya asked, the Buddha replied that things aren’t that simple. The Buddha then replied with guidelines about what constitutes Right Speech. There are three elements: (1) whether the speech is true; (2) whether the speech is beneficial; and (3) whether the speech is pleasing to others.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu presents an excellent introduction to this sutta, noting that not only is the Buddha explaining Right Speech, he is demonstrating Right Speech in action. Throughout his explanation, the Buddha engages Prince Abhaya, allowing him to present his own thoughts and thus save face through the process.

Clearly, something that is untrue, that provides no benefit and which would just annoy people qualifies as wrong speech and ought to go unsaid. And if something is untrue, provides no benefit, yet would be welcomed by others, you still don’t say it. But, even if something is true, if saying it provides no benefit and would just annoy others, it also should be left unsaid.

“Do these jeans make my ass look fat?” “Why don’t you try on a different pair just to compare looks?”

What if the speech is true, is beneficial, but would still likely piss someone off? In those cases, the Buddha said it’s important to have good timing. That is even true when all three criteria are met: the speech is truthful, provides benefit, and would be welcomed. Even in that case, the Buddha said it is not spoken until the right moment arises. To know when the right moment occurs, we must cultivate compassion for others.

This isn’t always easy, especially when we talk of things like coming out. When we come out, that’s an example of something being true, that ultimately is beneficial, but which can bring about unpleasant results. We may deeply hurt someone when we come out, but we still do it. The trick is to have compassion for others. Sometimes when we come out in these circumstances, we are doing it solely for ourselves because we just can’t live the lie any longer. If we are compassionate when we do this, we recognize that whomever we are speaking to – a parent, other relative – may be guided by delusive thinking. We may never change that. We can, however, keep control over our own ego and retain our sense of compassion for the other person, even if he or she tells us to get the hell out of their life.

I was fortunate when I told my mother. Although I didn’t know it at the time, she already had several experiences that had prepared her for my announcement (not the least of which was her parish priest was a flaming queen!). At first, I think it did cause her some discomfort. But the timing was right nonetheless. And we moved on.

Coming out and Buddhism

We gays are a perfect match with Buddhism at the time we come out: however, many of us do not follow through on what drove us to come out to find spiritual bliss in something like Buddhism, and instead, we end up becoming again part of something we were desperate to leave behind.

Maitreyabandhu will help me explain this with words from an article of his printed in the book "Queer Dharma: Voices of Gay Buddhists," published by the Gay Sunshine Press of San Francisco.

In his article, "Coming out into Dharma bliss," Maitreyabandhu explains that we as gays feel confined and locked by the various groups around us: family, church, school, friends, work. We feel trapped because of the closet as we are constantly aware that "I don't fit in, there doesn't seem to be a place for me." In reaction, we become very introspective (sometimes also very depressed!), but through this introspection, we begin to define who we are: we must do this because we recognize that society at large will not define us as it will with its hetero children. Consider this passage from Maitreyabandhu's article:

"A true individual is committed to developing self-awareness. Usually we are not very self-aware. We may think that we are individuals, that we think and feel for ourselves, but in fact we are very much determined by the expectations and assumptions of those around us."

Many of us "knew" at some level that we were gay when we were very small children. In vague ways, we reached out to those in our families for recognition, but our families didn't recognize our out-stretched hands and as a result, we got ignored. From the beginning, we felt out of place. And as we grew older, sex became extremely important to replace the affection we missed out on as children. We did not learn about love because there was no one to model love for us, so it was all about sex. But we felt restrained by being in the closet, being hidden from the world; we were hiding from ourselves. Maitreyabandhu continues:

"We can see this very clearly in our experience of coming out. When we come out we realize that we do not fit in the expectations of the group, whether it be the group of our immediate family, the church, our peers or our work colleagues ... In coming out we have to define ourselves as distinct from the group. For me this was a very frightening and isolating experience. I so wanted to fit in. I so wanted to conform to the group. But I couldn't. I was gay. Coming out is a special feat of self-awareness and as such can be the beginning of a truly spiritual life, a life devoted to developing our individual self-awareness."

Those of us who are out can remember the feelings of freedom and bliss we experienced through the simple act of telling people "I am gay." Even when their response was not supportive, knowing that we had separated ourselves from these groups that had been confining us was an epiphany that changed our lives significantly. As closeted gays, we eventually came to realize through our own experience that these groups were empty. There was nothing internal with these groups to give them identity and cohesion: it all came from the outside. We, as gays, saw something else driving our being and that came from within. So we liberated ourselves by coming out and separating ourselves from the emptiness of the groups around us.

But what did most of us do (including myself!) after coming out, after experiencing this epiphany, this spiritual peace? We joined another group! We joined the group called the "gay culture," and some of us, after separating ourselves from the confines of the identity labels the straight world imposed on us, willingly placed new labels on ourselves to fit whatever empty personality we decided to adopt: some of us became drag queens, others became leather men, others became the "cute boys next door," others became butch (the moniker “butch” in some variation was the first name I used on the gay chat sites) or fem or flamboyant or reserved -- we all had to have our own bars, we had to dress a certain way to identify with our group, we had our signs and labels. After freeing ourselves, we willingly trapped ourselves once again. Maitreyabandhu continues.

"The gay scene seemed to me increasingly characterized by sexual competitiveness, vapid small talk and endless wanting. Its obsession with the body beautiful, with the pursuit of pleasure as an end in itself, with youth and style seemed to trap gay men like myself in either painful superficiality or isolation. The alternative, however, seemed to be an increasingly domesticated 'straight-acting' conventionality."

The very thing, Maitreyabandhu suggests, that freed us, our self-identification as being not with the group and our identification with others like us to find succor and support, can become a trap to ensnare us in the very confinement that we so desperately sought to escape. Identifying with others as gay can be a tremendous positive influence for us, but as Maitreyabandhu goes on to say ...

"We must also be aware of its limitations. In other words, we need to be aware that it is a group, that the gay scene is a collection of groups, all with their accepted ways of behaving, of talking and of acting. If we are not careful, we will move from one set of constricting assumptions to another, our gay liberation will become a gay limitation."

The Dhamma is a natural next step for those of us after coming out, if we stick with that striving to self-identify as being separate from the emptiness of groups. Unfortunately, most young gays are swept away by the sensual pleasures of the gay scene. I think it comes back to love. We, in general, as gays do not understand love. We missed as children the physical affection and affirmation we desired and as a result we missed out on the lesson of love that straight children acquire as they grow older. We tell ourselves, "I want to find a man to love and be with for the rest of my life," but we struggle with this because no one truly taught us about love. We have to find out on our own, and many of us fall into the pits of despair created by the traps of sensuality: alcoholism, drug addiction, and for many of us disease. We become faced with the question "How can I love someone else when I don't even know how to love myself?"

Gays are coming out much younger these days. And what is there to welcome them? Circuit parties, mass consumerism, Ecstacy and sex without commitment. The situation has improved over the recent years, with schools becoming more receptive to gay-straight alliance groups. But more always is needed to be done. Perhaps we gays who are Buddhist need to reach out and attempt to redirect that wonderful experience we had at the time we come out and take advantage of that desire to be free of group identification. The Dhamma provides this, and the Dhamma can teach us about love when no one else did. It is a path of peace that we older gays can document because we have travelled it ourselves.

Remember how many of us willingly had sex while we were teens with men twice our age? We did it for two reasons: one we just wanted to have sex with someone and it was too difficult to risk finding someone our own age, but the second reason was we were seeking the affection and direction of a male father figure, we were seeking the father we didn't have. An entire cultural response to this developed with older gay men becoming the “mothers” to younger gay men; the mother’s role being the introduction of the acolyte to the world of the gay subculture. Once that introduction was complete, the acolyte was set free; the mother no longer held any authority over the younger man. Because of this, the issue of intergenerational sex will continue to be with us despite the discomfort it creates with many of us.

But as gay Buddhists, we can fill that need provided we can show the restraint to resist any sensual temptation; we can show how younger gays can not only love themselves, but others in healthy ways AND open to them a spiritual path that is simple to follow and easily self-verified.

Remember the bliss of coming out? Remember the bliss of finding the Dhamma? Is there any need for these two blissful experiences to be separated by years of more suffering?

Final note: Dharmachari Maitreyabandhu was born in 1961 in Warwickshire, England. He was ordained in the Western Buddhist Order in 1990. I believe he is still affiliated with the London Buddhist Centre in the East End, one of the many worldwide centers of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order. If this has changed, please let me know and I will correct this post.