Topic: How important is celebacy in religious life?
Interviews by Stuart MacDonald

Stuart: How important is celibacy in religious life?

Nicolena: This is a hard one, I could give my gut response, which is that celibacy should not be important in religious life. I think I believe that. Often sexuality can interfere with spirituality, however. I'm not sure what you mean - religious life or spiritual life? They are not exactly the same, are they? To me religion is usually a formal and institutionalised system. Spiritual life is the search for some sort of understanding. I don't think celibacy has got a lot to do with spiritual life. In religious life, celibacy may have relevance, because there are certain kinds of responsibility that one has. A lot of sexual problems have occurred because of celibacy. I'm talking about many traditions, like the story of the Thai monk as well as the Catholic priests, who have been called up for all kinds of stuff. If there were an opportunity to have sexual freedom, whether it is through marriage or some sort of commitment, maybe these things would not happen. That's not to say they wouldn't happen, maybe they would happen anyway. We are human beings and sexuality is one aspect of humanity that either gets us into trouble or not.

Stuart: Is being married and having a family an impediment to spiritual life?

Nicolena: I can't see why being married and having a family is an impediment to spiritual life. Do we all grow spiritually? Some of us do. Some of us don't. Some of us stay exactly where we are. In fact, often there is a certain expansion of the spiritual when you have children and you're in a loving relationship. I'm sure that if you are not in a good family relationship, there's not much growth spiritually because of all that. If you have a family and situation that are conducive, I think that there is a potential to grow spiritually.

Stuart: Are spiritual penances - rigorous spiritual practices that remove one from everyday life, such as pilgrimages to sacred sites, fasting, long periods of solitude in retreat - important?

Nicolena: Now this I can relate to, because if you want to do these kinds of thing, having a family would be an impediment. I don't regard spiritual penances as important. I could be wrong, because I haven't had this experience. Removing oneself from everyday life is a very selfish thing to do, because you are not actually dealing with people and all the trappings that come with people, like sadness, happiness etcetera. You are only dealing with yourself. You need to know yourself. But I think you can know yourself through knowing other people as well. It is through interaction that you start to ask questions like, 'Am I a good person?' 'Do I care?' 'Do I listen?' When you retreat from that, it is a very solitary and selfish quest. I don't know about fasting and long periods of solitude, because I've never really done them. I don't know if they actually change you in a real sense or if it's just a chemical thing. If you starve yourself, certain chemical things start to happen. If you put a person in solitary confinement in jail, all kinds of things happen to that person. If you go away on a retreat and you are solitary for a long period of time, certain things happen to you similar to the guy who's in jail, because you have only got yourself to deal with. If you go without food for a long period of time, you may think that something spiritual is happening but maybe you are just starving.

Stuart: Is there still a place for the extreme ascetic practices that have been part of the religious traditions of the past. (The prolonged practices of physical mortification where the body is put through punitive processes such as seen by the Indian saddhus or Christians wearing course clothing)?

Nicolena: I think it is a bit extreme. I know that there is transformation through pain. I know that there is bliss. I don't know if it's just a way of coping with the pain. The body is able to cope with severe, traumatic pain. So, you go through this transformation, it is like bliss. I do believe that happens. But I don't know if I'd like to put myself through this to achieve some sort of spiritual high. I think the idea is that we become spiritual beings because we want to be, not because we want to punish ourselves to achieve some kind of high. If there is some kind of cosmic benevolence, why would that benevolence want us to go through pain? If we are our own gods, why do we want to put ourselves through pain? Life dishes out grief and pain, so why would you want to do this to yourself?

Steve
Care Worker/ Actor

Stuart: How important is celibacy in religious life?

Steve: I can't say if it is important or not. I have always been attracted to the Kagyu tradition, because they do not say that one has to be celibate. I remember when I was in Nepal, coming across this monk and what I took to be his wife, praying in a monastery. There was something liberating about that. To me celibacy, although I could sort of aspire to it, just is not a part of my life. It seemed like an impediment to me to pursue such a spiritual practice. I think there is a place for celibacy however, in terms of overcoming or conquering the attachment to the flesh. I can see in myself that this is one of the things that I battle with. I've most often experienced the desire and fulfilment of contact and connection while having sex with someone. I can see that people want to transform that into some greater spiritual connection, but it is not for me. I guess that in contemporary society, celibacy has been a real problem if you look at the Catholics in terms of how it perverted things. It seems to have corrupted the spiritual. Well-practised, it is probably pretty good. There have been a couple of times in my life that I have made a vow to be celibate. One time I was more successful than the other. I see it as a process of withdrawal, when I need to pull up and I really need that time out.

Stuart: Is being married and having a family an impediment to spiritual life?

Steve: No. I don't think it is. I have a spiritual life and while I'm not married, I have a family. But I do remember in India, there was a tradition where you meet your worldly responsibilities and you raise your family. Once they are out of the nest you can go out and spend your remaining years pursuing your spiritual life more rigorously. I don't think we do that very much here. In that way, I don't think it is an impediment to a spiritual life. But, of course, it is an impediment to spiritual life because of all the other stuff that you have to do. That is part of the process, in any case, and that is what I do. But the ascetic, lonely aspects of spiritual life are pretty hard to do - like going on a three-month retreat when you have to put bread on the table for the seven-year-old. But that doesn't mean that you can't practise. So, I guess it is an impediment, but you need to resolve it so you can still have a spiritual life. It's just a different form of spiritual life.

Stuart: Are spiritual penances - rigorous spiritual practices that remove one from everyday life, such as pilgrimages to sacred sites, fasting, long periods of solitude in retreat - important?

Steve: I think they are important, because they connect you to a tradition that went before you. The cosmology becomes much broader. I read yesterday that you don't become a saint while you are asleep. You have to engage in that stuff to sharpen yourself. Even the story I told before about coming across the monk and his wife. Unless I'd gone around India, that would not have happened. Stuff comes back at weird times, like, every now and then, I remember a painting of Padmasambhava at the Dalai Lama's palace. It is kind of like you're walking the same path that people have walked before you and so that diminishes the uniqueness. Penances are good for connection, so they are important.

Stuart: Is there still a place for the extreme ascetic practices that have been part of the religious traditions of the past. (The prolonged practices of physical mortification where the body is put through punitive processes such as seen by the Indian saddhus or Christians wearing course clothing)?

Steve: Of course there is still a place for it, because some people do it and it works for them and it's part of their practice. So it's not for me to say. It would be pretty difficult to do some of those practices in Melbourne. I don't know that society, as a whole, would embrace it. What comes to mind here is a lot of the self-destructive behaviour that I have done, I guess, and also the kids with whom I am working. This is just whimsical, but if there was some kind of self-mortification that they could put themselves through connected to some larger spirituality, maybe they wouldn't be jabbing needles into their groins. Maybe I am just naïve; I don't know that Human Services would be into it. But that would be a great job, determining if this or that was an appropriate form of penance for an eight-year-old to be doing. I don't know if there is a place for that, but it would be interesting to revive. It probably is in some of the fetish clubs.