Reply to S/o Celibacy in Buddhist Monastic Life

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[quote=Anonymous]First off, the role and responsibilities of Buddhist monks are comparable to Christian monks, not the Catholic clergy.

Generally speaking, Buddhist monks like Christian monks (NOT priests) enter the monastery to distance themselves from the secular world in order to lead a life of quiet contemplation. The overwhelming majority of Buddhist monks are not community figures or leaders in the way that Catholic priests are. There's much less interaction and subsequently, less access to the community.

The differences between monkhood vs priesthood (regardless of religion) make celibacy less problematic for monks. To begin, monkhood generally attracts a different type of personality from than priesthood. Someone who wants to be in a position of authority so that they could have access to children is not going to choose monkhood because monkhood, by definition, means withdrawing from society.

Also, as a pp pointed out, Buddhist monkhood is not always permanent. It is possible to join a monastic order temporarily and later return to your regular life. Moreover, there are actually sects that allow monks to marry (in Japan, Korea, and Tibet). So in some sects, you can be married and be a monk.

So it's not to say that celibacy doesn't cause any problems, because Buddhist monasteries do have scandals. (You can google this.) It's that the differences between Buddhist monkhood vs Catholic priesthood means that the problems are comparatively much much smaller in world of Buddhist monasticism.

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