PoM 284
“Buddhist monks choose not to marry and remain celibate while living in the monastic community. This is so that they can focus on achieving enlightenment.”
_BBC
So, chastity helps you achieve “enlightenment” and marriage helps you achieve “endumbenment”.???
Reminds me of Socrates’ doggerel “As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course…he will be sure to repent.”
PoM 285
“New research shows that monks live much longer, and healthier…The researchers, reporting in the Journal of Religion and Health this week, found that many of the religious groups had far less disease, including heart disease and cancer, than other people”. “Benedictine monks have a mortality rate almost half that of mere civilians.”
Independent.co.uk
Reminds me of the old Johnny Carson joke: “I know a man who gave up smoking, drinking, sex, and rich food…he was healthy right up to the day he killed himself.”
PoM 286
I had a dream one time that I was in a field of broken cinderblocks with one beautiful, sole orchid pushing up amongst the rended stones.
That’s how I see my wife.
We spend our lives “laughing and joking”, as she says.
The thing that I like second best about my wife, is right out of Disney’s “The Little Mermaid”.
…I love her voice. I just love to listen to her talk. It tickles me.
But, the very best thing about my wife is that she loves God as much as I do. I’ve never met anybody like that…and that’s why I married her.
There’s some other things I like, too.
Even when we are chaste, my wife is a very warm, affectionate and tender woman…and I am endlessly charmed by her.
My wife is an absolute genius at fixing things. She should really be teaching physics at some University. And she’s passed those genes on to Gummy, who can now destroy anything he sees…but, then she can fix it.
We fight, as all couples do. I can be a narcissistic ass. She can be a tarantula under a dump truck. But, I am patient and she is forgiving. It’s a good fit.
My wife is not one in a million, she’s one in a billion…
I have the best woman in the world.
PoM 287
I could feel my wife feeling more amorous…but I wasn’t feeling that way.
Then I noticed a part of me that I had nearly forgotten about:
the child part that was overwhelmed by strong sexual advances from adults and, at that age, was not able to, or allowed to, say “No”.
I felt scared, bordering on terrified.
Fortunately, I have developed enough adult in me to be able to rescue the child when he is in trouble…and I did.
It’s tricky socially when I get triggered because I have to manage my internal conflict while not blaming the person I am talking to at the moment.
Before recovery, when I was clueless about what was going on, if I felt triggered I lashed out at whoever I was talking to, believing it was their fault…
Needless to say, that damaged a lot of relationships.
Now I know that “If I’m not the problem…there is no solution”.