Well, conventionally 19 is past the age of consent. As a person that's been in a long term exclusive relationship since 1986, I'm not really in the place of either person in the story, so I'm not sure my comments have much relevance. I did date a tenth grader when I was a senior, after my older girl-friend dumped me when she went to college. I did find it palpably easier/less stressful to be with a younger person than an older person, so I can understand why the monk liked the hot 19 year old girl.
Sex is fun, and the ability to justify it when you want it and can enjoy it are among the brain's top skills. I certainly note that the Eido lineage has had some pretty serious questions raised about how well it deals with sexuality. Also, the article quoted includes the lovely line: > Conscious mature sexuality is loving, not lusting Perhaps the author finds lust to be bad? I rather like it, but whatever. It does not sound like the student here was 1) a formal student of the older man, or 2) greatly exploited or indeed in a dependent position, so I'd reserve my negative conclusions for the old monk. The San Francisco Zen Center, having learned the hard way, has a procedure now for severing a student/teacher relationship to enable a more conventional romantic relationship to flower without that specific imbalance working against the lovers. That makes sense to me. They also aren't dependent on one big famous teacher who is in charge of the whole thing. --Chris On Fri, Feb 25, 2011 at 9:56 AM, ED <[email protected]> wrote: > A beautiful example of 'responsibility', exquisite sex and 'right' sexual > relationship between teacher and student? > > --ED > > > In Defense of Promiscuity Part II
