I have wondered how marriage is looked upon by Buddha.
Should a Buddhist be in favour of marriages?
如得法师 gives his take:
My own reading of it is that it depends on which stage of your practice you are in.
As a practitioner gets more aware of the cycle of rebirth and death (轮回) and is determined to get out it, he or she will see the disadvantages of marriage and attachment.
Do you agree?
Here is Master Sheng Yen’s candid talk on marriage:
The summary at the end sums up my thoughts quite well:
We should find our own philosophy for life instead of depending on marriage, or on any other person to give meaning to our life.
I think Buddhism can serve as an ideal philosophy for life
The discussion on this Reddit thread is quite good reading:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/comments/2vi430/a_question_about_buddhism_and_romantic/
I like some of the measured replies:
There isn’t a commandment that says you MUST abandon attachment. The buddha just pointed out that attachment gives rise to suffering. He then said, “However…I know a way to avoid suffering.” The way was to try and understand how things really are; see things for how they really are; speak in the most appropriate manner, do things in the most appropriate manner, work in the most appropriate type of job, make the right kind of effort, be suitably aware of the moment and apply your concentration in a manner that was most appropriate.
At no point did he say, “Cut yourself off from your loved ones.” But your relationship with them needs to be right and appropriate: they are not yours ; they will not be around forever; they cause pain as well as happiness.
Buddhists the world over, often practice on different levels and often for different goals. Limited goals, are happy becomings, happiness in the here and now. Moderate scope goals would be good rebirths (if you get down with that), when I say that I mean you can arise good mental states too! And finally full liberation the supreme goal. Of these one would have to let go of everything. Is it worth it? Yes! Is it hard? Sure it can be. The point is, there are plenty of practitioners who have sex (all the lay people can do this), even different less restricted types that are not as held back. They can fall in love and Buddha in fact gave a great many teachings (the canon is 11x larger than the bible).
The Buddha talked about how to identify good friends, bad friends, get good rebirth, financial advice and even how to get reborn with your mate believe it not. This is because the Buddha recognized not everyone would attain stream entry so a solidly good rebirth is the next best thing with the Dharma and good friends are the whole of the holy life. So in order to get reborn with karmic link to your mate you both need to cultivate like wisdom and other virtues. The Buddha is not denying of the nature of things.
