Responses

james murphy — Wed, 4 May, 2016 - 08:17

Hmmm interesting…. Would like to buy this. …. “the pro-natal nature of our conditioning as girls and young women” - But is personality (such as it is!) merely a social construct? Is the maternal instinct in women exclusively conditioned by society? I doubt it. Is not the body we choose in returning to this life an expression of our desires? Do we not, as Buddhists, believe there are much deeper forces at work? Where is karma in all this, I wonder? I trust the author makes the necessary, subtle distinctions between social behaviourism and spiritual conditions….. We shall see!

claire70 — Sun, 8 May, 2016 - 20:25

I would say yes, the maternal instinct is often (perhaps not always) conditioned by society (as is a paternal instinct, of course). And some of us women don’t have it at all!

james murphy — Sun, 8 May, 2016 - 21:35

The disputed phrase here must be (as far as I am concerned) ‘often conditioned’. I doubt it. I doubt it sincerely. The body - that old ancestor which haunts us on a daily basis - unquestionably has much to answer for in supplying women with a pscyho-biological compulsion, a ‘maternal instinct’ to conceive and bring to birth. It is scripted into the animal part of the female DNA. To deny such appears wilfully evasive to me. Indeed, you might as well say animals themselves are ‘socially ‘conditioned’ to mate and breed as to suggest that the female body plays no (or little) part in the process. This is not, of course, to dispute the fact that some women don’t possess said instinct at all. I fully concede that. Nor do I know why that should be the case. Such a disposition remains, however, the exception that proves the rule.

Vajracaksu — Wed, 4 May, 2016 - 22:40

Very pleased to see this book published Kamalamani for spiritual and ecological reasons. Social and cultural pressure in Turkey to get married and have children is enormous. I have heard of very, very few examples of ‘voluntary childlessness’ here. Maybe just 3 or 4 examples in 13 years!

Kind wishes

Vajracaksu