The term ‘Red Thread’ refers to a Chinese custom in which a red thread is tied around a new bride’s wrist as a sign of hope for a happy and fruitful marriage, the red thread being a symbolic umbilical cord. The Rinzai Zen tradition which adopted this symbol did so as a way of acknowledging that sexuality was a natural aspect of human life and hence, innately good. Considering how sexually puritanical standard Buddhism has always been it may be wondered how the Red Thread tradition could have arisen in Zen at all. The answer is that Zen is the result of a merging between a masculine, or more or less sexually negative, Buddhism and a feminine, or more or less sexually positive, Daoism. Sex, and all the attachments that normally go with it, sours life in traditional Buddhism. But the Daoist element in Zen allows Zen to accept sex and those attachments to be accepted as a completely natural part of the here and now, and even of enlightenment.

It needs to be made clear, however, that Red Thread Zen is not some form of Zen Tantrism. Tantrism is founded on the idea that the world goes through cycles of birth, decay and death, and that it is presently in a late stage of decay. In more ancient times, such as when the Buddha was alive, the average spiritual practitioner could, through a feat of great will power and ascetic practice, gain enlightenment and liberation from the world. Since according to Tantrism human spiritual capacities have significantly decayed from the Buddha’s time the average practitioner can no longer achieve on his or her own what was possible before. Nonetheless, Tantrism teaches that there is hope. Desperate times call for desperate measures. The sexual imagery of right handed Tantrism or the explicit sexual activities of left-handed Tantrism are considered to be fire to fight fire, poison to neutralize poison, or sex to overcome sexual desire. This view of sex as something ultimately negative, therefore something to be conquered, is very Indian and very standard Buddhism.

The East Asian traditions of Confucianism, Daoism and Shintoism have always seen sex in more positive terms. In these traditions sex, if one is not overly attached to it, functions as an enhancement to life. This actually means that Red Thread Zen is less compatible to Buddhist orthodoxy than is Tantrism.

One thing that Tantrism and Red Thread Zen have in common is the attitude that one’s religious life should always have priority over one’s sexual life. This is to say that if and when there is any conflict between the two, it is expected that the sexual will be immediately subordinate to, or even sacrificed for, the religious until the conflict is resolved. If this is not done then one’s religious practice would be corrupted.

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