Controlling sexual desire

[Maddie]

what is the heart's desire is to no longer desire?

[yondaime109]

Try donating your sperm to a greater cause.

[oildrops]

!

Edited June 7, 2013 by oildrops

[Cheshire Cat]

Disipline is meant to live life more fully, not less.

 

What do you mean by living life more fully?

[Cheshire Cat]

edit

Edited June 7, 2013 by DAO rain TAO

[Spotless]

hi everyone ,

i am having trouble with the whole sexual aspect of studying ,

i was wondering if anyone can help ,

 

from what i understand , you retain from ejaculation to build up your sexual energy , if you have the desire to have an orgasm you have a inner one , but there are so many storys of people damaging there prostate through this plus the fact of actually learning the correct technique

 

, i am very puzzled as to what steps i should take ?

 

does most people on here have inner orgasms when they feel desire , i dont want to end up some miserable old celibate monk !

My opinion in this is over a long amount of time and considerable observation but not in the tradition of most of what is adhered to in these forums.

 

Having said that, I have found retention to be a distraction for me for most of my life and also of no benefit. I believe this is true for about 3/4 of the population in general. I consider retention different from abstaining or not indulging.

 

I have found for me personally lots of sex was of no loss if it was with a girl friend and I seemed no more or less driven during these times. If on the other hand I was moving things along myself, the cravings got progressively worse and the behavior became an indulgence while every renegade pheromone popped my attention.

 

So laying off artificial means for the most part was helpful - typically if it had been over a week it became easier and easier to not become worked up. If I was actively retaining and doing the whole breathing bit the entire thing generally became an ordeal unless I was on a fast.

 

It is best to have guidance from a teacher if they are of the caliber to understand your nature. I do not know how much of a standard this practice is or if most students pick and choose this. If I were recommending retention to anyone, it would be for those lacking in certain types of energy or certain emotive levels.

 

For many retention is like prescribing a real bender - miles out of their range of competence and need.

It is more often than not something you should not engage in - for most it is only a distraction or a minor glimpsway into seeing how little control you have of yourself and how easily you are completely bent out of shape (interesting for a bit but of little value and frequently harmful).

 

It is not necessarily an admirable quality to try and master everything that is difficult for you to master.

Sometimes it is truly against your nature.

Edited June 7, 2013 by Spotless

[Jetsun]

Repression.... yes indeed a problem, but what is repression really? Is it just beginning to feel what you are really feeling as your energy level gets to the point for you to really start feeling it, and then distracting yourself from that by releasing that energy? Or is it when your energy level rises and you begin to feel what you really feel but then sitting with it and allowing yourself to feel it until you get to the bottom of it no matter how uncomfortable it may be? Which one is truly repression?

 

The general way repression works is that an emotional or belief is taken out from you, disowned and put into the outside world by your mind, so for example at the moment many people repress their anger and blame Muslims and visa versa, so the problem is no longer inside of you it is someone else causing it, they are the aggressive savages not us.

 

Ken Wilber has written quite a lot about repression and how it relates to meditation, he says that meditation isn't particularly good at digging out your shadow emotions and that modern psychological methods are probably better as that is what they are designed for. There are a lot of examples of meditators and gurus who end up disgracing themselves and becoming perverts because they haven't got to grips with what they are repressing, especially sexually.

 

I actually think enquiry like the technique of Byron Katie might be be better because at the end of the process you have to do a turnaround and turn all of your beliefs and accusations around onto yourself to see if they are equally true as applied to yourself, which can be illuminating. With direct enquiry you can't really hide and life and other people become your mirror to reflect back to you the real reality of what's going on inside of you, whereas in meditation the mind can always hold things back it doesn't want to admit and can hide things when you are alone and not confronted with other people reflecting back to you.

[C T]

I think modern psychology is very much lacking when it comes to helping a 'wounded' person return to wholeness. At best, psychoanalytical approaches only go so far as to remove people's fear of fully emotionalizing their feelings, which is why one of the most overused 2 leading questions used by analysts to determine the mindset of their patients is, "How do you feel about this, or, how painful is it to allow a particular emotion to surface?"

 

On the other hand, meditation does not hover around feelings alone, as in, it goes further and deeper, to the root of the matter, which is (where buddhist meditative practices are concerned), who is it who feels? What is this entity? Is this entity fixed, permanent, or changing? From this, one goes on to examine what part emotions and feelings play in this ever-changing canvas, until finally, one realizes even the canvas is merely a prop to temporarily assist one's crossing over to the other shore (shore symbolizing total freedom).

 

Much can be understood with regards to the above in the book 'The Meaning of Happiness' by Alan Watts.

[Jetsun]

I think modern psychology is very much lacking when it comes to helping a 'wounded' person return to wholeness. At best, psychoanalytical approaches only go so far as to remove people's fear of fully emotionalizing their feelings, which is why one of the most overused 2 leading questions used by analysts to determine the mindset of their patients is, "How do you feel about this, or, how painful is it to allow a particular emotion to surface?" On the other hand, meditation does not hover around feelings alone, as in, it goes further and deeper, to the root of the matter, which is (where buddhist meditative practices are concerned), who is it who feels? What is this entity? Is this entity fixed, permanent, or changing? From this, one goes on to examine what part emotions and feelings play in this ever-changing canvas, until finally, one realizes even the canvas is merely a prop to temporarily assist one's crossing over to the other shore (shore symbolizing total freedom). Much can be understood with regards to the above in the book 'The Meaning of Happiness' by Alan Watts.

 

I think modern psychology has advanced since the psychoanalytical approach, many are still in the dark ages of course but for the most part it now revolves around compassion and including everything that is coming up including things like anger and raw sexuality and isn't a head based exercise any more. If someone with repressed anger reads Buddhist texts telling him that one moment of anger can cause lifetimes in hell I don't see how that helps and will probably make things worse. The success of meditation depends on how you are using it, for many it can just be a way to try to avoid the world.

 

I think Alan Watts might be a good example of what I'm talking about here, he was a great scholar of Eastern Philosophy and seemed to be able to understand it and communicate it better than anyone, yet he was an alcoholic and by many accounts deeply unhappy and not at all at peace, so he could probably have done with some psychotherapy or some sort of other method to help him as there was obviously a disconnect between his words and his being.

[三江源]

what is the heart's desire is to no longer desire?

when the level of desire you wish to let die off does so, then the heart can get its voice heard.

[Everything]

What do you do if you really fancy your best friends girlfriend?

I would say, it's not really going well in between them anyway. I know she digs me, she is capable of looking after herself. She is beautiful and receives compliments from other men on a daily basis. She doesn't have to settle yet. She has very specific taste in men, in terms of attraction, I can feel that she strongly feels attracted to me, and it especially shows when she has been drinking. Even when she doesn't drink, the frustration to not be able to express her love for me freely is clearly evident, if you are addicted to watching her every move as I am. She is beautiful, and he is usually not around. I'm sure he wil find another young woman, as he's living a whole other student life then her. She doesn't study, and you can se in the way she dresses, she is craving for better sex. I can give it to her and she is well aware of her wants, even more so then I am. And I know it hurts like hell as she resists her desires and so I know she cannot keep this up for long. She will have to give in to her desires for me soon because she knows she cannot keep this up. It's up to me now to choose for her what she will do. I can make her desire grow, or I can leave her be with her boyfriend. I choose to make her desire grow for me, because I want her, I know we will have very delicious and addictive lovemaking. I know she will no longer even want to get out of bed, I know I can sooth her fires with my calm waters. Even if it takes frok dusk till dawn, I might even extend the duration further! In the end, everything allways works out fine.

[C T]

I think modern psychology has advanced since the psychoanalytical approach, many are still in the dark ages of course but for the most part it now revolves around compassion and including everything that is coming up including things like anger and raw sexuality and isn't a head based exercise any more. If someone with repressed anger reads Buddhist texts telling him that one moment of anger can cause lifetimes in hell I don't see how that helps and will probably make things worse. The success of meditation depends on how you are using it, for many it can just be a way to try to avoid the world. I think Alan Watts might be a good example of what I'm talking about here, he was a great scholar of Eastern Philosophy and seemed to be able to understand it and communicate it better than anyone, yet he was an alcoholic and by many accounts deeply unhappy and not at all at peace, so he could probably have done with some psychotherapy or some sort of other method to help him as there was obviously a disconnect between his words and his being.

Maybe i am out of touch with the part of psychology where discussions and analysis are not merely head-based. As far as i am aware, based on feedbacks from a certain number of people who have accessed such avenues, there is still much ground for this field to cover before it can be said to be fully equipped to help successfully, as in, help to such an extent where the counseled find total release from their issues. The funny thing is, even making the move to seek counseling already preempts 'issues which need resolution', whereas, from a meditative perspective, the meditator will sometimes be reminded that there are really no issues at all, and to find out if this is indeed the case, in that, from ignorance, we somehow project stuff out which has no real basis due to habits and such.

 

As for Alan Watts, well, what can i say? I have not had the pleasure of knowing him personally, hence its impossible for me to see from the outside in what exactly motivated his eyebrow-raising antics. I know for a fact there are times when total freedom could drive one to act in ways which others, when they only observe the peripheral actions, could only describe as wanton, yet, only he knows himself if he was a fool or indeed a wise man. He said himself that even a fool becomes wise when he learns to unconditionally accept that he or she is a fool. Anyway, he addresses this in a very enlightening way in said book. As for his words, well, all the stuff i have read seem to make plenty of sense, so it does not matter so much if others judge him by his deeds. For all intents and purposes, he may have chosen to display/manifest that facet of his life to offer others a grand lesson.

Edited June 7, 2013 by C T

[Spotless]

Much of what is being written here about psychology is conjecture and assumption.

For the most part, it has a reasonably good function in helping one to regain right thinking in some form, to sort out fundamental discord and angst.

One of the great features of cultivation is discovering the wonderful abilities and energies we have - the miraculous.

One of the great problems of cultivation - the great challenge - is the amplification of predisposition and habituation and our general lack of interest in really dealing with the personality and training it. We tend to want to overcome our circuitry by increasing our abilities beyond our frailties of personality - and this will not work. We think this is how you remove personality / ego.

Removing - abolishing - much of this extreme is our western heritage. It will evaporate in time with cultivation, but it is not overcome. It is entirely false and does not exist - the idea of overcoming it, mastering it is belief and investment in it.

 

We are climbing the mountain of ego in an attempt to reach the summit.

We should not be climbing the mountain of the ego in order to overcome it - we need to use a shovel.

 

For many here inappropriate untimely additions of certain types of energy and amplification are of no benefit - it's like releasing a thousands squirrels in your space.

 

Some people have trouble expressing emotion, some are quite low in certain vitality and others are somewhat frozen in timidity and caught by a staid inertia - these types, this group can benefit from retention but metered out by a teacher who knows and sees how this is progressing.

 

For most of the other types, retention (by retention I do not mean simple celibacy, I am talking about retention with the breathing and the whole bit) may be of some value at a point quite far into their growth but typically by the time it is of any value it is more as a gentle and intricate adjunct to what should be advanced practice. For most it is ill-advised, premature and often no different than alcohol - with all the "benefits" of alcohol.

Edited June 7, 2013 by Spotless

[三江源]

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Edited September 28, 2015 by 三江源

[4bsolute]

Much of what is being written here about psychology is conjecture and assumption.

For the most part, it has a reasonably good function in helping one to regain right thinking in some form, to sort out fundamental discord and angst.

One of the great features of cultivation is discovering the wonderful abilities and energies we have - the miraculous.

One of the great problems of cultivation - the great challenge - is the amplification of predisposition and habituation and our general lack of interest in really dealing with the personality and training it. We tend to want to overcome our circuitry by increasing our abilities beyond our frailties of personality - and this will not work. We think this is how you remove personality / ego.

Removing - abolishing - much of this extreme is our western heritage. It will evaporate in time with cultivation, but it is not overcome. It is entirely false and does not exist - the idea of overcoming it, mastering it is belief and investment in it.

 

We are climbing the mountain of ego in an attempt to reach the summit.

We should not be climbing the mountain of the ego in order to overcome it - we need to use a shovel.

 

For many here inappropriate untimely additions of certain types of energy and amplification are of no benefit - it's like releasing a thousands squirrels in your space.

 

Some people have trouble expressing emotion, some are quite low in certain vitality and others are somewhat frozen in timidity and caught by a staid inertia - these types, this group can benefit from retention but metered out by a teacher who knows and sees how this is progressing.

 

For most of the other types, retention (by retention I do not mean simple celibacy, I am talking about retention with the breathing and the whole bit) may be of some value at a point quite far into their growth but typically by the time it is of any value it is more as a gentle and intricate adjunct to what should be advanced practice. For most it is ill-advised, premature and often no different than alcohol - with all the "benefits" of alcohol.

 

Yes, I have witnessed people who make like you have mentioned literally a "mountain" out of the ego. Or an elephant as the saying goes.

 

Like I have written before, people have war already inside their system, how they treat themselves and this ultimatelly affects how they treat others. Western medicine is the perfect example of a war that wants to be fought, when I look at medication and surgery.

 

99,9% of the medication is either to kill or to narcotize. Which is the same that happens from morning till evening in their personal lives: kill or narcotize. Kill by working against and not together, narcotize by what many people still consume. Food and media.

 

To eliminate both is very simple. So simple that more than half of our social facilities would become obsolete. And this also goes for psychology. All this is done by creating understanding.

 

I understand myself, I understand the world. Done