Desire, Sex, Tantra

[Smile]

Sexual desire...

[Cameron]

What Max said.

[mYTHmAKER]

Sexual desire...

 

Desire of whatever

[DanC]

To me sexual desire is a good thing, sure too much of anything is bad, but sexual desire is one reason why I practice energy clutivation, to enhance sexual energy. Who wants to go through life with no sexual desire, life is meant to be enjoyed and sex brings about great enjoyment...

[rex]

To me sexual desire is a good thing, sure too much of anything is bad, but sexual desire is one reason why I practice energy clutivation, to enhance sexual energy. Who wants to go through life with no sexual desire, life is meant to be enjoyed and sex brings about great enjoyment...

Right on! There's a great mystery in sex.

[thelerner]

Sexual desire is so powerful and multi-dimensional, physical, mental, even spiritual. It can deeply sooth or burn and scar. To revile it, is like reviling fire.

 

Michael

[Cameron]

To me sexual desire is a good thing, sure too much of anything is bad, but sexual desire is one reason why I practice energy clutivation, to enhance sexual energy. Who wants to go through life with no sexual desire, life is meant to be enjoyed and sex brings about great enjoyment...

 

 

I like to think a healthy co creative realationship where both are supportive or atleast not hurting the others practices would be a good thing. I think what smile..or atleast what I was referring to..are endless sexual thoughts and feelings that may impede ones meditations and basically cover the mind in confusion.

 

Also, pornogrophy and other such uses of sexuality in every day life..to sell products or manipulate eachother etc.

 

I think smile is also referring to the bliss of cultivation is actually higher than sex and most people can't or arent doing the real tantra practice anyway so bliss via meditation is the more sure fire path to long term bliss. If you can do the real tantra and don't find sex disturbing to your practices(whatever they are) more power to you. I like to think that is ana ttainable goal with the right partner, right energy balance, right thought and right karma etc.

[neimad]

i'm gonna disagree with sexual desire being a good thing.

 

any kind of desire is simply attachment and distraction.....

 

thats not to say that sex is bad or must be avoided, just desiring it is unnecessary.

 

 

i had my first experience of unattached sex the past weekend. it was so paradoxical that it was beautiful. i was with a woman who i felt immense love and respect for yet at the same time, being very much in the mood of a warrior... i cared nothing for her.

being a warrior herself she had the same attitude.

 

love became an act of sex. it became a thing of energy and a tool for healing. there was nothing more and nothing less than the simple action.

 

it was so ordinary yet at the same time it was amazing.

 

that simple action released so much sexual desire and yearning i had been clinging on to and i realise now the futility of yearning and lusting after sexual union.

 

sex is just simply, like everything else in a warriors life, a tool for building energy.

 

with the right partner i am sure it can open up other dimensions, but i think it needs to come from this place of being used as a tool first and foremost.

[Trunk]

i had my first experience of unattached sex the past weekend. ..

I think this should be split into a new thread: white tantra. (Sean?, or other moderator?)

Its a rich topic that we really haven't talked about at all, and has a lot to do with the stillness teachings we've been clamoring for.

[neimad]

ooohooooo

 

another split eh?

 

i really am strirring things up........

[DanC]

A man who doesnt desire sex has lost his mojo (life force), he is lost and is no longer healthy, we

are sexual beings, we cannot ignore our sexual thoughts and feelings we must not repress them.

[Cameron]

Dan, I don't know that I agree with what your saying from a cultivation point of view. Many enlightened teachers basically taught celibacy as the fastest route to spiritual progress(along with meditation of course). While this most likely is not the path for most westerners I wouldn't claim that it isn't a valid path for someone who is truly there. Of course Ken Cohen writes in his book on qigong that even celibate monks should still excercise the jing energy with different sexual massage, prostate excercises drawing jing upwards etc.

 

I mean, would you call the many enlightened Buddhist masters lost?

Edited June 16, 2006 by Cameron

[neimad]

A man who doesnt desire sex has lost his mojo (life force), he is lost and is no longer healthy, we

are sexual beings, we cannot ignore our sexual thoughts and feelings we must not repress them.

 

not desiring sex does not mean that one is not a sexual being.... all it means is that one has as much attachment to sex as one does for paperclips or rubber bands or any other trivial nonsense.

 

one can engage in sex and have it be an amazing thing (all with the intent of energy cultivation) yet have no desire or thought for it.

 

to not desire something is not to repress it.... it's simply just not to obsess about it and waste energy thinking about it (thoughts are energy, the more stuff we think about... the more energy we expend. i.e. emptiness meditation is so powerful because all energy is being conserved).

 

sex can be an act of divine love with the right intention and motivation.

 

 

 

sex seems to like a 'gateway' (in the same way as they talk about pot being a gateway drug into the heavier stuff) that is that desire to expand the act of sex into something spiritual and uplifting can lead one into the spiritual path (thats what happened with me!).

 

however as i said it's just another tool... if one desires it, it's no longer a tool but a 'plug in point' that is it's a source of energy drain.

if one no longer desires it, it can be a powerful source of energy cultivation.

 

IMHO.

[DanC]

Cam/Neimad,

I hear what you's are saying, but I think you can still have sexual desires and cultivate, If I didnt

desire sex I think it would be alot less enjoyable, but everyone has to find there own path, my path is

to cultivate and not restrain form sex and sexual desires.

 

Dan

[Cameron]

I agree otherwise I wouldn't bother since I doubt I will get to the point of having no sexual desire(or would want to).

 

You were kind of saying if someone has no desire for sex they are lost etc so I just needed to point out that from what I understand celibacy is a valid path.

 

But you decide whatever is right for you. One way I heard it explained by a zen teacher was that celibacy is a rare state where the energy in the body has been refined to where having sex is kind of unneccissary.

 

Probably like one in a million cultivators will actually do that successfully. I just don't discount the possibilty.

 

Cam

Edited June 17, 2006 by Cameron

[Callan]

I mostly agree with neimad.

 

For me just now sex is great and getting better all the time but sexual desire is extremely painful.

 

They are definitely two different things.

[neimad]

Cam/Neimad,

I hear what you's are saying, but I think you can still have sexual desires and cultivate, If I didnt

desire sex I think it would be alot less enjoyable, but everyone has to find there own path, my path is

to cultivate and not restrain form sex and sexual desires.

 

Dan

 

 

your not hearing what i'm saying.

 

one can have sex. one can enjoy it immensley. one can take it to amazing heights (even as an act of communion with god!?). cause it to be an act of love. all amazing things.....

 

i never said to refrain from sex. just that sexual desire is not a very positive thing (although here i should note that i think anything perceived as not a good thing can become so with the correct application.... that is an example could be sexual desire leads to wanting to know how to enjoy sex at deeper and deeper levels which eventually leads to a spiritual path and potentially enlightenment.... sure, i reckon one could be enlightened through sex... but there would be no desire left at the end of it).

 

as callan said, two completely different things.

 

it's like the difference between lusting after a big-mac and eating a healthy (and making it really tasty because you appreciate the delicate act of preperation) salad because eating good food is just something you do as an act of love for your body.

 

i.e. one is anti-life, the other is pro-life.

[Trunk]

i had my first experience of unattached sex the past weekend. it was so paradoxical that it was beautiful. i was with a woman who i felt immense love and respect for yet at the same time, being very much in the mood of a warrior... i cared nothing for her.

being a warrior herself she had the same attitude.

 

love became an act of sex. it became a thing of energy and a tool for healing. there was nothing more and nothing less than the simple action.

 

it was so ordinary yet at the same time it was amazing.

 

that simple action released so much sexual desire and yearning i had been clinging on to and i realise now the futility of yearning and lusting after sexual union.

 

sex is just simply, like everything else in a warriors life, a tool for building energy.

 

with the right partner i am sure it can open up other dimensions, but i think it needs to come from this place of being used as a tool first and foremost.

I've explored, some, partner-still-standing. Just standing a couple of feet apart, often not touching at all, sometimes something simple like palms to palms, or hand to heart, or back to back. The main focus is the stillness, just like solo practice, maintaining center while whatever else goes on around. Having a partner there makes it very nourishing and pleasurable .. but there is a distinct lack of engagement (almost a rule) of 'normal' sexual-romantic-attaching stuff, its about maintaining centered alignment, stillness, vastness. Its good practice for a tantric attitude, imo, for both partners.

 

Didn't Ian write about this some time back?

Edited June 17, 2006 by Trunk

[sean]

IMO awakening is not so much about a reduction or modification of desire itself, but a new relationship with desire.

 

Desire is a spontaneous arc of energy that flows between two polarities of it's own accord. It's a natural event, like water running down a cliff. It's not good or bad, it just is.

 

Saying an enlightened master has no desire is like saying hitting him with a metal baseball bat across the head won't hurt. It will. The distinction is wether the master creates suffering from these sensations, or is just empty with them.

 

Perhaps an awakened relationship with desire, and the chosen cultivation path that led to it, can alter desire itself as well. But how we think and feel about desire, how we relate with desire, wether we set ourselves up in resistance to it, fight it, succumb to it, ignore it, repress it, just allow it ... IMO this is the key transformation that occurs in awakening, not the manipulations of nature.

 

So IMO someone can be enlightened and still have powerful desires arise. They can still be in a position to need to choose how to respond to powerful desires. The change is that there is an ever present recognition that the desire is not the Self and the desire is no threat to Self. Ultimately nothing to lose, nothing to gain.

 

 

Sean

[cloud recluse]

Heres a good one from the archives

 

Not actually a sex manual,Daniel Odier's DESIRE:THE TANTRIC PATH TO AWAKENING clarifies the relationship of awareness to embodied energy,how each accelerates the other.To focus awareness on energy, without any desperate grasping for climatic sensations,is the assertion of the enlightened perspective.One does not need to 'detach" so much as focus on the moment without demanding it explode into something else.By expanding & maintaining this stance,the ego is naturally outgrown without grim self-mortification or enforced solitude.

 

Its still a discipline,you dont prematurely engage energies that trigger rapid ego convulsions,but not a grim one.Life-positive without being indulgent Most of the exercises in the book are simply relaxing into a fine awareness of body energies while not indulging the egos desperate fearful compulsion to "make' something of them.Until this "relaxed intesity" is felt & its contrast with ego-desperation understood viscerally,theres no point on going on to those practices more typically thought of as "Tantric".

 

Grounded in authentic Tantric tradition,bloody good read!Any Bums ever checked it out ?Odiers done a few valuable things on Daoist ,Buddhist & Hindu tantras ,while his main language seems to be that of Kashmiri Shaivism.

 

Reagrds.Cloud.

Edited June 18, 2006 by cloud recluse

[Callan]

Until this "relaxed intesity" is felt & its contrast with ego-desperation understood viscerally,thers no point on going on to those practices more typically thought of as "Tantric".

 

 

Thanks Cloud. That really clarifies the whole thing for me.

 

I remember the first taste I had of being desireless. My body was completely at peace and at the same time completely alive and my ego couldn't handle it at all - it just kept going thinking how will I ever connect to anybody or know what to do or get anything done - kept going until it reasserted itself. Real desperation in it.

 

I've had Odier recommended to me before. Sounds like he really knows what he's talking about

[Ian]

IMO awakening is not so much about a reduction or modification of desire itself, but a new relationship with desire.

 

Desire is a spontaneous arc of energy that flows between two polarities of it's own accord. It's a natural event, like water running down a cliff. It's not good or bad, it just is.

 

I'm not sure I agree, unless you have a particular definition of desire here.

 

Attraction would perhaps be a better word for the natural, magnetic, polarised flow of which you speak.

 

Desire is, in my dictionary, much more rooted in thought, in an expression of the personality. Just because it activates jing-level stuff of which we're not directly conscious, doesn't make it pure and natural, I think.

 

And thought certainly can be, well, if not reduced, then denied the resources that make it so compelling. And desire, or the inability to stand back from desire, will be lessened thereby. And that is just a reduced relationship with desire, not a new one.

 

I think for most people, especially me, building a new relationship with desire will be impossible, simply because the desires don't give us enough breathing space in which to do so.

 

I try to reduce my current relationship with desire, because, 99 times out of a hundred, if I tell myself my desire is a spontaneous and natural event, I'm kidding myself. It's just the grasping of the personality made flesh.

 

But that's me. I aim for ruthless honesty, but maybe I'm just a particularly backward cultivator.

[三江源]

.

Edited April 18, 2015 by 三江源

[sean]

cloud recluse, I've had that one on my list for awhile but I think I will pick it up next. Thanks for the review.

 

Ian, I think you are saying what I said better ... your distinction between attraction and desire is similar to the distinction between pain and suffering, right? Attraction and pain arise and it's how the human being responds to them that makes the difference. In an awakened being I imagine it like cat is saying ... thoughts, pain, attraction arise and pass like clouds in a sky of Self.

 

But here my nondualistic tendencies encourage me to push things even more. I would take this all further and say that even in an awakened mind sometimes thoughts come that don't seem to pass like clouds. They entangle the mind. And sometimes also attractions arise that don't just dissolve right away. They burn longer as passion and desire. And yet all these phenomenon too also arise within the field of Self. Self is so absolutely free, it can enter into bondage and remain untouched.

 

The great Tibetan teacher Marpa lived on a farm with his family a thousand years ago. On this farm there also lived many monks who came to study with this great teacher. One day Marpa's oldest son was killed. Marpa was grieving deeply when one of the monks came to him and said, "I don't understand. You teach us that all is illusion.Yet you are crying. If all is illusion, then why do you grieve so deeply?" Marpa replied, 'Indeed, everything is illusion. And the death of a child is the greatest of these illusions.'

 

Sean

[cloud recluse]

 

But here my nondualistic tendencies encourage me to push things even more. I would take this all further and say that even in an awakened mind sometimes thoughts come that don't seem to pass like clouds. They entangle the mind. And sometimes also attractions arise that don't just dissolve right away. They burn longer as passion and desire. And yet all these phenomenon too also arise within the field of Self. Self is so absolutely free, it can enter into bondage and remain untouched.

Sean

 

Too bloody right !!

 

The thing I really dig about Odiers little book is that it trounces this morbid "detachment ' thing! Fuck,what are people so FUCKING SCARED OF!!!! I think if you edited all the Eastern texts & replaced the word "Attachment" with the term "Compulsion",all the obedient little seekers wouldnt spend so much time being terrified of involvement with life!!! Compulsion is a stupid spasm that sends you on a futile quest to get what you allready have by looking somewhere else.STUPID! And very,very embarrising.

But life itself IS NOT the problem!! And the only time you wont be attached to that is when your dead!! Can you stop breathing,"watch" the desire to breath."spiritually' deny that dirty involvement,& calmly die! If you did,all it proves is that youve misused yoga to be a suicidal dimwit!!

 

For ALL of your life,you will be a living,pulsing ball of need & passion,NO EXCEPTIONS,and that is the whole point,TO MANIFEST,to honour the Dao.Its only when you smear all this glory with neurotic compulsion,turn the whole gorgeous display into a fear trip,that it fucks up,twists it.

 

So could everbody stop crapping on about detachment,and fantasising about becoming a super-seperate ultra-independent unit & just admit theyre SCARED !!ENLIGHTENMENT IS NOT ISOLATION OR IMMUNITY FROM FEELING,no matter how attractive & reassuring that goal is to the Ego!!!This fantasised independence is just COWARDICE,not "warriorship" or "transcendance"!!

 

Rather,Enlightenment is a Super involvement,TOTAL ATTACHMENT to the full energetic reality of this moment,this glorious arising of the Dao,"detaching" only from half-assed illusions (including the "spiritual" ones) that keep us from releasing fully into life.Yoga doesnt curb our sinful impulses,it magnifies them into their full glory.

 

What the fuck are we here,another pack of life-weary gutless ascetics,scared of complexity & disappointment.Yoga should amplify life into its full form,with all the risk & pain that connotates,not erase it.

 

YOUR "EGO" IS YOUR FEAR OF LIFE,OF LIFES ENERGETIC FLUX.Yoga just brings on the flux.No "safety" there,except the abandoning of the hope for immunity to life.STOP TRYING TO MAKE A VIRTUE OUT OF YOUR FEAR!!!

 

Blah,blah,blah,blah.Well I was feeling boisterous,so deal with it

 

So come on all you serene ascetics & unattached sex feinds,tell me why Im wrong & "unspiritual",I fucking dare you

 

Regards,Cloud.