Can We Transcend Lust?

[ddilulo_06]

so the wankers are bumping this topic up again eh?

 

I have had no desire to masturbate after the Max seminar... this is day 8. I'm not even keeping track.

 

All I would say on this topic is to stop trying to control your bodily urges... that goes for all areas of life. The trick is to find out how you REALLY feel and follow that.

 

Feel like wacking off? Do it.

 

Feel like supressing your sexual desires? Do it.

 

Feel like being "disciplined? Do it.

 

Whether you realize it or not, we all do what we feel like anyway... always.

Edited December 20, 2008 by ddilulo_06

[rookie]

dao zhen,

Thank you for that incredible post.

I have read some descriptions of the process you went through with your teacher, but your personal experience and plain english make it much more real to me. Relating it to sexual feelings and desire and showing an example of, what is the right word, "transmutation" ..... well I just find it incredible to find something that really makes sense and is based on an individuals experience. Quite a lot of the things I read from translations and other traditions make little sense until someone explains them.

I hope it would not offend you if I ask who was your teacher and how did you meet him?

 

I dobt I will have the opportunity to do as you describe, find a teacher who could teach this, accept me as a student, do all the prepatory work........

But I do what I can from where I am.

 

Starting from the begining I can answer your first question. Where do I wish to go?

I am answering a call from deep inside me. I have no external tradition path to follow, so mine is to listen, feel, follow and abide with it the best that I can.

The most accessable tradition to me is christianity, but the inner traditions of the monks and mystics are burried under far to many extra layers of junk that I could not wade through them. I don't tolerate dogma very well. I question most every belief.

Everything I practice is in support of my own experiential internal path.

 

I am not seeking power. I am seeking the truth of my being, existance, who or what I really am. I am seeking truth. Or maybe it is seeking me.

 

Qigong and meditation support this path very well. The physical effects on my nervous system and tendons would be enough alone, but it is now part of a dailypractice that helps me try and build/keep a contemplative state.

 

If I am cultivating anything I would say it is a state of conciousness, not necessarily a particular energy although I would not be surprised if there is a corresponding energy event or state in the body (one of them).

 

On sexuality, celibacy is out of the question unless I wanted to part ways with my wife ;>)

but seriously, I have always enjoyed sex, and have sometimes over done it (been too into it in my younger years), but have found a pretty good balance.

 

The question of lust is a little more complex in my experience.

I workout at a gym almost daily, and I find the presence of a healthy, attractive, physical female form very pleasing. Not to the point of getting an erection, not like that, but I feel a magnetic attraction, almost a physical pull. I don't know where it comes from. I cannot sense any harm in it. At worst it seems to be a distraction. I do not act on it, but I do feel a draw towards this healthy female energy. Every once in a while I wonder if I should do something about it. It just seems to be a normal part of life. I know that it is frequently a mutual attraction based on experiences and conversations with females who have become friends, and I have a pretty healthy and attractive male physical form and energy. So I am trying to be careful not to send encouraging signals. I keep it natural and innocent, but supressing this energy feels very wrong to my system. I always wear my gold band on my left hand and will even bring up my wife in conversation to get the point across. I obviously don't understand the female psyche very well. More than once I have had to make the point that I am in a commited relationship after what I thought was innocent friendship with a woman would turn towards her start making the sexual attraction signs. You know how women emanate the neutral, red light, or green light signal? When it turns to green light and you do not want to end up going there then it can get awkward.

When I was single I would never pursue a woman with a wedding band on her hand.

 

So I don't have this resolved yet. But I'm not sure it is a big deal as long as I can keep myself from these uncomfortable situations by controlling my own signals. Maybe that is where I need to work.

Again, the practice that feels right to my system is not supressing, but maintaining an open and innocent state of mind and intention. Attraction comes, then goes, like the weather.

 

Maybe I have gone a little far, but these are some of my personal experiences with sexuality and lust.

 

 

Peace to all

 

 

 

 

 

 

so the wankers are bumping this topic up again eh?

 

 

Said like a true 20yr old

Please don't take any offense in that statement.

Enjoy the ride. I would be suprised if it remains quite that clear cut and simple as you go on.

But that is what makes the journey worth taking, all the unknown in your future

[Dog]

With all this talk about celibacy/retention, I wonder if we're hacking at the leaves instead of striking at the root.

 

Can we ever get to a point where we transcend lust?

 

I hear of enlightened masters sometimes never having sex. Have they transcended lust, or are they merely very disciplined?

 

If you are someone who had lust in the past, but have now transcended it (and you aren't bullshitting yourself ) would you mind telling us how you did it? I'm not talking about managing lust, I'm talking about completely stepping out of lust consciousness so discipline isn't necessary. In the long run, I'm not willing to be disciplined in this area. I'm a healthy 20-year-old and celebacy jus' don't feel right!

 

Resources would be appreciated as well.

Just to clarify my personal perspective on lust is that it is a condition of un grounded sexual energy and often excess yang(often driving one to search out yin to balance) other ways this can play out in the five elements. At first I would recommend inner smile practice, microcosmic orbit and progression through iron shirt 1 & 3. You may also feel healing sounds & fusion practices important to release, recycle, and return emotions no longer serving you. Such as chronic guilt and anger. In grounding you may find ancestral issues related to the sexual polarity between your female and male ancestry. That should be a great start. Sorry if I repeated any one I did not read all the posts. Check out www.healingtao.com http://www.healingtaoretreats.com/

[Taiji Bum]

I've been reading a Kabbalah book called "The Gate of Reincarnations" and it says to achieve the highest levels in mysticism you need to have a child and fulfill the mitzvah of procreation. The Zohar also seems to hint that at all the lower levels of spirituality it seems you learn to transcend lust (and the other animal impulses) until you become pure enough to find the wife destined for you and have kids. BUT..... once you have transcended lust the sex is supposed to be heaven-shaking..... literally.... your sexual intercourse draws down a holy soul straight from the higher parts of the tree of life.... and it becomes a "G-d" experience and not just a sexual one.