Buddhism has always been a great platform for asking questions and getting answers, as at almost every teaching I've ever been to, time is left at the end for questions and answers. But how many people have the courage to stand up and ask the question that really perplexes them, when it has the potential to be the most embarrassing question you could ask, especially to a Nun or a Monk.
In my few years on the path, I have heard lots of questions and answers, but have never heard anyone ask this question.
For me, most of the people who have taught me are monastics, meaning they have taken vows of celibacy, making it seem (at least to me) more difficult for them to understand the situation, when this may be far from the truth.
For those of us who are trying to overcome sexual desire whilst being in a relationship, it can feel like opposing ideas and can cause a great deal of confusion.
Answer;
I think the answers to this are both complicated and simple. Sorry!
The simple answer is that a lay person is not required to do without sex but to live a sexual life that is moral and causes no harm to others. The moral guidelines are outlined in the well-known teachings on the 10 non-virtues and 10 virtues. There are two main points: first is not to cause suffering to another person. The second is to respect natural energies and live in harmony with them. There is nothing "wrong" with sex for lay people, if handled according to those guidelines.
The complex part is in the very nature of sex itself. To understand it, we need to have a LOT more real awareness of being embodied: we are a timeless mind "squatting" in this particular flesh and blood carcass, with all its hormones and chemistry. The choice is whether you want the chemistry to dominate you or you to dominate the chemistry. It is also interesting to become more mindful of what happens when making love / having sex. There is the need for affection and also the urge towards that letting-go of control and lucidity for the moment of "swoon" of orgasm. One learns a lot from observing the mind and feelings on the way towards getting frisky, foreplay etc. and after it is all over.
The monastic choice is to live without all the angst of sex and the yogi's journey (not for everyone, by far) is to sublime the sexual chemistry and biology into meditation knowledge.
Conclusion:
Sexual desire for lay practitioners isn't something we need to abandon, as I had initially felt. But this being said, we shouldn't allow it to go unchecked as there is a chance it may get the better of us. In today's society with the technology we have, getting access to sexual content has never been easier. This has lead to a rise in desire based addiction in our communities, as sexual content is now so readily available on laptops, tables and mobile phones. Also advertisement for men and women always appear to use sexual desire as a way to sell things, so we start to see a rise in desire from this too. So learning how, and when to feed your sexual desire has never been more important.
The process required to control, or understand the desire is, an awareness of our mind and body. As Ken states "We need awareness of being embodied".
By simply being conscious of our sexual desires, we will naturally be able to notice, and decide if it is appropriate to allow it to escalate.
As time goes on, your awareness of the desire will become more acute, and you will find it easier and easier to handle. On the odd occasion you may find a surge in desire for some reason, this could be due to a chemical imbalance from food or something else, but do not let this take you off your stride, keep going and it will become more and more manageable as you start to make friends with your sexual desire.
I don't feel I have covered all aspects of this subject in this post, but I hope that by sharing my though's and feelings on this will help in some small way. This has been a subject of interest for me, and by writing this blog post has allowed me to contemplate it more.
If you have any questions or thoughts you would like to share please contact me, my email is in the blog description.
For those of us who are trying to overcome sexual desire whilst being in a relationship, it can feel like opposing ideas and can cause a great deal of confusion.
I have always read, and heard that abstaining from sex would allow you to overcome the urges of the body and mind, speeding you along on the the Dharma path. But how do you cope with these desires and can they be overcome?
Here are a few different approaches to dealing with sexual desire;
In this approach you abstain from any kind of sexual action, for a set period of time (excluding sex with your partner, but only when they initiate it). This forces you to be strict with yourself and you soon notice desire creeping up on you, and it can be difficult, as it takes time to heighten your awareness to these desire. You treat these desires like you would a negative thought, by just letting them go when they arise in the mind. After a while this becomes easier as you start to see how the mind latches to sexual desire over the simplest things, often an image or small thought that we habitually feed.
The pros for this method are a heightened awareness of desire, that allows you to (over time) control whether or not you wish to feed this desire, where as before you would feed it habitually and instinctively.
The cons are that this can possibly lead to you developing an aversion to sexual desire, and as you are in a relationship it will have a negative effect on your intimacy, if done for prolonged periods of time.
Another approach would be, that sexual desire is natural and therefore we should just continue as we are, as we are not monastics. This approach is interesting as we go back to having no awareness of our desires and to a large extent allowing them to control us. This is how almost all the population deals with sexual desire, as It requires no focus or effort, and looks appealing as we get what we want, but it can have some dangerous effects.
The pros for this are that you will have more desire and the opportunity to fulfill this, with or without your partner and feel enjoyment, for a limited time.
The cons are that you could over time notice how much more you wish to engage with the desire on a physical level and this can become an unquenchable thirst, that can, if unchecked, lead to addictions to a number of things, not to mention putting a huge strain on your partner. Your partner may struggles to cope with this growing thirst, that at times seems to lack any kind of inclusion of his/her own wants and needs, as you go "deeper into this hole" of wanting to satisfy your own sexual desires at any cost.
This last approach falls somewhere in the middle, and looks at the situation more evenly. You understand that sexual desire is natural and not a negative thing, but are aware that it needs to be kept in check. So you use your awareness of the desire to keep tabs on it.
Using this technique, you can choose when the time is right to feed the desire.
Often when you lose yourself in the act of union, it is due to the enjoyment you feel in seeing the other person enjoying themselves, and vis versa. It's rather strange as the desire you have seems to transform into a desire to satisfy the other person. This is then mirrored and you are both working to make each other happy, and I feel this where you get lost, you both feel like one as you are abandoning your own desires in place of the others, and there is a real power in that.
Seeing and hearing about nuns and monks abstaining, lead me to feel that I had to do the same in my own life, in order to follow the Buddhist path. But it really it made me think, and explore sexual desire to the extent that I landed at a middle way approach, that foster a sense of control and awareness, that doesn't blind me to everything else that's going on.
While writing this post, I felt the need to ask someone who I respected as a long term lay practitioner, to comment on the questions I had been thinking about for a while, so I sent a question to Ken Holmes Author/Translator of the newly released; Ornament of Precious Liberation (Tibetan Classics) originally written in Tibetan by Gampopa.
Question;
In the monastic environment, sexual desire is tamed and seen as a way to develop as a practitioner. But as a lay person overcoming or dealing with sexual desire can be difficult, as to have a functioning relationship with a partner one needs this to connect on a physical level. How do or would you approach dealing with this?
In this approach you abstain from any kind of sexual action, for a set period of time (excluding sex with your partner, but only when they initiate it). This forces you to be strict with yourself and you soon notice desire creeping up on you, and it can be difficult, as it takes time to heighten your awareness to these desire. You treat these desires like you would a negative thought, by just letting them go when they arise in the mind. After a while this becomes easier as you start to see how the mind latches to sexual desire over the simplest things, often an image or small thought that we habitually feed.
The pros for this method are a heightened awareness of desire, that allows you to (over time) control whether or not you wish to feed this desire, where as before you would feed it habitually and instinctively.
The cons are that this can possibly lead to you developing an aversion to sexual desire, and as you are in a relationship it will have a negative effect on your intimacy, if done for prolonged periods of time.
Another approach would be, that sexual desire is natural and therefore we should just continue as we are, as we are not monastics. This approach is interesting as we go back to having no awareness of our desires and to a large extent allowing them to control us. This is how almost all the population deals with sexual desire, as It requires no focus or effort, and looks appealing as we get what we want, but it can have some dangerous effects.
The pros for this are that you will have more desire and the opportunity to fulfill this, with or without your partner and feel enjoyment, for a limited time.
The cons are that you could over time notice how much more you wish to engage with the desire on a physical level and this can become an unquenchable thirst, that can, if unchecked, lead to addictions to a number of things, not to mention putting a huge strain on your partner. Your partner may struggles to cope with this growing thirst, that at times seems to lack any kind of inclusion of his/her own wants and needs, as you go "deeper into this hole" of wanting to satisfy your own sexual desires at any cost.
This last approach falls somewhere in the middle, and looks at the situation more evenly. You understand that sexual desire is natural and not a negative thing, but are aware that it needs to be kept in check. So you use your awareness of the desire to keep tabs on it.
Using this technique, you can choose when the time is right to feed the desire.
Often when you lose yourself in the act of union, it is due to the enjoyment you feel in seeing the other person enjoying themselves, and vis versa. It's rather strange as the desire you have seems to transform into a desire to satisfy the other person. This is then mirrored and you are both working to make each other happy, and I feel this where you get lost, you both feel like one as you are abandoning your own desires in place of the others, and there is a real power in that.
Seeing and hearing about nuns and monks abstaining, lead me to feel that I had to do the same in my own life, in order to follow the Buddhist path. But it really it made me think, and explore sexual desire to the extent that I landed at a middle way approach, that foster a sense of control and awareness, that doesn't blind me to everything else that's going on.
While writing this post, I felt the need to ask someone who I respected as a long term lay practitioner, to comment on the questions I had been thinking about for a while, so I sent a question to Ken Holmes Author/Translator of the newly released; Ornament of Precious Liberation (Tibetan Classics) originally written in Tibetan by Gampopa.
Question;
In the monastic environment, sexual desire is tamed and seen as a way to develop as a practitioner. But as a lay person overcoming or dealing with sexual desire can be difficult, as to have a functioning relationship with a partner one needs this to connect on a physical level. How do or would you approach dealing with this?
Answer;
I think the answers to this are both complicated and simple. Sorry!
The simple answer is that a lay person is not required to do without sex but to live a sexual life that is moral and causes no harm to others. The moral guidelines are outlined in the well-known teachings on the 10 non-virtues and 10 virtues. There are two main points: first is not to cause suffering to another person. The second is to respect natural energies and live in harmony with them. There is nothing "wrong" with sex for lay people, if handled according to those guidelines.
The complex part is in the very nature of sex itself. To understand it, we need to have a LOT more real awareness of being embodied: we are a timeless mind "squatting" in this particular flesh and blood carcass, with all its hormones and chemistry. The choice is whether you want the chemistry to dominate you or you to dominate the chemistry. It is also interesting to become more mindful of what happens when making love / having sex. There is the need for affection and also the urge towards that letting-go of control and lucidity for the moment of "swoon" of orgasm. One learns a lot from observing the mind and feelings on the way towards getting frisky, foreplay etc. and after it is all over.
The monastic choice is to live without all the angst of sex and the yogi's journey (not for everyone, by far) is to sublime the sexual chemistry and biology into meditation knowledge.
Conclusion:
Sexual desire for lay practitioners isn't something we need to abandon, as I had initially felt. But this being said, we shouldn't allow it to go unchecked as there is a chance it may get the better of us. In today's society with the technology we have, getting access to sexual content has never been easier. This has lead to a rise in desire based addiction in our communities, as sexual content is now so readily available on laptops, tables and mobile phones. Also advertisement for men and women always appear to use sexual desire as a way to sell things, so we start to see a rise in desire from this too. So learning how, and when to feed your sexual desire has never been more important.
The process required to control, or understand the desire is, an awareness of our mind and body. As Ken states "We need awareness of being embodied".
By simply being conscious of our sexual desires, we will naturally be able to notice, and decide if it is appropriate to allow it to escalate.
As time goes on, your awareness of the desire will become more acute, and you will find it easier and easier to handle. On the odd occasion you may find a surge in desire for some reason, this could be due to a chemical imbalance from food or something else, but do not let this take you off your stride, keep going and it will become more and more manageable as you start to make friends with your sexual desire.
I don't feel I have covered all aspects of this subject in this post, but I hope that by sharing my though's and feelings on this will help in some small way. This has been a subject of interest for me, and by writing this blog post has allowed me to contemplate it more.
If you have any questions or thoughts you would like to share please contact me, my email is in the blog description.
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