This is a first draft of a talk I plan to give at my sangha. It is too long and needs editing; I welcome any suggestions:
While I call this “True Sexuality”, I really mean “Good Sex.”
First of all, what is an old man doing talking about sex. I want to remind you that while the body ages, diminishes and breaks down, the mind grows in understanding, strength and wisdom. Sex is primarily in the domain of the mind. It’s a mind thing.
When I joined the BH Sangha, I ran into an immediate stumbling block: the third Mindfulness Training that deals with sexual misconduct. I thought ‘here we go again, social custom trying to dictate spiritual practices.’ ‘Besides, what does sex have to do with mindfulness training!’
I’ve changed my mind, but it has taken over two years to change my attitude about the third Mindfulness Training.
I think that the training on sexuality, just like the other four mindfulness trainings, is a training in mindfulness just as sitting in meditation is a training in mindfulness. This is what it feels like. It is not a standard of right and wrong, but a suggestion of how to act to become more mindful, more aware, more insightful, more enlightened. It is taking mindful practice, the practice of mindfulness off the cushion and into my daily life. Into the present moment.
If I eat, I can perhaps grow in mindful eating, if I am in the present moment. If I act sexually, I can perhaps grow in mindful sexuality, if I am in the present moment. Acting in a mindful way is what I want to do, and by practicing mindful action I become more mindful. Sitting on the cushion teaches me ‘this is what mindfulness feels like.’
Like mindful eating, mindful sex has more than one aspect. The most obvious one is restraint. We all choose to be celibate at various times, and that restraint is an opportunity to grow in awareness. Walking past the case of pies at Cub and choosing not to eat deepens awareness of what eating is about. I go to class twice a week at the U of M, look around the room of 240 young students and, in the words once spoken by a monk, “I like but I do not want.” At that moment I am in touch with and very aware of my sexuality. I know very well what it is to be alive.
A second aspect of training in mindful sex is being attentive to the ideal. This means opening my mind to what is possible with mindful sex. It also means being aware of the harm of unmindful, unaware, unenlightened sexual conduct. It means paying attention to both favorable and unfavorable consequences. Have you ever been sexual with someone and felt ‘not so good’ afterwards. Remember what it felt to eat too much. I remember that I could expect a fight, a row with my partner after we were sexual. I never learned from it.
And the third aspect of training in mindful sex is practice. It means entering into physical contact with mindfulness, actually being fully present. Take awareness from the first level of a sensory experience to the second level of unity. Not just one flesh, but much more. Mindfulness teaches us that there is more and allows us to experience it.
Mindful Sex is like mindful eating food. Eating food can be primarily sensory, exciting, entertainment. Sex can be primarily sensory, exciting and entertainment. Food provides energy; sex generates tremendous energy and allows me to feel the energy of my partner. Eating mindfully increases insight. Mindful sexual activity increases insight. Both can be good practice or not-so-good practice.
We are all sexual beings, but that doesn’t mean we are monogamous by nature. And being sexual beings is not the same as gender. The culture of monogamy puts two aspects of our nature in conflict with one another: our sexual nature and our nature to be true to our commitments, to tell the truth. Not an easy conflict to resolve mindfully.
Loving, mindful, aware sex is good sex. It reminds us that, in spite of what society tells us, we are all joined, we are not separate. Physical contact reminds me that we actually are interdependent, connected. The rush of sexuality is a concrete experience of that connectedness. It can nourish, comfort, inspire. It can increase awareness. Because it is a practice in awareness, the awareness can prevail, it can last.