I think I have multiple portals into my world, and the portals primarily are through my senses. These are points of connection that allow me to have awareness, an awareness that can with practice create unity, oneness. These portals can be a simple glance, a deep listening, a touch. These portals open an awareness that can plunge me into deep insight, a deep place of connection.
There are many ways of describing these portals, and one of them is sexual. What I identify as sexual awareness, through sight, touch, smell, etc., can be a portal to a deep awareness and insight into another being. It can be a very facile portal, making me instantly and intensely aware of another being. Sexual awareness can put me very much in the moment. It is full of energy and intensity.
In fact, the level of sensory intimacy and energy can be so overwhelming that it can dominate, pull me out of the moment, encourage grasping. Want the moment to last. It is easy to grasp at the sensory excitement and miss the opportunity to experience the oneness of the deeper awareness.
Sex can be an intense taste of what it is like to be in the moment, an opportunity to plunge into the deeper insight and awareness of union. Grasping at that moment, however, is not the same as staying in the moment. I can be quickly aware that the moment of intensity has passed unless I have let go, stopped grasping and plunged deeper.
This same dynamic can be experienced in a simple touch when my hand senses skin on skin, and my awareness can either linger there or plunge into a unifying awareness of the being I am touching. The energy of this moment of awareness can flow freely if I am in the present moment, not grasping for that moment to stay. The energy of illumination flows if I allow it. The oneness becomes real for me.
I think that what teachers like Thay call sensual love can be mostly neutral. It is a momentary opportunity to choose the way of deep awareness or choose to remain in dark ignorance. The experience can be so intense that it lures me to stay with the sensory aspects, not learn. This is a missed opportunity to choose the insight and unity commonly called love.
Practice leads to a desired outcome. Repeated choices of a familiar portal into deeper awareness makes it more likely that unity and insight will result.
The portal involving sexuality is powerful. It can be a distraction into narrow, unskilled thinking and behavior. It can also be a vast opening into skillful thinking and skillful union.