My 3-Month Experiment with Testosterone Blockers

[Tibetan_Ice]

I founds that quote by the Dali Lama quite interesting. Thanks for sharing TibetanIce. Do you have the whole excerpt of that article?

 

My 2 cents, Peace

Hi OldChi,

Well I didn't but I do now.. Gotta love Kindle..

 

It is from the Dalai Lama's book called "How to Practice":

 

For Buddhists, sexual intercourse can be used in the spiritual path because it causes a strong focusing of consciousness if the practitioner has firm compassion and wisdom. Its purpose is to manifest and prolong the deeper levels of mind (described earlier with respect to the process of dying), in order to put their power to use in strengthening the realization of emptiness.Otherwise, mere intercourse has nothing to do with spiritual cultivation. When a person has achieved a high level of practice in motivation and wisdom, then even the joining of the two sex organs, or so-called intercourse, does not detract from the maintenance of that person’s pure behavior. Yogis who have achieved a high level of the path and are fully qualified can engage in sexual activity, and a monastic with this ability can maintain all the precepts.

 

One Tibetan yogi-adept, when criticized by another, said that he ate meat and drank beer as offerings to the mandala deity. Such Tantric practitioners visualizethemselves as deities in a complete mandala, within realization that the ultimate deity is the ultimate bliss— the union of bliss and emptiness. He also said that his sexual practice with a consort was undertaken for the sake of developing real knowledge. And that indeed is the purpose. Such a practitioner can make spiritual use not only of delicious meat and drink, but even of human excrement and urine. A yogi’s meditation transforms these into real ambrosia. For people like us, however, this is beyond our reach. As long as you cannot transform piss and shit, these other things should not be done! Buddha set out a specific series of stages on the path precisely for this reason. The preliminary stage is training in the vows of individual liberation. If you live as a monk or nun, your conduct has a more sound basis— there is little danger of excessive distraction. Even if you cannot fully implement such vows, there is not much risk. Then simply practice, practice, practice. Once you develop inner strength, you can control the four internal elements— earth, water, fire, and wind (or five elements if inner space is included). Once you can fully control these internal elements, then you can control the outer five elements. Then you can make use of anything.

 

How does sexual intercourse help in the path? There are many different levels of consciousness. The potential of grosser levels is very limited, but the deeper, more subtle levels are much more powerful. We need to access these subtler levels of mind. But in order to do so, we need to weaken and temporarily stop grosser consciousness. To accomplish this it is necessary to bring about dramatic changes in the flow of inner energies. Even though brief versions of the deeper levels of mind occur during sneezing and yawning, they obviously cannot be prolonged. Also, previous experience with manifesting the deeper levels is required to make use of their occurrence in deep sleep. This is where sex comes in. Through special techniques of concentration during sex, competent practitioners can prolong very deep, subtle, and powerful states and put them to use to realize emptiness. However, if you engage in sexual intercourse within an ordinary mental context, there is no benefit.

 

A Buddha has no use for sexual intercourse. Deities depicted in a mandala are often in union with a consort, but this does not suggest that Buddhas have to rely on sexual intercourse for their bliss. Buddhas have full bliss within themselves. Deities in unionspontaneously appear in mandalas for the benefit of people with very sharp faculties who can make use of a consort and the bliss of sexual union in practicing the quick path of Tantra. In much the same way, the Tantric Buddha Vajradhara appears in peaceful aspects and wrathful aspects, but this does not mean that Vajradhara has these two aspects to his personality. Vajradhara is always totally compassionate. Rather, his spontaneous appearance in various ways is for the sake of trainees. Vajradhara appears in just the way that the trainee should meditate when using afflictive emotions such as lust or hatred in the process of the path. To corral such powerful emotions into the spiritual path trainees cannot be imagining that they have the peaceful body of Shakyamuni Buddha. Deity yoga is required. Since in the case of hatred, for instance, it is necessary to meditate on your own body in a fierce form, Vajradhara automatically appears in the appropriate ferocious form to show the trainee how to meditate. The same is true for sexual yoga; trainees who are capable of using the bliss arising from the desire involved in gazing, smiling, holding hands, or union must perform the appropriate deity yoga; they could not be imagining themselves as Shakyamuni, a monk.The purpose of Vajradhara’s various appearances is neither to scare the trainees nor to excite desire in them, but to show how to do imaginative meditation in those forms in order eventually to overcome afflictive emotions.

 

The Dalai Lama His Holiness; Hopkins Ph.D., Jeffrey (2002-02-12). How To Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life (pp. 195-197). Atria Books. Kindle Edition.

 

Interesting...

 

TI

[RiverSnake]

Wow, there's a lot of depth there. Thanks for posting Tibetan_Ice.

 

My 2 cents, Peace