Daoist way to leave porn addiction?

[Loveherbs]

I tried everything to leave this but i just can't leave porn. I don't have any significant goal in life. I just waste my parents money and masturbate to porn. i sit around all day in house don't go out. i feel anxiety and social awkwardness around people. help. plz help. i just wanna remove porn from my life but i can't.

[thelerner]

I think its got to be holistic, ie making major changes in your life.   Some sort of boot camp or personal coach you have to answer to and be responsible to.   Someone who'll take away your electronics or put child guards on them to prevent going to sites.  Someone who'll make you do uncomfortable things.. get up early, eat better, join positive groups and stay with them.  Could be exercise, could be writers groups, could be dog walkers, life coach..anything that requires long term discipline. 

 

Removing porn should be a side effect of major life change that puts you on a more constructive path.  A good path should make you feel crappy at first.  And thats fine, cause you feel crappy now, so finding something or someone who has the leverage to force/watch/convince you to have a positive structured routine is the ticket. 

[manitou]

I think there's a sex addict Anonymous, or something close.  Working the steps of recovery will do it.   If you check into this, do get a sponsor, as an outside pair of eyes is crucial at the beginning.  You seem really self-honest, and if you've got that going for you, you're going to have a wonderful experience all the way around.  For the rest of your life, actually.  

 

(the AA program worked for me and has kept me sober for 39 years.  The program has expanded now to include every addictive behavior imaginable!)

 

Best wishes to you -

 

 

 

Edited October 12, 2019 by manitou

[Walker]

I have a close friend who studied TCM in China, practiced internal martial arts, went on vipassana retreats and maintained a long term meditation practice, and is also an observing Jew who prays daily and regularly attends services. He has quite a bit of affinity for Daoism and visited a holy mountain with me, so he had no shortage of friends to share bits and pieces of Daoist thinking and practices with him over the years. There was sincerity in his approach, so his study and practice added depth to his life, but he never found anything along the path that gave him what he needed to break his porn and masturbation addiction. Finally in real despair (he was at risk of ruining his marriage and the mood swings his masturbation apparently caused were leading him to fly into rages with his small children) he Googled his problem and came upon SLAA. He has been "sober" with them for a few years now, and he tells me that due to the nature of his addiction he needed to find people who knew the specific "medicine" for his disease (it is he, not I, who stresses that addiction is a disease). Most interestingly, in addition to helping him break his addiction, the 12 step program has also very clearly deepened his religious and spiritual life.

 

After seeing similar processes unfold in two other addicts I know (one was an alcoholic who, like this friend, pursued a TCM education, meditation, and martial arts), I read the AA Big Book. I would say it is something that anybody with spare time and interest in spirituality should read. One need not be an addict to glean insight from this text. 12 step programs are not a magic bullet and they do not work for everybody, but my friend tried Daoism + Buddhism + Judaism + TCM + internal martial arts to no avail, while SLAA's teachings and community clearly worked. 

Edited October 13, 2019 by Walker

[wilfred]

try forcing yourself into a new environment, go on a trip or a retreat for a week or two. it's insightful to have some sort of detox and how it feels when you're unable to boot up the porn for a while. maybe find employment that forces you be around people and breaks some of the anxiety. also cold showers. can be a long path if you've buried a lot of stuff under this addiction, seek guidance from a teacher if possible. getting grounded and sinking energy is something to work on if you've spammed your brain with all this stimulation and arousal. good to have an exercise routine and make a habit of going outdoors daily.

[Apech]

On 10/12/2019 at 7:30 PM, Loveherbs said:

I tried everything to leave this but i just can't leave porn. I don't have any significant goal in life. I just waste my parents money and masturbate to porn. i sit around all day in house don't go out. i feel anxiety and social awkwardness around people. help. plz help. i just wanna remove porn from my life but i can't.

 

Heaven is known for its easefulness, the earth for simplicity and the Dao for its uselessness.  Being easeful, simple and useless is the Daoist way.  You may feel anxious and awkward because you haven't grasped the way.  Don't hurt yourself anymore.  Don't hate yourself anymore.  Not wanting to watch porn makes you watch porn (?)  Have you thought about it this way?

 

[wilfred]

sounds like one step along the way is loosening ones grip on how you feel about this particular habit and predicament in the first place. less fuel on the fire, as it were.

[wilfred]

might also be useful to google 'nofap' and look at all the stuff that's been written about porn addiction (increasingly common) and the methods people have used to overcome this particular habit. dare i say you'll probably get more mileage than anything eastern or more esoteric in nature unless you're really good at connecting dots and/or can find an in-person teacher.

[liminal_luke]

Loveherbs,

 

I´ve got the feeling that you are ashamed of your porn usage.  I bet that shame around watching porn is a bigger problem than the porn itself.  You are not a bad person.  Really.  Watching porn might get in the way of other things you want to do in your life but it doesn´t make you a bad person.  All the advice about 12 step groups and such is good but sometimes focusing on the "problem" just makes it bigger.  You could become a professional porn addict, a recoveree with a busy meeting schedule.  This isn´t so bad and many people have turned it into a viable spiritual path.  But it´s also possible to just do something else. 

 

When you´re in the grip of porn it probably seems next to impossible to put it down.  Do something else though and I think you´ll find the spell is broken.  Bottomline, sex just isn´t that important.  OK, well it´s sorta important.  But there are so many other things to do in a day and when you start doing them sex will stop being the be-all-end-all.  Go for a walk.  Talk with a friend.  Then, if you go back to watching porn afterward, don´t beat yourself up about it.  The time you spend watching porn doesn´t cancel out the good you did when you weren´t watching porn.  You are more than your porn usage. 

Edited October 13, 2019 by liminal_luke

[Michael Sternbach]

On 12.10.2019 at 8:30 PM, Loveherbs said:

I tried everything to leave this but i just can't leave porn.

 

And you inquired specifically about a Daoist way to handle this. So I will try to reply from a Daoist perspective. 

 

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I don't have any significant goal in life.

 

That's fine. The way is the goal!

 

It seems to be mostly a Western idea that you always need to have a goal in life. Instead of simply living in the here and now.

 

This is not to say that it is always wrong to have goals. But I suggest that you don't try to set one for yourself. It will find you - when you are ready.

 

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I just waste my parents money

 

According to Chuangtzu, the Daoist sage has plenty og of money to spend, yet doesn't even know where it comes from. What you are describing actually seems to approach that ideal.

 

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and masturbate to porn.

 

If you do that alot, then it might indeed be considered a waste of kidney qi.

 

Now the Daoist approach of dealing with any kind of undesired behaviour is not to resist it, but to observe it. Be with your addiction, study it, find out at what moments it most likely befalls you? What increases it?What diminishes it? What do you get from it? What does it take from you? Don't fight it... It will fight back and most likely get the better of you. Rather, use it as a springboard for introspection and self-exploration.

 

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i sit around all day in house don't go out.

 

According to Laotzu, the sage travels everywhere without even stepping out of his house.

 

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i feel anxiety and social awkwardness around people. help. plz help. i just wanna remove porn from my life but i can't.

 

Do you have a girlfriend? It will be hard to leave this addiction if you don't have another way of satisfying your natural sexual desire.

[silent thunder]

How does one drop a heavy bag that one is tired of carrying?

[sean]

Not specifically Daoist, but it seems like people have success with https://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/

 

Also, they're not focused on porn addiction, but you might check out Marnia Robinson's books. I've read both and would recommend.

 

Sean

 

[ion]

Porn is poison to the mind and perception.

 

Training the mind to percieved women as sex objects while watching other men out perform you.

 

Now days more and more women are watching porn, and statistics show they are getting them selves off watching some pretty sick stuff. Rape fantasy along with other forms of sexual domination are some of the most popular, but you'd also be surprised at how popular beastiality videos are becoming.

 

Weep now for the future.

 

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/bm9w7v/why-are-so-many-women-searching-for-ultra-violent-porn

 

 

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-012-9934-6

 

Birth control alone has changed men and womens perception of sexes, the sexual act and what it's universal and primary purpose is to begin with. When you consider that humans are biocultural organisms you can see that the assimilation of birth control has caused what is equal to an evolution of a new species.

 

Women NOT experiencing fertility, NOT ovulating, NOT experiencing periods of gestation and child baring yet parttaking in the sexual act on a regular basis with multiple partners has completely altered everything about them except their physiology.

 

Now they are watching more and more porn, and the type of porn they are watching combined with the unnatural and naive perception formed by taking birth control for years after only menstruating a few times is going to form an entirely different breed of female.

 

And because guys want to get laid they will encourage the formation of these women, the same way women have always encouraged the formation of toxic males in men.

 

Society is done for.

 

I'm sure I'll be called a mysogonist, hate speech for saying porn is bad and for portraying the state of women to be a culturaly caused mess and for not being supportive of how women ended up with women's rights.

 

In defense I don't think the way things were idealized in the 1950s of as better, or even separate from how they are now.

 

We live in a screwed up society so men, women, and other are all screwed .

 

You can't go from sexually repressed to over sexxed, on the pill, hopped up on porn to Tinder as a mating ritual without thoroughly warping the collective psyche of women.

 

 

Edited April 9, 2020 by ion

[manitou]

Maybe the overemphasis on porn now is a reaction to the uptightness of the 50's.  I agree with Michael Sternbeck. Truthfully, I think the DDJ would tell you not to fight against anything.  Set your intent on what you want to be - do you want to be an enlightened one, or a porn king? There's no judgment within the Dao, merely your preference.  But once you decide, just be okay with what comes at you from day to day.  If you choose the path of enlightenment, then your mind and body will gradually find your place of healthy balance.  Just do what's in front of you, day by day, in consciousness and in the most loving way.   By trying to keep a lid on it, or feeling ashamed that it is there - those actions alone create a building pressure that will have to have its release at some point in time.  

 

 

[silent thunder]

pfft.  pictures of skin are not poison.

 

mind is the poison (and its main antidote?). 

 

there is no porn...  only mind.

Edited April 9, 2020 by silent thunder
add the antidote bit

[Earl Grey]

2 hours ago, silent thunder said:

pfft.  pictures of skin are not poison.

 

mind is the poison (and its main antidote?). 

 

there is no porn...  only mind.

 

Can agree there. Knowing some porn actors who are friends and some burlesque artists, they have a stack of responses to people who are judgmental of sexuality and equate embracing sexuality as sexism or filth.

 

People who hate porn don't understand we already live in a word where porn is a suffix: foodporn comes to mind. 

 

Look at 1970s porn: there were plot lines and deep character studies. Look at 90s porn: it was hyperbole with elaborate sets for fetishes. Look at 2010s porn: it encouraged performers to go become independent and even have their own channels or streams rather than following a firm.

 

One friend tells me it's a liberating lifestyle for her because sex is just sex, human nature can't be thrown out because of someone's agenda to politicize and sanitize something natural. She even quoted an interview with Neil Gaiman who discussed a model for a skin mag in the 1980s who said the real loser was the wanker who saw her as nothing but an object rather than a human being and an artist who is comfortable with her sexuality. 

 

There are of course people in the industry who have regrets--Stephanie Swift who made a complete 180˚ and despises the industry, then people like Ron Jeremy who used to go on campus tours to debate it with a Christian pastor whenever they were invited so people could make an informed decision hearing from the views of two authorities on the subject. 

 

Porn addiction for Tao as far as I see is more or less just imbalance and the natural urges expressing themselves without a proper outlet or way to cultivate and transmute. 

[Immortal4life]

You need to get out of the house and take action. Well, as soon as this lockdown isolation due to the chinese coronavirus subsides. You need to start approaching women. Trust me it's scary as shit at first, you will feel awkward when you start out, you will get rejected many times as you learn, but it's so worth it. I can tell you it's totally possible to consistently walk up to women on the street, or in parks, or anywhere, get them attracted, maybe take them on an instant date, and take them back to your place. It just takes practice and skill. It's so fun though. It's pure excitement, like an amazing rush, there's nothing like it once you start succeeding. You can do all kinds of things, get them so into you and so aroused that their buying temperature is so high there's no time to go back to your place so you can take them to bushes or bathrooms in parks in the middle of the day for sexy times, things you wouldnt have believed possible. The risk and danger of being caught in a public place makes it just that more fun for both of you. They won't believe they're doing it either. They'll think you're superman or magic or something afterwards. You're making their fantasies come true that they never thought would materialize into reality. You just need the right mindsets, right teaching, practice, and analyzing what you did correctly and incorrectly afterwards. I have about maybe 20 lays from daytime approaching, and many others that I didnt quite close the deal but came close, maybe got makeouts or fun dates, and they were all amazing fun experiences with cool amazing women. You'll never even think of porn ever again. You won't be depressed anymore, you won't wanna watch porn ever again, you'll be excited each day you wake up and just won't be able to wait until you get back out there to approach more. You'll go from being scared of leaving the house, to not being able to stand staying in. 

 

You'll go from hating social interaction, to hating the Coronavirus. 

Edited April 14, 2020 by Immortal4life

[Apech]

On 4/9/2020 at 10:28 PM, silent thunder said:

pfft.  pictures of skin are not poison.

 

mind is the poison (and its main antidote?). 

 

there is no porn...  only mind.

 

wot!  someone stole your magazines?

[silent thunder]

Well they do say the mind is the biggest erogenous zone...

 

or they say it's a terrible thing to waste...

 

or it's just a terrible thing (circa bush jr)

 

maybe mind is a terribly wasteful erogenous zone?

[Maddie]

On 10/12/2019 at 1:30 PM, Loveherbs said:

I tried everything to leave this but i just can't leave porn. I don't have any significant goal in life. I just waste my parents money and masturbate to porn. i sit around all day in house don't go out. i feel anxiety and social awkwardness around people. help. plz help. i just wanna remove porn from my life but i can't.

 

Mindfulness. When the mind understands this attachment is suffering it will automatically let go.

[Rara]

I think he's gone.

 

But anyway, in case he reads.

 

Keep the computer off. Hang in areas where it is just too much effort to go in and turn the thing on.

 

Remind yourself that your phone is hack central, and you really want to only use it for stuff that, well, you're not worried about anyone seeing.

 

Do something. Remind yourself that you are better than this. Do anything, just not that.

 

If you need to "go", do it without the porn. Get it out of your system then continue to go do something.

 

If you fuck up, don't feel bad. But tell yourself that was a one-off and that it's now time to get busy.

 

And take I4L's advice in just going out and talking to ladies. Make friends, have a laugh. You will respect them more over time, and they will enjoy your company. And I'm not talking even with the intention of getting anything from it. Quite frankly, I enjoy general convos with most women generally because they have something that we just don't have.

 

Of course, just the ones that seem like they have some form of attention span. That goes for guys too...certain people attract certain people.

 

If you need a push in a direction that will take your mind off the sexual stuff, find a lady that is 60+ that can stand on one leg for longer than you can, makes good stew and knows how to cultivate plants and can tell you all about a time when life was a bit tougher than this.

 

My point is, it starts with you telling your brain "Just stop it".

Edited April 16, 2020 by Rara

[C T]

11 minutes ago, Rara said:

If you need a push in that direction, find a lady that is 60+ that can stand on one leg for longer than you can, makes good stew and knows how to cultivate plants.

 

 

Is that from personal experience? 

Maybe learning to make good stew would stand one in better light...

a good stew maker will make her one standing leg shiver from the anticipation.  

[Rara]

10 minutes ago, C T said:

a good stew maker will make her one standing leg shiver from the anticipation.  

 

If the OP gets this far, then he is certainly making progress.

[freeform]

On 10/04/2020 at 12:54 AM, Earl Grey said:

sex is just sex

 

I was pretty sure of that...

 

Then my teacher explained how the Ming of two people intertwines as a result of sexual union.

 

I assume he then did something 'behind the scenes' - because over the period of a couple of weeks, during my meditation and in dreams, these karmic causalities slowly revealed themselves. I didn't realise it at first - because I thought I'd somehow gotten mixed up and entered someone else's mind-stream... but it became obvious that this was now my karmic 'baggage' to clear as a result of past sexual relations.

 

Of course, intertwining of Ming is not necessarily bad. And makes little difference if you're not deep into a spiritual practice... But if you are on a spiritual path - then it's worth bearing in mind that sexual union adds to your karma. And for women - they not only receive these karmic entanglements, but they also take in the more 'surface' pathogenic information from their partners. (men do too... but to a much lesser extent)

 

In regards to porn - it has a lot more to do with your mind and your neurochemistry. The reason porn aficionados tend towards more extreme porn over the course of their hobby is very similar to why drug addicts tend toward stronger drugs or larger doses over time... it's just a case of needing a more intense inner reaction to receive the same level of thrill.

 

There's nothing wrong with porn in and of itself. It's just counter-spiritual... just as any attachment is - like for example an extreme attachment to sports or a political view or even to your possessions. It's not the thing itself - but similar to what dmattwads says - it's the attachment... and anything that plays to your base desires (power, survival, social standing, sex) has a particularly "sticky" and inflammatory nature.

[Earl Grey]

35 minutes ago, freeform said:

 

I was pretty sure of that...

 

Then my teacher explained how the Ming of two people intertwines as a result of sexual union.

 

I assume he then did something 'behind the scenes' - because over the period of a couple of weeks, during my meditation and in dreams, these karmic causalities slowly revealed themselves. I didn't realise it at first - because I thought I'd somehow gotten mixed up and entered someone else's mind-stream... but it became obvious that this was now my karmic 'baggage' to clear as a result of past sexual relations.

 

Of course, intertwining of Ming is not necessarily bad. And makes little difference if you're not deep into a spiritual practice... But if you are on a spiritual path - then it's worth bearing in mind that sexual union adds to your karma. And for women - they not only receive these karmic entanglements, but they also take in the more 'surface' pathogenic information from their partners. (men do too... but to a much lesser extent)

 

In regards to porn - it has a lot more to do with your mind and your neurochemistry. The reason porn aficionados tend towards more extreme porn over the course of their hobby is very similar to why drug addicts tend toward stronger drugs or larger doses over time... it's just a case of needing a more intense inner reaction to receive the same level of thrill.

 

There's nothing wrong with porn in and of itself. It's just counter-spiritual... just as any attachment is - like for example an extreme attachment to sports or a political view or even to your possessions. It's not the thing itself - but similar to what dmattwads says - it's the attachment... and anything that plays to your base desires (power, survival, social standing, sex) has a particularly "sticky" and inflammatory nature.

I heard about the karma inheritance from one teacher of mine. I also heard that it can be impacted based on the intensity of the sexual relationship, not necessarily going in and out (pun not intended).