Practicing In The Desire Realm | (5/25/2021 — AUA Live)

Denny and I discuss wholesome sexuality(/sexual energy) and the Eight “Touches” thus getting into the five precepts; taboo; cognitive dissonance around sex; differences in East and West; Five stages of mind practice; similarities of 8 Touches to 4 elements meditation.

Transcript

So,

We left off the last month by Denny saying,

You know,

We've done enough damage for today.

And I said,

Well,

We've done enough good for today.

So,

I thought we'd just pick up with that and say,

Well,

It's time to do more good here.

So,

Here we go.

So,

We talked,

We originally thought that,

You know,

Well,

What about,

Because Denny and I,

We not really ruts fall into,

But we tend to bring up kind of similar things often.

So,

We thought,

You know,

Why don't we pick topics that we've never talked about ever before on the show.

And we said,

You know,

Let's pick three topics each and then limit it to an hour,

Which we're going to,

It's going to be really hard to do now that we're a little bit late on this,

But maybe just an hour in length.

And Denny only came up with one though.

And I said,

If we only get to one,

That'll be okay.

So,

I've got two actually.

And if there's any time left,

Maybe we'll throw in a wild card there.

So,

Yeah.

So,

I guess we'll just,

Yeah.

So,

Let me share the screen and then we can go from there.

So,

Today's topic,

Actually I picked the topic after we decide on the three points.

And I had originally titled the show,

Lightening Round or Light Rain,

Three questions each.

And that actually came from real quick,

A tie saying that the royalty asked Ajahn Chah for a bio because they were going to give him a real high honor.

And he'd been,

He would put them off and put them off,

Put them off.

And finally he got back with his bio and it was,

Sometimes there's thunder and no rain,

Sometimes there's rain and no thunder.

And apparently that's a tie saying that it means that,

I heard this from Ajahn Amaro,

Which is a funny,

You know,

British monastic but very charismatic too.

But apparently the tie saying means that,

You know,

Sometimes there's a personality type but there's no nourishment.

So,

Like thunder,

Right?

But there's no rain.

But then sometimes it's the opposite where it's a real nourishing,

Beneficial thing but there's no really,

You know,

Figurehead or,

You know,

Really strong personality to drive it.

So,

I don't know,

Play on that.

Anyway,

So,

So yeah,

So we'll see.

So I guess I'll just kick it off here,

Denny,

Right?

Okay,

So the first topic is what is kuselah,

Sexual energy?

And kuselah means wholesome,

Skillful,

Right?

And kind of wise.

Because we hear about,

I guess we can go to the next slide,

Denny,

And then,

You know,

We hear about the five training precepts and they're framed in refraining from,

Right?

So it's like what you're training to not do.

So it's kind of framed in a negative,

Not in a negative overall sense but just as,

You know,

Positive,

Negative,

Affirmative or whatever.

So,

So it's usually talked about refraining from misusing sexual energy.

Well,

When I hear that,

And some other people too,

It's like,

Well,

What does that mean?

Well,

I guess some of these,

And I'm going to throw it back to Denny here in a second after this,

But,

And see what he gets by that.

But from what I understand here,

It basically means avoiding breaking up relationships that are already established,

Right?

So if somebody's married,

Obviously,

You're not going to go,

You know,

Try to break up that marriage.

And then also having sexual activity only with,

In committed relationships.

So that makes things a lot,

A lot less,

Disasters can happen that way,

Right?

So,

You know,

So I'm going to ask Denny here about that.

And also,

I'm just going to lightly touch on this topic because of it and we'll get into that on the next slide.

But Denny,

What would you say?

What is not misusing sexual energy?

What does that mean to you?

Well,

The problem is that it depends who you ask.

And so I tend to go,

I tried to go back to the time it stays.

When Shoko Kuro was essentially a yonki,

Right?

And I said,

You know,

What exactly was he trying to accomplish?

And so I think if you go back to the saying,

Well,

Kusala,

Which is wholesome,

How do you live a life that is good for you,

As opposed to living a life that looks up to the standard of some external revenue,

Right?

Then it's really a set of behavior that is good for your kala.

Now,

Josh,

I'm going to mute you for a minute because you have a lot of air conditioning.

Okay,

So when you talk,

When you want to talk,

Just raise your thumb.

Okay.

And so the question is really how do you live a wholesome life?

And so again,

It depends on who you ask because the sexual part wasn't even the first one,

Right?

The first one is really more about killing,

More about killing.

So it's not even about eating meat.

It's about killing.

So you can actually,

There are ways that you can eat meat,

Like if you found it on the side of the street,

If it was a result of some animal fighting,

And then there's carcass that you can pick up.

So there's all kinds of ways that you can actually eat meat.

But it's all about killing,

And it's all about stealing.

And when it eventually gets to the sexual part,

It's really all about behavior.

And so I think the idea of one man,

One woman,

And the idea of sexual relationship or sexual activity is really solely for the purpose of reproduction.

So that's a very strict,

Very,

Very strict way of defining misuse of sexual energy.

So if you do that,

That's even exclude homosexual behavior,

That exclude,

You know,

Like,

Anal sex and masturbation and all that because those have nothing to do with reproduction.

So it depends on who you ask.

It really depends on who you are.

But at the very minimum,

I think that having sexual relationship outside of marriage is definitely not something that you wanted to do if you want to have a crucible life.

Then the question is that,

Well,

What does that mean?

Does that mean sex before marriage is a bad thing?

It really depends who you ask.

And I think what's more important is that the Buddhist teaching is not about a strict set of rules that you have to apply to in order to satisfy some outside governing body.

It's much more about you and how you think you want to live and how that helps your practice towards a better human being.

This is.

.

.

Oops.

Sorry,

Sorry.

Sorry,

Josh.

I thought you were on mute.

Oh,

Okay.

I mean,

That's a great point because the first precept is,

You know,

Non-harming.

And that's kind of like the base of it all,

Right?

So how can we not harm around our sexual energy,

Right?

Yeah,

But even the first one,

Even the first one,

When we say no killing,

It also depends on intention.

Oh,

Yes.

If you're in the forest and a lion charged towards you and you have to kill the lion for the purpose of protecting yourself and your family,

Then it's killing but without a bad intention.

So it varies,

You know,

It's really.

.

.

I think,

Again,

It's important is that you are your own master.

And this is another,

You know,

We hear that example about,

You know,

If you step on an ant and you have no idea you step on it,

It's not going to create a negative karmic effect as if you saw the ant and then you had hatred towards it.

And then you intentionally went out of your way to kill the ant.

That's different,

Right?

Yeah.

So even for example,

The Chinese,

Because actually,

For example,

Buddha was never a vegetarian because there are essentially beggars,

You know,

They have to go on back for food.

And also the way that they do that is that they don't repeat the same location.

So each day they would choose a different direction.

So there is no expectation that they would be there at certain time of the day.

And so people don't kill for them.

That's right.

I remember talking about this before.

And the exception is that if they know for certain that the person has killed the meat just for them,

You know,

Killed the animal,

Just they can't exist.

Otherwise,

It's okay.

The Chinese Buddhist take it to a different level when they basically said,

You know,

We have to be vegetarian.

And so there are people who cannot be vegetarian or even transition to being vegetarian.

They can eat meat,

But they cannot go and point to a live animal and say,

Kill this one.

They can't do that.

Right?

So then people would say,

Well,

What if I send my friend to kill for me?

Well,

No,

No,

No,

Because the intention is wrong.

That's right.

You're inciting someone else to kill for you.

And it depends where you live too.

I guess with monastics,

There's some areas of the world where people just don't get it and they won't even get requisite.

So then they have to do things that aren't traditionally have to go by other means.

Like,

You know,

Sometimes there's just places where they just go on alms rounds.

They don't keep any food overnight where they live and other places do,

You know,

And it's some people they have lay people bring it out.

Sometimes they don't.

So from what I've heard anyway,

So I get it.

Yeah.

So my take on misusing sexual energy or sexual inappropriate sexual activity,

I would just say that back to intent,

I think.

That's a great way to frame it.

Yes.

In the modern society,

You know,

What is the intent?

That's right.

Does it lead towards our happiness and long-term benefit and the happiness and long-term benefits of others or is it the opposite?

Right?

Yeah.

So that I think that that's one.

Then the other one is that I think we spend way too much time arguing at the gate.

Oh yeah.

Right.

As opposed to just walk across,

Walk over the threshold and just focus on the practice and let the practice guide you as opposed to trying to adhere to a set of guidance and thinking that if you do that,

That that is a practice that is not the practice.

That's right.

You know,

A lot of this is almost even theoretical too,

Which I mean,

It has its place,

But practice outweighs it in my opinion as well.

So what these,

So like I said,

These are usually couched in the negative.

So usually when there's a negative,

There's also a positive,

Right?

But I mean,

Like refraining from,

Okay,

But now what do you,

Is there a way to what you actually,

I think this is a very important point.

This is a very important point is that when we think of monastics,

We think of them giving up things.

When we think of monastics,

We think of them having to live in a very restricted lifestyle,

You know?

And so when we think of the five precepts,

You know,

Starting with no killing,

No stealing,

No lying,

No sexual misconduct,

You know,

No intoxicants,

We tend to think of it as negative.

It's like,

Okay,

Don't do that.

Don't do that.

Don't do that.

And then you could,

And then,

Because once you focus on that,

Then the next thing you focus is that what's left,

Right?

What can I do?

And maybe if I just do that,

Then that's,

You know,

That would be the gate to the heaven or whatever it is that you go after.

I tend to think of the precepts being positive,

Being positive.

And this is especially true when you go from the five precepts to what we call the Bodhisattva precepts.

And when you look at the Bodhisattva precepts,

There's almost half,

Like 64 of them.

And so if you look at that and you say,

Well,

Wait a minute,

You know,

I go from five to 69 or whatever number it is,

I could die from it.

And so,

I mean,

Does that mean that it's 10 times as more difficult?

But actually when you look at the Bodhisattva precept,

They're not actually precepts as much as they are vows.

You know,

They're commitments that you make to really move the Bodhisattva path,

Right?

And so you really have to look at the five precepts,

Not as restrictions and,

You know,

But more like a commitment,

More like a vow.

And you have to look at it in a very positive way and say,

You know,

If I do this,

It will just help with my practice.

So the commitment you should make is to your practice and not to be set a rule.

Because if you make the commitment to the practice,

Then the rules will help you.

They're like a field that will help you along that path.

And also remember the practice is leading towards even a higher happiness,

Right?

So that famous saying,

Well,

Yes,

There is happiness in everyday life,

But that's a lower form of happiness.

If you were given the chance to give up a lower form of happiness for a higher form of happiness,

Would you do it?

And I think that's the key question.

And the ground level here is these five precepts.

And,

You know,

Back when I was living a very unwholesome,

Unwise lifestyle,

You know,

I would have just kind of laughed at these and said,

That's just too prudish,

You know,

That's ridiculous,

How are we going to have any fun or enjoyment with these?

And fortunately,

You know,

Fortunately or unfortunately,

Things got rough where then I started learning about these things and gradually can see more and more how these things aren't there to limit and restrict us,

But they're actually there to help us get to a higher happiness,

Right?

But you can't really convince anybody about this.

You just have to kind of see the wisdom in it and then you have to try it out for yourself,

Right?

You have to see how these things can actually lead to a higher happiness for yourself.

Yeah,

Yeah,

That's right.

Josh,

If I may,

I'd like to just add one thing to what you said,

Which I agree with 100%.

That is,

It is actually,

My experience is that it's actually very difficult to have a conversation about happiness because each person has his own definition of happiness.

That's one.

And the other one is that in order to seek happiness,

You have to start with unhappiness.

And each one has its own definitions and came special for what is unhappy.

So my experience,

My own experience is actually very difficult to do that.

So what I choose to do is not to talk about happiness,

But talk about freedom of choice,

Freedom of choice.

So when we talk about this country being the land of liberty,

What we're really talking about is choice.

You can choose,

Right?

So as simple as the definition of patriotism,

The true patriotism is giving everybody a choice.

You can choose to burn the flag and I won't call it unpatriotic because that's true patriotism is that you do have that choice within boundaries,

Okay?

So my thought on that is the conversation that I typically have is less about my happiness because that's my limited ability to communicate is that it tends to kind of went sideways.

But instead I asked the question is how important it is to have choice and how important is that choice not only on material but also on spiritual.

And so I give you an example.

So one time I was in mainland China with Master Jiro and in the evening we had this very lively discussion with the students because they know I come from America and they know I'm a businessman and all that.

So they like to hear about America and also because Master Jiro already went into his own chamber.

So now we are free,

Right?

So we were talking about and they're very careful about saying things.

So they have to get a lot of comfort level.

And so eventually we talk about freedom.

And so of course the answer is that communist China is not free.

And so when I say that no,

I actually think that China is a very free country because you have a lot of choices.

And so they kind of look at me and says,

Well,

Remember we went to the supermarket today.

Look at all the choices you have in terms of like if you go to China,

You just wouldn't believe that this is China.

They have more choices in the supermarket than anywhere else in the world,

As much as even if not more than America.

They have everything we have plus what they have.

So if you define freedom,

Which then indirectly define happiness as choice,

You have to start out with material choices.

And so typically when I talk to people about it and talk about happiness,

I say,

Well,

Let's talk about material choices,

Right?

The freedom to choose.

Now,

The ability to choose your material wellbeing is obviously important,

Right?

But what if there's a possibility of choices in your spiritual manner?

How do I choose?

What does that mean?

That's a conversation you can have,

Which is how do I choose?

I remember you said it very well.

You said,

If somebody shoots you with an arrow,

It hurts.

But the first time it hurts,

You lay the blame on that person who hurt you.

But typically we continue to hurt.

We took the arrow out and then we keep staffing ourselves,

Right?

Because when somebody said something bad to you,

That was like two weeks ago,

But it still hurts.

But who's hurting you now?

And so the question is,

Well,

What if you can actually choose?

What if you can actually choose any mental action?

So that to me is the ultimate freedom because it's the ultimate choice.

I can choose to be miserable,

But I can also choose not to be miserable.

But if you don't have these other choice,

Then you are stuck,

You're not committed to your misery.

You are stuck in your misery,

Right?

What do you think,

John?

This is a great point and thanks for reminding me because that is,

It supersedes happiness in my opinion as well.

And it is great to have external choices and America is,

It's decent in that.

The thing is that those external choices can distract so many people into thinking that is the ultimate real freedom when it's just kind of a farce.

Where the real ultimate freedom is what Denny was talking about at the end,

Is that choice to have that.

.

.

Well,

First,

The choice to pursue your own spiritual practice,

Right?

That's where the real freedom is going to come from.

But so many people think that they're going to have this external freedom and it's only just a little tiny taste of what's available when we start to free our own mind through our own practice,

Right?

Right,

Right.

So to summarize this slide,

I would say that our practice,

The practice is about developing the skills so that we can make these free choices,

Okay,

In terms of how emotion,

Emotional or spiritual choices.

And the precepts are tools that allows you to make progress along that path.

And these precepts are positive,

They're not negative.

They're not.

.

.

So I think it's wrong to look at one side of the coin and say,

Oh,

It's so restrictive,

All these things I could do,

Let's figure out what I can do.

And thinking that if I could just find that crack and then now I can still live my life,

Quote,

Unquote,

And do this too,

Right?

They're set up to cause positive results in our lives,

Yeah.

Yeah,

They're there to help you.

Okay,

So should we go to the next slide?

Sure.

But if we were to couch what is the skillful use of sexual energy,

Then I would say instead of what we're not supposed to do with sexual energy,

I would say it's skillful and appropriate relational energy.

And now we're going to come back to that because that's kind of what I can talk about more,

But I just wanted to skim with the next slide some of the and touch into just kind of exploring more what the sexual energy is or whatever.

Okay,

Go ahead.

So you want to go to the next slide?

Okay.

So yeah,

Most anything of sexual nature in the West here is taboo.

And sometimes it's for good reasons,

Sometimes it's not.

Sometimes there's skillful and wise reasons for that.

Sometimes there's unskillful and wise reasons of why sexuality is taboo in the West here and I'm sure plenty of the world as well.

Well,

The West is different from the East.

The West is different from the East and I spent a long time really understanding the difference.

So it turns out that in the West we don't have a separate and standalone set of morality.

When we say moral,

Morality,

We don't know how to separate morality from religion.

Right?

So in order to talk about moral,

We have to say,

Well,

How does the church define that?

So what happens is that we have this imbalance between what the church defined as morality and what yourself might define as morality.

Okay?

And so the church defined anything that is sexual as immoral.

And most of us don't accept that.

Most of us accept some of it,

But not all of it.

And so there's always this dichotomy or contradiction between being sexual and being immoral.

And if you go anywhere else in the world or even big part of Europe,

That's not always the case.

That being sexual is not necessary,

Being immoral.

Now,

That's especially true if you come to Asia because Asia actually has a standalone set of morality that is independent of religion.

In fact,

You can go as far as saying that in China,

We have never,

We never had a tradition of religion.

Because most of our core tanga,

It comes from Confucius.

And the purpose of that is not so that you can go to heaven or the opposite.

But rather than that,

That is,

It is,

It is a set of rules that you are key to in order to have harmony in the society.

Okay?

So it's very easy then for us to separate sexuality from morality.

And so what you,

This slide is,

You said it correctly,

That it's important part is that it is in the West.

This is a problem in the West.

Yeah.

That's right.

I was just going to say that it is important and I didn't point this out in what Denny was saying.

I forget this sometimes that,

You know,

Even though less and less people are religious,

You know,

Increasingly so here in the West,

That kind of what Denny was talking about is still really established in Western society,

Those codes from the church.

And it reminded me of the old joke around religion is here in the West is,

You know,

Having sex is filthy and dirty and shameful.

So save it for the one that you love.

So it's confusing.

And it is the next slide.

We'll see it's cognitive dissonance,

A lot of it,

Which basically,

So let's just talk about how the Buddhist,

How does the Buddha view the morality versus morality?

Oh,

I thought that was a rhetorical question.

You were going to answer it.

So that's great,

You know,

Because obviously,

You know,

In Buddhism and informal,

There's a monastic community and then there's the lay community and obviously the lay community is procreating and the monastics have a strict code where they refrain from sexual activity.

So now the question you asked was,

Now say it one more time.

Oh,

So basically you answered the question,

Which depends on whether you talk about the householder or the monastics.

The monastics is that not only do they have to be moral that they have to be asexual,

But they don't do that because they equate sexuality with morality.

It's just that it's just their practice that they have to be moral all the time and they have to be asexual all the time and not because the two are related.

Right.

And whereas what their expectation to the householder is that they don't actually talk about the sexuality part as much as long as they fall into the morality part.

They focus more on the morality and if that turns out to be sexual,

Then that's sexual.

That's right.

You're doing your bedroom with your business.

Yes,

I totally,

Exactly.

And you know,

It with,

It just makes things so much simpler with the monastic of a refraining from sex altogether.

Then you don't even have to go into these questions that we're going into.

Right.

You know,

It just,

You save so much time not even after,

You know,

This is the way it is,

You know,

And you can see the benefit and that's the way it is.

And they even encourage lay practitioners on occasion,

You know,

To do the same thing like during retreat and during certain,

I don't know,

Maybe full moon days and different sits during the year as well.

So yeah.

There's always a saying that,

You know,

What would Jesus do?

The idea is that,

You know,

This is a conversation that people have among the Protestants and Catholics,

Which is,

You know,

Should we discriminate against the gays and the lesbians or,

You know,

Should we do,

You know,

Because then the question is,

You know,

What would Jesus do?

And the person,

The people who asked that question,

Basically,

They're telling us that no,

Jesus would never do that.

Jesus would never discriminate against,

You know,

People who are different because Jesus,

The historical Jesus,

At least when you look at his teaching,

It's based on compassion and loving kindness and empathy.

And so I think the modern Buddhists forget about,

You know,

The traditional and the interpretation of traditional Buddhism,

But at least today the modern Buddhism is one word.

We tend to focus more on compassion,

Loving kindness and empathy.

And rather than talking about,

You know,

All these little technical issues on,

You know,

Where they,

You know,

Is it immoral to have sex?

Is it immoral to have masturbation?

Is it immoral to have sex before marriage?

Is it immoral to have sex with more than one woman?

You know,

All that might,

Might not be important,

But what is more important is going back to compassion,

Living kindness and empathy,

Because without that you shouldn't even call yourself a I couldn't agree more,

Denny.

That,

I mean,

I think what Kurt Vonnegut that said too is that kindness is the only rule in life,

You know,

Because that supersedes just about everything especially the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the