Correctly Handling Sexual Life
Throughout the entire process of the cultivation and realization of the Buddha Dharma, apart from short periods of retreat where celibacy is required, having a normal, regular sex life does not hinder our ultimate liberation as lay practitioners. For practitioners cultivating at home, disharmony in sexual life is actually a major focal point for family conflicts. There is a saying: “In the ultimate truth, not a single speck of dust is defiled; in the gateway of myriad practices, not a single method is rejected.” In fact, a healthy sexual life filled with love is equally a dharma door to enter the path. Some practitioners grow tired of sexual life, but this is simply because they are deeply engrossed in their cultivation and their heart is not in sexual love; they think their mind is focused on the Dao. But where is the Dao? The Dao is right here in this present moment! If you can throw yourself completely and wholeheartedly into love, then sexual love becomes a dharma door. Loving completely and with a single focus can purify and elevate your desires. The elevation of sexual desire transforms sex into an interaction and exchange of yin and yang energies. You and your partner can become a unified body of love, without any duality, entering a state of no-self and no-other.
The reason we cannot treat sexual love as a dharma door for cultivation is simply because we are unable to love our partner completely and with a single focus. We only know how to possess and enjoy the pleasure and stimulation the other person brings us. That kind of sexual life is not only unhelpful for cultivation, but it does more harm than good to the body. Honestly, many of us cannot meet this requirement during sexual intimacy. But since you are cultivating at home, sometimes sexual life cannot be avoided. In those moments, you can only try your best to focus entirely on love during sex. If you cannot muster the passion, then think more about the good qualities of your husband or wife in everyday life; think about the times when they are most lovable. Let your inner heart be filled with love in this way, instead of concentrating your mind on the sexual organs. Relax your mind. Fill it as much as possible with tenderness and love, rather than aggression and the desire to possess. In this way, you allow yourself to merge with your spouse in body, speech, and mind. As your bodies blend into one another, and your mind holds no concept of sex—only love—you will, in an instant, experience no-self. You will experience the joy of deep samadhi.
There was a time when I rejected sexual life for a long period. Subconsciously, I believed it would drain my energy and leak my inner elixir. But later on in my cultivation and realization, I came to understand that the true leakage is the leakage of the mind. If your mind still harbors impure sexual thoughts, if your imagination still runs wild when you see a beautiful woman, if you still have lust, if you still like to please the opposite sex around you, if you still crave to possess the love of the opposite sex, if you still wish that all women or men in the world would like you, and if you still enjoy creating a flirtatious atmosphere—if you do these things, even if you are not having sex (because your mind is already defiled by lust), your true yin or true yang is still leaking. And it is much more severe than the leakage of the body. Because the leakage of the mind means your eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind are all leaking; this is a massive leak. The leakage of the body is a minor leak. If you do not abstain from the lust in your mind and only focus on physical behavior, you are ignoring the root to chase the branches. Practicing Buddhism like this is like trying to boil sand to make porridge. Only when your mind has transcended sexual desire and lust can you be considered to have truly stopped all leakage. And this transcendence is elevated from the complete, single-minded love of ordinary beings to a state of universal love. Complete (free of wandering thoughts), single-minded love does not mean infatuated clinging, nor does it mean unrequited love. It means your mind is entirely here and now. It means living in the present moment.