Beyond Tantra: Healing Through Taoist Sacred Sex (22 page)

So what do you do when you feel the ‘point of no return’ approaching? The trick is to learn to relax so that the urge ‘melts away’. You do this by exhaling into your sacrum and Hui Yin point and lowering your sacrum at the same time. This creates a feeling of space in your entire lower body, into which the Sexual Qi can move. On your next inhalation, you pull the Sexual Qi up your spine and circulate it.

Here’s the sequence:

Man:
You sense that the ‘point of no return’ is approaching. Give your partner a signal or say something like ‘Stop’ or ‘Hold it!’

Woman:
Immediately stop stimulating and move into the ‘honouring’ position with one hand over Jade Stalk and your partner’s heart. Visualize Sexual Qi flowing through his circuit.

Man:
Exhale through your mouth. Try to make a ‘whoosh’ sound when you do this. Relax your sacrum and visualize Sexual Qi dropping down from your Jade Stalk into the area at the base of your spine. Put your tongue on the roof of your mouth and inhale, drawing the Sexual Qi up your spine to the top of your head. On the next exhalation, visualize the Sexual Qi travelling down your front channel towards the Hui Yin point while gathering up more Sexual Qi from Jade Stalk.

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Jade Stalk Massage Exercise

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Repeat the circuit nine or eighteen times. On the last circuit, pack the Qi in your Tan Tien.

Woman:
Help your partner by visualizing the circuit with him when he asks you to stop stimulating him. You may find that it helps if you synchronize your breathing with his.

STAGE 5: RELAXING INTO ORGASMIC ENERGY

According to the Taoists, if a man ejaculates without having circulated and

‘refined’ his Sexual Qi, he is literally expelling life-force out of his body through his Jade Stalk. The Sexual Qi is then lost. Most men have no doubt experienced this sensation of loss but assumed that this is just how sex is,
i.e.
you get excited, ejaculate, roll over and fall asleep!

It doesn’t have to be this way. But the difficult thing for many men is that the process of learning this is, to some extent, counter-intuitive. In the West, we’re very used to using our willpower and focusing hard on achieving a desired goal. The Eastern way of approaching things is quite different. One of the things that I’ve found very helpful is attending a local Qi Gong / Tai Chi class. Recently the class moved to a new location in a sports hall where various other classes are held at the same time. It’s fascinating to hear the other classes huffing and puffing and groaning while our class is practising to soft music with gentle, deep breathing. Yet I’m certain our Wu Shu Master has far more power and strength than the Western teachers of the other classes. I’ve seen him in action! In softness there can be great strength.

Learning to relax into orgasmic energy works in much the same way as Tai Chi does. What you do is relax your body while at the same time holding a clear intent and awareness while allowing your Sexual Qi to build. You don’t push or force but instead stay aware of what is happening and use your mind to guide the Sexual Qi.

Woman:
You need to be very sensitive and aware now. You are going to help your partner to discover a very special place – the space between orgasm and ejaculation. First, make sure you have an agreed ‘Stop’ signal, such as raising a hand in the air. Then continue stimulating Jade Stalk until you get the stop signal. You can help distribute any Sexual Qi that is accumulating by moving into the honouring position. There are other ways of helping to stop the ejaculation urge, such as squeezing the base or top of the penis, but I encourage you to help your partner discover how to relax into his body and distribute Sexual Qi rather than blocking its flow.

Man:
As you are being stimulated, stay aware and watch carefully. At the very first sign of an impending ejaculation, give the ‘Stop’ signal. Pull your Sexual

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Beyond Tantra – Healing Through Taoist Sacred Sex Qi up your spine and then direct it down the front channel. When Sexual Qi reaches the bottom of your front channel, lower your sacrum and make as much

‘space’ as you can at the base of your spine for the Sexual Qi to settle into. Do at least three, and as many as nine, of these Orbits.

Watch your excitement level. If your urge to ejaculate has subsided, you can ask your partner to start again. If you still feel close to the ‘point of no return’, ask your partner to do some ‘Distributing the Qi’ massage to pull the Sexual Qi away from your Jade Stalk and out into the rest of your body.

Both partners:
Have fun! The idea here is to take a journey of discovery together. Learn what works and what doesn’t. If the man ejaculates, don’t worry.

Simply enjoy the orgasmic energy together. The more you work on it, the more you will learn about communicating with each other and becoming aware of the Sexual Qi flow. Sometimes the woman will know when the Sexual Qi is rising even before the man realizes it. Sometimes it’s a surprise to both of you.

Man:
When you do ejaculate, either inadvertently or on purpose, be sure to do some Small Orbits to circulate the Sexual Qi through your body and store it in your Tan Tien. It could take as little as a few days or it could take some months but the day will arrive when, much to your surprise, you orgasm without ejaculating.

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The Understanding

All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.

—Lao Tzu

Daily Dual Cultivation, when practised diligently with a committed partner and with awareness, is a powerful method of permanently raising the level of Sexual Qi in your body and between you and your partner.

The Background

The daily cultivation of Sexual Qi is called ‘Morning and Evening Prayer’ in some Taoist works on Dual Cultivation. This means that you incorporate lovemaking into your daily routine, just like eating, going to work and sleeping. This is quite a new concept for many people as, for most couples, sex is something that is done as a ‘special’ activity. Most people work on the premise that the right combination of mood, time, place and emotion needs to be in place for a successful love-making session. For some couples, sex is something they save up for a special time, for others it has become an unsatisfactory routine for one or both parties. But the idea that you would make love as a normal part of everyday life is not something most people have considered.

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Beyond Tantra – Healing Through Taoist Sacred Sex The reasoning behind Morning and Evening Prayer is very simple. If Sexual Qi is a powerful healing energy, then it makes sense to generate it on a sustained basis rather than sporadically. One Taoist text I found states that the beneficial effect of orgasmic energy lasts in the body for up to fourteen hours. I’m not sure how exact this figure is, but most people have had the experience of feeling much better the day after a good love-making session. In fact, the good feeling can be so obvious that your co-workers or family tease you about it! So having a sustained flow of Sexual Qi through the body with regular twelve-hourly boosts makes lots of sense and is undoubtedly why the ancient Taoist health manuals prescribed regular intercourse as part of their healing regimes.

From a Western point of view, Morning and Evening Prayer also makes sense. For many people, the stress around ‘will she? won’t he?’, ‘should I’,

‘shouldn’t I’ etc. adds a level of stress to sex that is completely counterproductive to the production of Sexual Qi. Dual Cultivation is not based upon a lust-filled, super-charged sex blasting through any reservations we may have (‘I couldn’t help myself ’). Rather, it’s all about learning to generate Sexual Qi gently and lovingly, so the less stress involved the better. Setting aside regular time to practise Dual Cultivation without tension is a good way to re-train our minds, bodies and emotions so as to make the most of the Sexual Qi when it does flow.

Of course, for many people this daily practice sounds great in theory but is much easier said than done. Why? When I ask people this question, the most fre-quent answer I hear is that they have busy, full lives and couldn’t possible set aside so much time. But how much time do they spend in front of the television? Is investing fifteen minutes when you wake up and before you go to sleep for something that can provide such a rich reward asking all that much? I was puzzled when I received this response until I realized that so many other factors come into play. A major issue is that, for most people, it’s just not OK to say to each other, much less to their children or friends, ‘we’re going upstairs for our daily Sexual Qi generation practice. See you in half an hour!’ Sex is just not something you plan, much less talk openly about.

The Taoist tradition has a much more matter of fact view of sex. It sees sex as one of life’s fundamentals, along with eating and breathing. There is none of the moralistic judgement about something that, at the end of the day, is a basic requirement for the continuation of the human race. Although it took us a bit of effort to get started with Morning and Evening Prayer, we soon discovered that it actually feels very natural and normal to have a bit of ‘cuddle’ at the beginning and the end of the day. What we found through Morning and Evening Prayer is that there are many different ways of working with Sexual Qi, and they are not at all mutually exclusive. It really is OK just to spend a few minutes every day allowing some Sexual Qi to flow without it having to be a multi-orgasmic love-