The Enlightened Sex Manual: Sexual Skills for the Superior Lover (17 page)

Be wary of misinterpreting symptoms. Sometimes vaginal soreness or a lost erection are signs of emotional knots being

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tweaked. Don't assume that the only solution to discomfort or lack of interest is to stop having sex; instead, continue making love with sensitivity and care while circulating energy through your fears and tensions.

Do your best to make love while any and all emotions are fully felt and expressed. Don't be afraid to verbally express the strangest emotions. You might find yourself shouting "I hate you!", "Kill me!", "Fuck you!", or any number of emotionally charged and seemingly negative expressions. Feel fully what• ever you are feeling and continue having sex, loving whatever emotions arise, while also feeling your partner's heart. Circulate your energy through any knots of tension you encounter, until the knot is loosened or thoroughly untied. Make sure that you and your partner have a way of communicating "Stop!" in the event that you reach a limit you are not yet ready to breathe and love through.

Eventually, after weeks or months of long lovemaking ses• sions in which you are practicing sex through all the knots you encounter, your body will be much more emotionally open. Your sexual energy will flow more fully and freely, without getting stuck in kinks. This free energy and emotional openness will help you to remain more fully conscious of your true depth of being, rather than be stopped short by the knots of your thoughts, fears, and desires.

As you learn to rest more easily in your true depth of being, spiritual profundity will replace sexual tension. An endless ease of being will grow more obvious even in the midst of passion• ate loving.

Unbound from chronic tension, your energy and conscious• ness are more available for continual practice. You are able to

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love all emotions that come and go, feeling through your kinks to your partner's heart more swiftly and consistently. Sex becomes an ongoing, conscious, whole-bodied participation in a profound ease and openness of being, in trusting communion with your lover, even while your body and emotions go through their twists and turns. Your practice thrives in the midst of tangles.

The glow of your sexual embers is no longer caught in the jumble of your kinks, but luxuriates brightly through them, a white-hot love without bounds. Your knots are made transparent, as are your edges. You and your lover are melded as one heart and then vanished to everywhere at light's speed.

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Part Four:

Sexual Energy Exercises

Spontaneous openness and skillful practice go hand in hand to unfold joy in the way of enlightened sex. This section presents specific exercises to restore the natural flow of energy through the circuitry of your body so love can have its way. These exer• cises are universal in the sense that they have been discovered and rediscovered for thousands of years around the world, in China, Tibet, Japan, India, Europe, and the Americas. To make them ef• fective, you must discover, and in every moment rediscover, these exercises for yourself. Practice them afresh, on the basis of your own revelation. Make these exercises your own.

The exercises work. But you have to
do
them, especially when your superficial habits of kink and closure attempt to reassert their hold on your deep loving. It's important to play with these exercises, sensitively fine-tuning them to untie your specific knots and unbind the natural flow of your sexual energy. For best results with all these exercises, combine stalwart self-discipline with moment-to-moment freshness, delight, and a large dollop of intuitive creativity.

While doing these exercises, remember this principle: The
power
of sexual energy flowing between lovers is usually deter• mined by the feminine partner's openness to love and pleasure; the
depth
with which sexual energy flows between lovers is usu• ally determined by the masculine partner's capacity to circulate energy consciously.

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That is, sexual energy itself - its flavor, texture, and pow• er - is a feminine gift. Where that sexual energy goes, or how it is used, is a masculine gift. Of course, we are each free to choose, moment by moment and year by year, when we might enjoy offering our more masculine or more feminine sexual gifts, re• gardless of whether we are man or woman, gay or straight.

If unbridled ecstasy can't fully express itself through the feminine partner's body, then sex will become cold, staid, and un• interesting. If the masculine partner is unable to move the couple to ever deeper revelations of love, surrender, and divine commu• nion, then sex will become frustrating, amateurish, pathetic even, just a tease of its full potential.

Each of us has both masculine and feminine capacities within us. Therefore, each of us can
magnify
sexual energy (feminine) and
direct
sexual energy in specific ways (masculine). Yet, in any par• ticular moment of sexual union, one person is usually playing the more feminine force of radiant power while the other is playing the more masculine force of present intentionality. One is being more attractive; one is being more directive. If this sexual polar• ity is denied or repressed - in either homosexual or heterosexual relationships - lovemaking tends to lose passion and depth.

When the exercises presented here get off the paper and into your bed, something curious may happen. As the sexual energy builds, the more feminine partner may forget to do the exercise you both set out to do. As love opens your hearts into ever wid• ening joy and unbearable pleasure, the feminine partner often swoons in ecstasy too much to be concerned about some techni• cal way to breathe or move energy.

Luckily, this works out fine because the masculine in each of us usually enjoys deepening and perfecting practices for growth.

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During sex, if the masculine partner does an exercise deeply, with full presence, sensitivity, happiness, and skill, the feminine part• ner (if sufficiently open) will usually resonate quite effortlessly to the same depth. Sexually speaking, when partners respect, honor, and trust each other in love, the feminine flows where the mas• culine goes.

Therefore, if you are playing the feminine partner, don't worry if you become so blissfully open during sex that you don't remember to practice the technical breathing exercises that are presented here. Just relax into the natural pleasure of your body. Express your trust and pleasure to your partner when he is prac• ticing well, and don't inhibit your expression of pain or boredom if he is not. Open to your own loving. Open to your partner's lov• ing. Then open for the sake of love itself. Practice receiving love and energy into every part of your body, breath by breath. Sur• render yourself utterly to be moved and breathed by love. Love will have its way.

These exercises may seem complicated at first, but they are simple once you've practiced them. As with learning to drive a car, at first you may feel overwhelmed by the details. How can you pay attention to the road in front of you while also checking your rearview mirror, knowing if the lanes are clear to your right and left, keeping an eye on your speedometer and gas gauge, figuring out when to accelerate, when to brake, and God forbid you should have to learn how to use a clutch and shift gears at the same time! But with a little practice, what first seems complicated becomes virtually effortless. And so it is with these sexual energy practices.

Practice as much of each exercise as you can remember, then review it again before your next opportunity to practice. Prac• tice and review, practice and review. In time, you will be ready to

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expand beyond the fundamental practices described here because they will seem so easy - and so effortlessly blissful.

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1. BREATHE SEXUAL ENERGY IN A CIRCLE
   

   For many people, sex typically involves stimulating the genitals to experience pleasure. If this stimulated energy builds up beyond a certain point, most people can't contain it any more, so they release the energy in orgasm.
   

   This is a very primitive and undeveloped form of sex, al• though it is the one with which most people are familiar. During this form of sex, it often feels as if the sexual energy wants to go down and be released outwardly. In most women, the energy ac• cumulates and then is let go in waves, with the genitals and hips thrusting in fits of undulating release. In most men, sexual en• ergy increases down in the genitals and then wants to be released outwardly in an ejaculative burst.
   

   To move beyond this rudimentary heave of stimulation and release, you can learn to dissolve internal blocks, sustain much higher levels of pleasure than ever before, and circulate sexual energy in a way that gives the whole body an orgasm that fills, rather than depletes, your energy reserves. The first step in learn• ing to do this involves allowing your internal sexual energy to circulate freely.
   

   As described in Part One, when your natural internal circuitry is open, a main conduit of your energy moves in a circle, up the back of the body and down the front. During sex, your energy moves from the genitals back and then up the spine, fills the head, and then comes down the front of the body, through the tongue, throat, heart, solar plexus, and belly, back to the genital region, completing the circle.
   

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   In the practice of enlightened sex, you can learn to enjoy deeper genital orgasms, spine orgasms, brain orgasms, heart or• gasms, and whole-body orgasms. You can magnify your internal energy to such an intensity that you are saturated by light far more blissful than any typical ejaculative or clitoral orgasm. You are able to surrender yourself fully through sex, to be obliterated in huge loving, for hours at a time, so your separateness is melted in the force of love that moves the universe. Sex becomes a means to help liberate the body and mind from limiting habits so you are able to open to your heart's most authentic and radiant truth, bursting to give your deepest gifts all day, at work, in relation• ships, and in meditation.
   

   We will look at practices for circulating your sexual energy through your natural internal circuitry in stages.
   

   It is fine to start off practicing these exercises while your part• ner is masturbating you or having genital intercourse with you, but it is often easier to learn to do the exercises while mastur• bating yourself. Eventually, you can practice these same exercises while making love with your partner.
   

   First, practice to develop sensitivity to your internal energy itself, relaxing the body as much as possible.
   Tension in the body will de• crease the flow of energy and mask the subtle currents of flow and movement that you need to feel in order to artfully circulate sexual energy.
   Breathe full and deep.
   As we will see, your breath can be used to help magnify and move energy. At the beginning, though, just practice keeping the breath full while you mastur• bate so you don't obstruct the energy in your body.
   

   While masturbating, concentrate on feeling the energy as it builds up in your genital region.
   Where does this sexual energy come from? Where is this energy "stored"? Can you feel the texture of
   

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   this energy and in which direction it is moving? Is it sharp, hot, cool, pulsating, or constant? Does it fill your abdomen, or just your genitals?
   

   As you approach orgasm, you may feel the energy "trying" to flow out your genitals in an orgasmic spasm of release. Instead of allowing this pleasurable release of energy down and out your genital region, you will practice to reverse this flow, from your genitals back and up the spine. So, for now, do not masturbate to the point of orgasm.
   

   Don't worry if you can't feel the subtleties of your internal sexual energy flow. Some people are more sensitive than others to the details of the flow of their internal energy. They are able to discriminate tingles from currents, upward from downward. Other people are only aware of being sexually turned on or turned off. With practice, everyone can become more sensitive to the flow of internal sexual energy In the meantime, don't worry if you're not able to feel the subtle details of your inter• nal energy flow - the exercises will still work.
   

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2. BREATHE GENITAL ENERGY UP
   

   While masturbating (or having sex with your partner), feel the energy build in the lower region of the body. When you feel a lot of sexual energy in the genital region, but still long before you would normally have an orgasm, contract your pelvic floor
   -
   including the genitals, perineum, and anus
   -
   and pull upward.
   (The perineum is the area between your anus and genitals.)
   

   Tense or squeeze the muscles of the genitals, perineum, and anus as if you were trying to stop your urine flow. This upward contraction of your pelvic floor is known in yogic terms as
   mula bandha.
   In medical or therapeutic terms it is known by many names, including PC or Kegel exercises.
   

   This contraction is not simply a squeeze but also involves an
   upward tension
   of the entire floor of the pelvis. If you are a man, this might feel like pulling your testicles up toward your body. If you are a woman, this might feel like squeezing an egg from the opening of your vagina up toward your cervix, or like an elevator moving up.
   

   There are two basic ways to practice this upward contraction. One way is to contract the pelvic floor and hold the contraction for fifteen to thirty seconds while continuing to breathe normally. The other way is to contract and release the pelvic floor in rapid, rhythmic pulsations while breathing normally.
   Practicing both of these methods will help you train yourself quickly. You may practice for several minutes at a time, three or four times a day, as well as during sexual sessions. Rest if you feel tired. Don't overdo it.
   

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   During sexual stimulation, practice this upward pull of the pelvic floor
   -
   either as one long hold or as a cycle of quick contractions and releases
   -
   especially as your energy builds toward orgasm.
   Over time, as you develop sensitivity to the sexual energy flowing through your body, you can begin directing energy up your spine. For some people, this involves visualizing light or energy moving up the spine. Others feel the energy as a physical sensation, like heat, rushes of movement, a tingling thrill, or bubbles in champagne rising up the spine.
   

   While you contract your pelvic floor, breathe through the nose as you feel the energy moving from your genitals backward and then up along your spine, rising with the gentle force of exhalation.
   

   Sometimes practice
   exhaling
   up the spine. Other times practice
   inhaling
   up the spine. Become sensitive to what works best for you and when. At all times, though, your energy moves in a circle up your spine and down your front, regardless of how you coordinate this circulation with your breath.
   

   With practice in breathing up the spine and contracting your pelvic floor just before you orgasm, you may be able to feel or• gasm energy shooting up your spine and radiantly exploding through your head, rather than being released out your genitals. A brain orgasm that has risen through your whole body is much more pleasurable and rejuvenating than an orgasm that takes place solely in your genitals.
   

   During a brain orgasm, it feels as if sexual energy rushes up your spine and explodes as light in the middle of your head. Then it pours down throughout your being as a healing rain of pervasive love. Sometimes during a brain orgasm, the energy will shoot out the top of your head, so you are light only, before descending back down into the body, saturating every cell with the vibrancy of bliss.
   

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   In addition to practicing the upward contraction of the pelvic floor while breathing up the spine during masturbation and sex, you can practice this exercise throughout the day to assist your natural energy flow, up your spine, through your head, and down your front in a circle. You can practice while walking down the street, while resting in bed, or while sitting at your office desk. Nobody needs to know.
   

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3. BREATHE ENERGY