Urban Tantra: Sacred Sex for the Twenty-First Century (6 page)

This stress-induced euphoria is nothing other than our prehistoric “fight-or-flight” response to extreme danger. It was meant to provide us with extra energy to get out of a life-threatening situation—it was not designed to help us make a deadline! When we live from one adrenaline rush to another, we eventually exhaust our adrenal glands and burn out. Burnout is about as far from ecstasy as you can get.

XXXtasy Is Not Ecstasy

When we see the word
ecstasy
today, it’s more likely to appear on the cover of an X-rated video than in the title of a book about spirituality or healing. Not that I have anything against X-rated videos. In fact, I enjoy many genres of porn. But the thrill it provides is not true ecstasy. Neither are the highs we get from food, drugs, alcohol, shopping, X-treme sports, violent entertainment, action/adventure movies, fast cars, or thrill rides at theme parks. Obviously, in moderation, any and all of these can be simply good fun. But as a culture, we consume far too much of this faux ecstasy. Vast amounts of advertising dollars are spent on getting us to buy more and more of these cheap substitutes. Like junk food, the more we consume, the more we want. For lack of quality, we crave quantity.

So How Do We Find Real Ecstasy?

Our lives are so busy, it often seems much easier to pick up a quick ecstasy substitute than to find the time to enjoy real, gourmet ecstasy. But our beings crave real ecstasy just like our bodies crave real, nutritious food. We can only survive for so long on junk food, and on faux ecstasy, before the lack of the real thing results in illness, lethargy, and depression.

But how do we introduce real ecstasy into our already overloaded lives? The answers are simpler than you may think:

Stay in the present moment
.
Don’t try so hard
.
Stay in the present moment
.
Drop your expectations and your judgments
.
Stay in the present moment
.
Surrender
.
Stay in the present moment
.
Be more conscious
.
Stay in the present moment
.
Learn how to do all of this in sex …
 … in the present moment
.

The Buddha said that the human condition is like that of a person shot with an arrow. It is both painful and urgent. But instead of getting immediate help for our affliction, we ask for details about the bow from which the arrow was shot. We ask who made the arrow. We want to know about the appearance and the background of the person who strung the bow. We ask about many things—inconsequential things—while overlooking our immediate problem. We ask about origins and ends, but we leave this moment forgotten. We leave it forgotten even though we live in it
.

We must first learn how to journey into the now
.

—Steve Hagen,
Buddhism Plain and Simple

One evening, I had dinner with three friends at the Marquis de Sade, an S/M-themed restaurant in New York City. The restaurant was a cross between a dungeon and a dining room. It had two menus: one for food and the other for play. Between food courses you could flog someone or get flogged, eat out of a dog dish or feed someone out of one, get locked into a little cage or lock someone into one, and get a spanking or give one, all under the appreciative gazes of other diners. On this particular night, an attractive leather-clad waiter was flogging a shirtless young male patron in the front room. This was a pretty common scene at de Sade, so at first I didn’t pay much attention. But something about this scene captured my attention. It was so intimate that at first I thought the two participants might have been lovers. But no, this was de Sade, and waiters didn’t get to flog their lovers on company time. Obviously the young man had chosen this particular erotic appetizer from the play menu.

The waiter with the whip was unwavering in his attention, dealing out each stroke with perfect intensity and waiting just long enough before giving the next. The young man was surrendering completely to the pain. He seemed to relax into the experience more with each stoke. His eyes were closed and his lips were slightly parted. His breathing would sharpen as the whip hit his back and then slow down again as the pain dispersed. The man doing the whipping (the “top”) was deliberate and slow, never striking until the previous stroke had been completely absorbed. He never took his eyes off the young man, despite having to adjust his position occasionally to avoid
the dinner trays speeding past him and the enthused voyeurs gathering around. It was an extraordinarily sensual and erotic performance.

Why was this scene so compelling? It wasn’t particularly theatrical. It didn’t “go” anywhere. Nothing dramatic happened. So why couldn’t I take my eyes off it? Because it was so conscious. The top kept his attention focused on the body he was flogging, yet 10 percent of his peripheral awareness stayed in the room so that he could avoid waiters and voyeurs. He watched the young man’s breath rise and fall, often matching his own to it. He watched the young man’s muscles ripple and relax, which let him know when the time was right for the next stroke. He never hurried, nor did he do anything simply to entertain the crowd. He had no agenda other than to give the young man exactly the flogging he wanted. He wasn’t trying to look good or get anywhere. He just gave totally. In addition, the young man was one great receiver. Having asked for what he wanted at the beginning of the scene, he went totally into the experience of receiving it. He stayed aware and present. And he breathed. He breathed a lot.

If only we could pay this kind of attention in our daily lives. But no, our minds are constantly racing like a tape player with only two speeds: fast-forward and reverse. We feel guilty about things we’ve done in the past and worry about all the disasters that might befall us in the future. When we are at work or school, we worry about all the things that need attention at home, and when we’re at home, we worry about the work we left unfinished. Seldom do we notice anything in the present moment unless it explodes in front of us. And then we worry about when it might happen again.

It’s pretty difficult to feel sexy, creative, and peaceful with all this incessant mind chatter hammering in your head. But there is good news: the same busy mind that has been making you a stressed-out mess can help you become as conscious and present in the now as the waiter and his client.

Remember: All consciousness really means is that you are in a relaxed state of awareness with a quiet mind able to focus gently and easily on what’s going on at the present moment
.

Consciousness is not some impossibly esoteric concept. It’s not something granted by a guru with a touch to your third eye. It’s simply the ability to focus, to put your
attention
where your
intentions
are.

Now that’s easy to say, but in practice it can be pretty hard to do. How many times have you tried to focus on your lover’s body only to have your mind flip away to some
mundane work problem? It happens to all of us. When it comes to sex there are so many things that can distract us. First and foremost, there are fantasies. Now, I’m not saying that fantasies are bad. Fantasies are an important part of our sexual imagination. They can be extremely useful for awakening and expanding our desire. They can be used to explore new realms of intimacy and fun when you and your partner focus on making a shared fantasy come true. But if you are focusing most of your attention on the fantasy running in your head instead of on the person you are with, you are not engaged in a conscious sexual encounter.

One of my least favorite pop sex tips for men is the one about how to slow down ejaculation by thinking about something mundane or unpleasant. Talk about unconscious! Becoming more conscious of what is happening is far more effective. Conscious techniques such as slowing down, changing the way you breathe, and changing the way you thrust keep your attention focused on your pleasure and your partner. (See
chapter 8
for more on delaying ejaculation.)

We want to learn to be mindful—both in sex and in life. All that means is that we want our minds to be full of the present moment and not of other thoughts. You don’t have to be in a silent place completely free of distraction to be mindful. There are a few simple techniques you can use to start to be more aware, right here, right now.

Breathe

Breath is our single greatest source of energy and aliveness, yet by the time we are adults most of us are breathing just enough to stay alive. We learn at an early age that having too much energy creates problems for us. We are punished for being too loud and too active; for laughing too much and crying too hard. We learn to stifle that energy—that aliveness—by limiting our breath. The less we breathe, the less we feel. This simple numbing technique has seen us through many experiences we didn’t want to be fully present for. It still does.

We all constantly regulate ourselves with our breathing, and we all do it more or less unconsciously. Our breathing automatically changes to give less fuel to any feeling that registers outside the “safe” range. This has its advantages—it protects us from reacting with acute sensitivity to every stress and strain of modern life. But it also insulates us from being sensitive to things we do want to feel. Our life becomes safe and regulated; but because we established the boundaries of this safe range when we were children, we limit our potential. As adults, we could all handle—and would probably enjoy—a whole lot more aliveness.

Our first step in learning to be more alive and in the moment is to breathe more fully. Try that right now. Take a big breath. Let it fill you from your genitals to the top of your head. Notice how you expand as you inhale. Slowly release the breath. Do you feel bigger, taller? Maybe the lights seem to get brighter. Perhaps you notice sounds or smells that weren’t there before.

Now take a little teeny breath. The smallest, shallowest breath you can. You’ll probably have to take more breaths in order to take in enough air. Notice how you contract when you breathe shallowly. You may find yourself hunched over, at least slightly. Perhaps you tightened your belly or shoulders or scrunched up your face. You might have felt smaller and less powerful, and perhaps you even felt a twinge of anger or sadness.

Pay attention to how you breathe.

The next time you are feeling really good
,
notice how you are breathing
.
The next time you are feeling angry or sad,
notice how you are breathing.

You are not at the mercy of your unconscious breathing patterns. You can change how you feel by consciously changing the way you breathe. A bit later I will introduce you to several ways of breathing that I have found to be particularly energizing, stimulating, and relaxing; but for now, just be conscious of your breathing.

Breath is vitally important when you are trying to make a connection with another person. One of the easiest ways to connect with someone else is by matching your breathing to theirs. Breath is like the rhythm of a dance. It is easier to dance with someone when you are both doing the same step. If one of you is dancing the cha-cha while the other is dancing the Balinese
legong
, you are just not going to have a connection on the dance floor.

The same thing applies to our dancing emotional bodies. When two people are breathing at the same rate, they are matching and balancing their emotional and physical states. They are agreeing to dance together, to feel together. This does not mean that they are agreeing to meld together for the rest of time, nor does it mean that they can read each other’s minds (although that sometimes seems to happen). What really happens is that they begin to be able to read each other’s
bodies
. In sex, touch is
more easily given and more graciously received. Intuition becomes stronger. Spoken communication becomes clearer and more succinct as it becomes less relied upon. This is the beginning of two beings becoming one. Breathing with someone is not only useful in sexual situations. Any time you want to be in an empathetic relationship with someone, simply match your breathing to theirs, and you will begin to have a pretty good sense of how they are feeling.

Change Your Mind

It’s often said that the most important sex organ is the brain. This is literally true, biologically speaking. Erotic energy may begin in your genitals, but it’s the mind that takes over from there. The mind can say yes or no to any particular expression of erotic energy. Most of what works or doesn’t work in our sex lives (and our lives in general) is based on a belief we hold in our minds. For example, as a child I was made to go to church every Sunday. The mass we went to was in Portuguese, and it never varied. Every Sunday it was exactly the same. I found it excruciatingly boring. When I became an adult, I swore I would never put myself through anything like that again. I discovered Tantra. My first teacher, Jwala, was incredibly juicy, and after the first evening I was hooked. I wanted to learn everything there was to know about Tantra. So I tried to learn all the classic asanas, mudras, and Sanskrit words. I practiced a long Tantric ritual, rigidly organized into a linear progression of politically correct poses. And I was hopelessly bored. It wasn’t until I changed my mind and stepped out of the past and into the present that I could begin to experience the luscious, consciousness-altering Tantric moments I’d heard about but had been practicing too rigidly to discover.