[Mantak_Chia,_Michael_Winn]_Taoist_Secrets_of_Love(BookFi.org)

48 Taoist Secrets Of Love
sexual appetite in the pregnant female or her mate. The human
begins sexual activity soon after reaching puberty. Most people
spend a lifetime performing and dreaming of sexual intercourse for
the sake of pleasure and emotional fulfillment. It seems clear that
sexuality serves a higher function in humans, but doctors, scientists,
psychologists, priests and artists cannot even begin to agree
on what this higher function is and how or if it should be regulated
to improve human well-being.
Western scientific texts are curiously contradictory about the
healthfulness of sexual intercourse. Many sex manuals today
praise the restorative qualities of extensive sexual activity. Others,
equally authoritative and based on psychiatric studies, caution
against sexual overindulgence. Which school of thought is correct?
When does too much sex become unhealthy?
To complicate matters still more, there are similar inconsistencies
among Oriental sages. One renowned Indian holy man
counsels the male to see every woman as a sack of shit and piss in
order to resist the temptation of losing the precious male seed to
her.
Yet the Lord Buddha himself is held to have said: "Women
are the Gods, women are life ... Be ever among women in
thought."
The Taoist teaching of sexual yoga reconciles these viewpoints
because it accepts the middle way, recognizing the truth in
both extremes. Their solution is of utmost simplicity: joyous and
loving sexual intercourse without the loss of the male seed is
healthful in the highest degree.
Much depends, of course, on the path you are taking through
life. At a certain time in your life celibacy may be best for restoring
your health or for achieving rapid spiritual progress. Celibacy can
be an extremely powerful means of conserving all your vital energies
freeing you to work with greater intensity in cultivating yourself.
But most Westerners are focused on finding the right mate,
and working out their sexual and emotional desires with a partner.
The Taoist principles of energy cultivation work equally with
both cases, the single or the dual cultivation. For a Taoist, all paths
must ultimately move beyond a focus on sex energy and towards
attunement to all the subtle energies of the Tao.
But no one can take more than one step at a time. If part of
your mind is fixed on sex, you must live out that impulse, study it,