Monk and the Master Part 2: Zen and Sex

As the second part of a three part series for HereistheCity, the website asked me to do a piece on sex, and so in a longer interview Genpo Roshi kindly gave me his views. Loving relationships really are something I'm interested in, partly from Monk-like curiousity and partly due to feeling like I'm on a constant learning curve myself with regards to them. It's a subject I'm sure I'll come back to, I think the Big Mind process and Zen have more to give the West in this area. But for now, here's the article. Enjoy.

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In the next instalment of Monk and The Master, the topic is sex, and how it relates to love and the many facets of ourselves.

The Monk

A therapist friend recently joked with me that everyone outside a relationship is hoping to get in one, and everyone in a relationship is either trying to change his or her partner and/or get out completely. Sex and relationships are no different from any other aspect of our lives in that it's all about how we deal with what is presented to us. To be truly happy - and like anything else at which we want to excel - it requires practice, patience, and maturity. And a lot of mistakes made as sincerely as possible.

The Master

When our walls are down, we are more in touch with our feelings and our emotions, and because we as individuals are based more in trust than in fear, everything is heightened. We are able to be open and vulnerable, having dropped our defenses or barriers, and true intimacy becomes possible. Our sexual life, our ability to communicate and relate is improved. We are in touch with our true self, it’s more tantric, it’s being there with the other person, in a sensitive way. But it’s also being true to ourselves and who we are. It’s a more conscious, awakened state of being, where we are able to use our emotions in a very positive way that gives a richness and fullness to our life. Instead of fearing or suppressing our emotions, we actually use them as the petrol for our life.

In the Eightfold Path in Buddhism, the first is ‘right understanding’ or ‘right view’ and the second is ‘right perception’ or ‘right attitude'. It’s absolutely true that when you have the right view and right perception in a relationship, it’s way beyond being just about sexual satisfaction. Then you are really in a relationship as partners, and it is all about growth - spiritual, mental, emotional, physical. It’s all about both parties doing well because you are attuned to one another, and your sensual and sexual relationship often improves because of the enhanced intimacy.

It’s all about coming from the apex, rather than from a self-centred place in the relationship, from the egocentric corner of the triangle. When you include Big Mind, the other, egoless side of the triangle, then you reach an understanding of both the personal and the impersonal, and you are coming from unconditional compassion as an integrated sexual human being. From here you look at a relationship in terms of how you are supporting one another in growth, maturation, and feelings of love. It’s a much deeper, much more profound place than where we normally come from.

But this doesn’t mean we disown the more sensual, sexual, physical side of ourselves, otherwise it just becomes another disowned voice. So we want to embrace our immature as well as our more mature aspects, and transcend them, which means to include and go beyond both. The moment I knowingly speak from an immature place, I start to acknowledge and recognise my immaturity, and I can see how I can be more mature. We don’t want to disown the immature though, because very often the immature aspect of any voice offers a vitality that may not be found in the more mature. We don’t want to lose this energy. We want to embrace it for what it is, and go beyond.

Zen Master Genpo Roshi will be at the Big Mind Big Heart Weekend Workshop with guest Paul McKenna at the Copthorne Tara Hotel in London on the 24th and 25th of January.