The Principle of "Replete Essence Stills Sexual Craving"

Disciple's question: One morning while doing walking meditation and contemplating the four foundations of mindfulness, a thought suddenly arose saying to relax the dantian. When I relaxed the dantian, a stream of warmth filled the dantian—warm and hot—and even today the dantian is still warm. As the warm current appeared, the disciple noticed something special: seeing members of the opposite sex no longer gives rise to thoughts, and I no longer need to use counteractive methods. It is just like looking at someone of the same sex or an ordinary object, and the dantian no longer stirs. (Normally, upon seeing someone of the opposite sex, I would have uncontrollable inappropriate attention (ayoniso manasikāra), and there would be a physiological stirring in the dantian, requiring a second thought to counteract it.) Please, Master, give guidance on this disciple's situation.

Reply: Through sitting meditation and walking meditation to cultivate meditative concentration (samādhi), you have opened up the qi and blood circulation in the dantian area, and the sign of warmth has manifested. With the dantian warm and the qi and blood flowing smoothly throughout the body, both body and mind become soft and supple, so that the dantian becomes full of qi, full of spirit, and full of essence. You no longer need replenishment from external energy, so physiological needs have diminished—to the point of eating less, sleeping less, and no longer needing sexual desire. Only when essence, qi, and spirit are insufficient does one need replenishment from external energy, and then physiological needs are relatively numerous.

These physiological needs all belong to the necessities of life in the human world of the desire realm. When cultivation reaches the point of transcending the human realm, the five hindrances—such as desire for food and sleep—gradually fall away, and one ascends to the levels of the desire-realm heavens and the form-realm heavens. In other words, the preparatory concentration/threshold concentration (anāgamya-samādhi) of the desire realm has become complete, and the first dhyāna of the form realm is close at hand. Once a person's desires are subdued, meditative concentration will rise to the first dhyāna, and within the first dhyāna, sensual craving is severed.

Devas of the form-realm heavens of the first dhyāna and above, having no male-female desire, have no gender and are not divided into male and female. Because they do not need food and drink, they have no nose consciousness to smell scents and no tongue consciousness to taste flavors; they have only eye consciousness, ear consciousness, body consciousness, the mind consciousness, and the manas. Thus, consciousnesses are set up according to the needs of sentient beings; when there are no needs, the consciousnesses need not exist. For example, in the cessation attainment (nirodha-samāpatti), only the manas exists, with none of the six consciousnesses, and the manas has even extinguished the two mental factors of feeling and perception.

That your dantian no longer stirs shows that your essence and qi are full, so naturally you no longer need sexual desire and have lost interest in it. When essence and qi are not full, it is like a half-filled bottle of water that always sloshes about, needing more water poured in from outside; when the water is sufficient and full, it no longer sloshes. When the essence and qi in the dantian are full, it no longer stirs, and there is no need to replenish them through sexual activity. When the World-Honored One spoke in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra about the state of having severed desire, he said that for a person who has severed desire, engaging in sexual intercourse feels like chewing a candle—utterly flavorless, a sense of humiliation that must be endured, done merely to complete a task.

You are currently at the stage of severing the obscuration of the five hindrances; the preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi) is complete, and the first dhyāna is about to arise. Within this concentration, the meditative conditions for eliminating self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi) and for seeing one's true mind/awakening to the true mind are complete, while conditions such as merit and wisdom still await perfection. If, after eliminating self-view and awakening to the true mind, you additionally have the foundation of meditative power from the first dhyāna, you can sever the root afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion, and become a third-fruit non-returner (Anāgāmin) of the Small Vehicle. The path ahead is bright—keep up your efforts!