| | Hey Not Tao!
Yes that's exactly it, the guard must be let down, although a distinction between volitionally (willfully) letting down the guard and letting go of control must be made. In the Reichian idea, which I'm trying to pursue, one does not "surrender", rather the guard one "lets go of control", has trust in, and has faith in one's body, there is no act of will in letting down the guard, one just surrenders. Contradictory, I know. Thanks for hanging around this forum, BTW.
Some other generic thoughts:
I choose to define the dark night as being non-distinct from the bleed-through that is most often said to be a symptom of the dark night, the dark night is the bleed-through, just as Chogyam Trungpa defines Vipashyana as being the subsequent infiltration of post-meditation experience into daily life, the dark night is none other than the uncontrollable nature of one's life, one's "breaking out", of the cultural poison that one has accepted into one's body.
Once a dark-night-er starts acting out, he or she is effectively surrendering to the actions of the body to willfully, break free and oust the foreign objects of poison (the khandhas, often called barbs), sometimes "culture" that have infiltrated one's body.
Therefore the neurotic and seemingly insane actions of a dark night yogi, are actually the sane reactions to an insane world.
Moreover the sense of a ride is pronounced, which is where faith and trust come in. One has no choice but to trust the process, which will hopefully liberate one from the cancer of kamma (intention, will).
On sex.
I personally don't think anyone should ever engage in sex, ideally, but seeing as that this is impossible (people will likely engage in sex, regardless of what people tell them) they should at least practice it safely, as in morally and harmlessly.
The problem I view with our sexual culture is that it sexualizes young men and women at a far too early age, this leads them to constrict their body and muscles around an early age in order to make it fit an idealized image, as a result the body stays forever child-like and immature, moreover the vulnerability of said person is made obvious by the fact that he or she is simply looking for love and affection, which they now view as contingent upon their body.
This is a sad state of affairs because if the person were to realize that said cultural poisons of needing love or love being contingent on how-you-are (which is not what love is, love is unconditional) were ultimately unhelpful, said person would grow normally, into a mature and full-bodied human being.
Me being on a college campus, I notice a lot of legally-aged adult young women, who are still child-like in their bodies, moreover their need and desperation for affection is so obvious that it feels like a violation to even take advantage of them and is in fact ethically wrong to fuck with their emotions.
As such the cultural poison of sexuality is so rampant that I view it as an act of rebelliousness to be a virgin and celibate, the very nature of thirst is harmful, but the point is nobody is ever actually ready for sex, or emotionally mature enough for it.
It really is a violation of one's body, mind and rights, no matter when or in what context the act is performed. So I abstain from it. I mean the very act itself is of sticking an appendage into an open wound.
Regards,
James |