Zen Sex: The Way of Making Love
Zen philosophy tells us that the great truth of the universe applies to all things at all times. Every moment of life, from guitar playing to working at the computer, to making love, offers a chance for Zen realization. Just awaken to that truth, Zen masters say; how and where do not matter. Sex offers the same opportunity for enlightenment as anything else. Zen Sex guides readers to the realization of that opportunity with "The Ten Stages of Zen Sex" and "The Six Principles in the Way of...
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In zen, every moment is a chance to lose ourselves in the substance of life, every encounter an opportunity for spiritual awakening. In this passionate and inspiring guide, Philip Toshio Sudo explains the zen of sex. "Don't try. Do," say zen masters. Put technique aside. Stop fretting over sexual frequency. Love your body. Frolic. Tease. Make love. All it takes to be a good zen lover is a giving heart, and the awareness of the life force coursing through our bodies. Zen Sex will help you cultivate that love within the capacity for feeling ecstasy and giving joy that is nothing short of divine. . Anyone who desires more fulfilling sex can put the classic zen principles offered here into practice in their lives. Zen parables, koans, and poems illuminate Sudo's message, meditations encourage pause and reflection, and exercises get you started on the Way of Making Love, zen style. . Great sex, zen sex, reminds us that we are ever alive and full of love. In making love, our bodies intertwined, we are at one with ourselves, each other, and with the very source of life. "Every night of passion becomes an opportunity to elevate the human spirit." Spirituality and Health The way of zen is to give all to the moment, no matter what we are doing. According to this tradition, we are connected to sex by "the red thread" of blood at birth. Although certain elements of Buddhism stress celibacy and emphasize abstinence, Philip Toshio Sudo (Zen Computer is convinced that sex can enrich the experience of enlightenment.One of the most honored zen masters in history, Ikkyu Sojun (1394-1481), had little respect for a paint-by-numbers approach to zen. In one of the many poems of his quoted in this work, he says: "The autumn breeze of a single night of love is better than a hundred thousand years of sterile sitting meditation." For him, "the Way of Desire" served as his koan.Sudo has divided this combination of eros, desire, sexual practice, and lovemaking into sections on "the seven ways of the mind," "the seven ways of the body," and "the seven ways of the spirit." The text is spiced up with examples of the Japanese art form known as "shonga" or "spring pictures" that were used as illustrations for love novels, posters for pleasure quarters, and instruction manuals for young wives and married couples from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries."Great sex," Sudo writes, "is sheer abandonment, letting go of inhibition and self-consciousness and giving in to the heat of the moment." The author shows how zen salutes the aphrodisiac of fantasy, conquering haste in the bedroom, making the most of improvisation and the least of perfection, engaging all the senses, and giving for the sheer pleasure of giving. Zen Sex by Philip Toshio Sudo makes a good case for the transcendent communion that can take place in the act of making love.
Zen Sex\ The Way of Making Love \ \ By Sudo, Philip T. \ HarperSanFrancisco\ ISBN: 006075799X \ \ \ Chapter One\ What Is Zen Sex\ A sex-loving monk, you object!\ Hot-blooded and passionate, totally aroused.\ -- Zen master Ikkyu Sojun (1394-1481)\ In life, there are many paths to attaining true wisdom. Zen is one of them. Sex is another.\ This is where the two paths converge.\ On first hearing the term Zen Sex, many readers may wonder what could possibly be zen about sex. Zen is supposed to be quiet, tranquil, still as a rock garden. Imagine: Minimalist sex! Making love without moving! Sounds like a real turn-on....\ And aren't zen monks supposed to be celibate? They take strict ascetic vows. Technically, can there even be Zen Sex?\ This book explains that Zen Sex does exist, and it's more than minimal -- in fact, it's mind-blowing. For those who want the truth, Zen Sex is the best sex you can possibly have.\ How to get it, and what it can mean for your life, is what this book is all about.\ We live in an age obsessed with sex. From news accounts of politicians' sex lives to Internet pornography to Viagra to sexual harassment to the latest perversity on "trash TV" talk shows, we're inundated with sexual messages and imagery. Sex has been politicized, criminalized, sensationalized, sold as entertainment' -- even, in the AIDS crisis, equated with death. Confusing messages abound: Sex is immoral. Sex isdirty. Sex is dangerous. Sex is supposed to be superorgasmic or something's wrong with you, and this magazine/product/lifestyle will correct it.\ Lost amid this blather is a simple truth:\ Sex is sacred.\ For all our obsession with sex -- who's getting it, how often, how good -- we forget sometimes that sex connects us in the most basic way to the source of Creation. All of us began as a combination of sperm and egg, man and woman. At its best, sex takes us back to that beginning, transcending the mere fulfillment of our animal desires to reveal our inherent divinity as Creators; it becomes a spiritual endeavor, as profound as any religious rite or ritual, each act symbolizing the origin of life.\ Like sex, the study of zen takes us back to our origins as well. It says we can awaken to the divine source at the core of our being, the source from which all things are born, and in so doing, transcend the limits of space and time.\ The ideas of zen date back thousands of years, with origins in India and China. Although often considered synonymous with Zen Buddhism, "pure " zen is not a religion, but a spiritual philosophy. The word zen itself is Japanese and means "meditation" or "absorption." Traditional zen practice emphasizes sustained meditative breathing, but in the largest sense, zen is simply an absorption in life -- the essence of life. Quietude and meditation may be aspects of zen, but zen itself is vibrantly alive. Its way is the way of nature, changing like the seasons.\ To say that zen has nothing to do with sex would be to say that sex is unnatural. Nothing could be further from the truth. The way of zen is to allow nature to express itself through all of our actions, whatever they are, in the same way the cherry blossom blooms naturally in the spring.\ Religious adherents sometimes renounce sex as an earthly desire to be transcended, and zen monks are no different.\ These monks, typically Zen Buddhists, have formalized an approach to zen using a Buddhist system of strictures and rules. Entering the monastery, they take strict vows of asceticism as a means to self-purification. But "Pure" zen decries attachment to religious orthodoxy or any doctrinaire pursuit of enlightenment. One of the most revered zen masters in history, Ikkyu Sojun (1394-148 1), mocked the rules of monasteries and their extremes of self-denial. In poem after poem, he sang the praises of wine and physical love, of taking a lover and frequenting brothels. A famous example of his poetry follows:\ Ten days\ In the monastery\ Made me restless.\ The red thread\ On my feet\ Is long and unbroken.\ If one day you come\ Looking for me,\ Ask for me\ At the fishmonger's,\ In the tavern,\ Or in the brothel.\ \ To Ikkyu, cutting off relations between men and women so as to attain enlightenment made no sense. In his philosophy of "red thread zen," sex deepened the experience of enlightenment. No one can enter this world without being born of both a man and a woman, he said; we are connected to sex by the "red thread" of blood at birth. Back and back the red thread goes, long and unbroken, to the origin of all being. We're of sex. That fact should be embraced, not avoided, Ikkyu said. He openly wore his priest's robes to the pleasure quarters to signify the spiritual nature of his activity:\ Me, I am praised as a general of Zen,\ Tasting life and enjoying sex to the fullest!\ Every moment, be it in sex or quiet meditation, offers a chance for zen realization. Let anything and everything be your source of absorption, for zen truth applies to all things at all times. No matter how you come to zen -- through archery, motorcycle maintenance, flower arranging, martial arts, guitar playing, or lovemaking -- the progression toward enlightenment is the same. In Ikkyu's words,\ Many paths lead from\ The foot of the mountain\ \ Continues...\ \ \ \ Excerpted from Zen Sex by Sudo, Philip T. Excerpted by permission.\ All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.\ Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site. \ \
\ Spirituality and Health magazine“Zen Sex ... makes a good case for the transcendent communion that can take place in the act of making love.”\ \ \ \ \ Spirituality & Health magazine“Zen Sex ... makes a good case for the transcendent communion that can take place in the act of making love.”\ \ \ Spirituality and Health Magazine"Zen Sex ... makes a good case for the transcendent communion that can take place in the act of making love."\ \
