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(Genpo Roshi)
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.
Excerpt from "Monk in the City"
Zen Master Genpo Roshi founded the Kanzeon Sangha, an international Zen community in 1984, with groups and centers throughout Europe and the U.S., and is abbot of Kanzeon Zen Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, which he founded in 1993. He discovered the Big Mind process in 1999. His newest book is Big Mind Big Heart: Finding Your Way. More at: www.bigmind.org
Very beautiful! In a Spiritual context, once we are able to feel love within our own selves, connecting to our own individuality as love with the love of the divine, then we become able to give love unconditionality.
Hugs, Lily
Nicely put, and it reminded me of a couple of quotations:
"The most intense stimuli is the desire to express sexual energy.
When combined with Love, it is the most powerful of all, and remains a virtue only to the degree that it is used discriminately with wisdom, compassion, and understanding.
With this understanding comes a responsibility to use the extra energy gained in loving and positive ways."
~ Mantak Chia
"For those who aspire to the higher realms of living, there is angelic dual cultivation. Because every portion of the body, mind, and spirit yearns for the integration of yin and yang, angelic intercourse is led by the spirit rather than the sexual organs."
~ Lao Tzu
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Oh, and by the way on an aside, Genpo:
It is by visiting your website that I somehow eventually found out about Intent.com a couple of weeks ago.
So thank you
)
Philip Steven Knight
CompassionSensuality.Net
http://www.compassionsensuality.net
"We will make love an art and we will make love like artists." ~ Marianne Williamson
Namaste
A Beautiful piece.
Embracing ourselves completely is the key to enlightenment. It is also about Understanding your lower nature vs the higher one and bridging the gap between the two.
Doesn't it take an entire lifetime to achieve this?
Thank you Zen Master. It is so enlightening to listen to the mature voices from many spiritual paths acknowledging sacred sexuality. It is clear from neurobiology that the paths within the mind/brain that lead to a spiritual state of consciousness evolved from the sexual state of mind/brain. Feeling your own limited self as well as the Divine simultaneously, Divine Unitary Consciousness or what you call the Big Mind/Big Heart, allows sexuality to go beyond a physical act to an integration of mind and body, an integration of souls, of male and female, of self and Divine and of the Divine male energy, and Divine female energy.
What is so glorious about all of this is that sexuality is the gift given to all of humanity. This path is our greatest gift.
love and light,
Stuart
http://stuartmarkberlin.com
Appears very nice article. My problem is I do not understand what is conveyed. Yes I may draw some interpretations if I am forced to do that.
thanks for the insight. guess different strokes for different folks!
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You forget to mention Genpo that you were thrown out of Bar Harbor Zen Center for sleeping with students. And referring to yourself as a 'Master' that immediately disqualifies you as a Zen teacher, let alone anything else.
And he's been busted yet again. On January 20th, Merzel had to admit to being caught having an affair with someone that he made into one of his 'successors'. He is now seperated and getting divorced again, after lying to his wife and his students:
http://www.museumstuff.com/learn/topics/Dennis_Ge…
Avoid this character at all costs. He is no Zen master.
In fact, even technically now he can no longer call himself a Zen teacher, let alone a master. He can no longer wear the robe and has left the White Plum Asangha – the major Western lineage after it emerged that he has engaged in sexual misconduct with several students.
http://sweepingzen.com/2011/02/07/dennis-genpo-me…
"This resignation is a result of his recent disclosures regarding sexual misconduct with several of his students."
- Gerry Shishin Wick Roshi – President of the White Plum Asangha
As a now FORMER student of Genpo Roshi's, I am dealing with a great deal of pain, confusion, disillusionment and anger at the deception and lack of ethics he displayed. He has left many many people in the painful wake of his choices and lack of adherence to Buddhist principles. I hope this site can provide support and kindness which are difficult to come by in my now former Sangha, amongst siding friends and outside the tornado he left us to clean up. Intentions are powerful. Intentions hold us to our best selves. I am in gratitude for finding this site today.