When your mind is taken by anything from what you are doing, when it drifts off or your attention is distracted to something else, the first thing you need to understand in being able to master your mind is: what is your mind going to, and then, what is the reason that your mind goes to that item.
If it is a car or something material, then it’s just greed and the enjoyment of pretty things and maybe ego or marketing, which makes you want it.
Or it’s just beautiful and we naturally like to have beautiful things. Or you want the experience of driving a Ferrari, whatever it is.
But when it’s a pretty woman, or whatever a person is attracted to sexually, you are being drawn. That comes from animal instincts, hormones, chemical processes.
This is a totally different cause of what takes your attention away from whatever you want to be focused on. And therefore, being a totally different reason and cause for your attention to be diverted, it requires a totally different method of dealing with it.
If it is a material object like a car, then you can easily develop the reminder to yourself of: ‘It’s just a thing. Things come, things go. They don’t really change my life.’
The way you do that is by remembering every desire you’ve ever had for a material thing, going back to when you were a kid and you wanted that particular toy, whatever it was, and remembering how you wanted it, you wanted it so much. And when you got it, the next day you were already bored. It didn’t keep a satisfaction.
But when it comes to a sexual interest, you can’t deal with that the same way because it is chemicals within the brain instead of just marketing telling you that you want it, and you foolishly fall prey to the hypnotic power of the marketing.
So let’s say you’re focused on whatever you are doing, your exercise for example. Then a pretty girl goes by, and now you’re distracted with wanting to have sex. Of course, this goes both ways, for girls looking at guys.
What happens is your brain sees and gets information through your eyes and other senses, perfume is a powerful sexual tool, your brain identifies and sends the signals to produce the chemicals for sexual arousal, which you cannot overcome because the chemicals in your brain are far more powerful than your ability to think and focus, and your brain then changes what it was focused on to sex.
When it is a material thing, your brain changes because of programming, marketing, intellectual information, which told you this thing is good to have. It’s easy to overcome that influence because it is so obvious that getting that new thing is not really going to change your life.
But when it is a chemical reaction within the brain that comes from the animal instincts of propagation of the species, having sex, because nature will win every time.
You have to know that you cannot just reason out your distraction or ignore or avoid it from taking your attention when it is of a sexual nature because your ability to reason is by using the brain, the intellect, but it is totally overcome by chemicals.
Every cell of your body has now been overtaken by being infused with this chemical reaction at the cellular level, that there’s no way thought alone can overcome that.
You can say Buddha didn’t have a sexual desire. No, that’s not true. Maybe eventually Buddha himself overcame it, but the monks all had the desire, which is why Buddha said, no women allowed. And he said, when you go out in public, keep your eyes looking at the ground. Do not look up so you don’t see a woman and get excited.
Even Buddha said there’s no way to overcome the chemical reaction which is going to overpower your mind as soon as you see someone of sexual enticement.
There’s nothing you can do about it, except isolate yourself and never actually physically see a sexual object or person.
All you can do is accept the chemical reaction and do your best to stay focused on what you’re doing, bring your mind back to it.
But like I say, it’s totally different if you’re talking about a material thing, which is a desire caused by marketing. So it’s not instinctive, it’s only water in the fuel tank, so it’s easy to control.
This has nothing to do with an individual person or level of development. This is a human factor, every human is subject to this, it’s an animal instinct regardless of who you are.
Now is where it gets tricky, creative energy and positive energy versus depression. An overall state of happiness or depression is a chemical thing in the body and the brain. Sexual excitement makes a person happy. This is why people do drugs. That changes the chemicals in the brain to change their mood.
So if you want to be creative and ambitious and motivated and happy in general, you need the sexual excitement. So I’m not saying to avoid it. What I think the only thing I could say is to allow yourself to get excited but do not follow through unless it’s appropriate.
Allow the excitement to grow within you because that makes you overall a happier, more positive, creative, energetic, motivated person. So, no, I’m not telling anyone to avoid it, I’m just saying your following actions are what you have the ability to control, and make sure that that’s appropriate.
Buddha did not say don’t have sex. He said do not participate in wrongful sex, meaning inappropriate. Sexual energy has always, in every ancient tradition, been known as the rocket fuel to take you to higher levels of experience, if correctly conserved and used.
Learn that, or at least enjoy the feeling and find someone who wants to share that with you.
Start the conversation