PART TWO

Self-Pleasure

As conscious humans we are seeking the best. What will satisfy us.
This is why pleasure is such an important piece. When we are 
pleasured at its most total state, when we are in a state of 
bliss, we are satisfied. We are no longer in that tiresome seeking
state. And so we want to see if our whole life can be a pathway of
bliss creation. When we are in this state once again we recognize
we are the universe. 

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WHAT IS PLEASURE?

Sexual enjoyment, satisfaction, delight is a generally accepted definition. To me these notions of satisfaction and delight are not necessarily what we would call pleasant experiences. But for some reason they bring us a sense of satisfaction and delight.

Sometimes some pain actually satisfies us. Sometimes not getting what we want exactly brings a smile to our face in a way we don’t understand. The realm of sexuality ofcourse done with reverence is often very under explored because pleasure is such a vast field and complicated because the things we think we should like are not always what turns us on. To explore it takes attention, self-awareness and openness.

The quality of AWE is also part of pleasure. A state of awe, wonder, that space of not closing down the moment, not putting a period at the end of our minds conceptions, we are broken out of our habitual mind and clinging to witness life as it truly is. This allows joy to naturally fill us. Because we are not separate from the universe. We are not separate from the well of love that we are, the well of pure joy that we are. We are no longer heartbroken from the loss of something or someone, we are heart broken because we are not holding our heart together. We are letting the sensation in us, the tenderness, blast open beyond and willing to remain, while continuing to unfurl. 

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BENEFITS

To allow our beings to experience pleasure sexually, can alleviate anger and other tendencies that create suffering and pain. It can alleviate health issues including depression and poor sleep. 

If we can open ourselves fully in pleasure with ourselves, we can open ourselves fully to our lover and then open ourselves to the world. We shift the way we look at the world and people if we come from a beneficial experience of pleasure. We are opening to the current of life, the fire of life. This isn’t an avoidance but a transformative path of using the potency of pleasure to awaken ourselves and bring joy to the world.

This is an essential aspect of this view of pleasure, that we have a beneficial intention. Pleasure who’s end goal is to become further self-obsessed and is just to gather as much delight for ourselves is not a liberating pleasure. Rather one that makes us more self-protective which creates hardness and suffering and the opposite of pleasure in the long term. We still won’t be satisfied with this view of pleasure.

And at the same time, we start where we are, which is always with our selves. Some of our wells of love are empty and need to be refilled. No matter how full or empty our well feels to be, we all must begin with ourselves. And when we are full, we can overflow in pleasure, while always keeping that intention that we benefit others through our pleasurable activities.

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HOW TO INCREASE PLEASURE?

We practice pleasure. 

Through practice we proclaim that pleasure is worthy of our time and make it part of our life rather than something that spontaneously arrives if we are lucky or we are having a “good” day. Through practice we give ourselves fresh opportunities rather than it being a one shot deal. We shift our neural pathways to let pleasure be more of our default. 

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Ways we practice pleasure

I. MIND TRAINING

Attention is everything. Where is our mind? What are we focused on? Are we awake to the sensations in our body? Appearances are created in the mind. Pleasure is rooted in perception. How much we adore our embodiment, how much we can open to the richness of sensation and allow bliss and love to flow through us is rooted in the mind. So often we spend time changing the body and outer circumstances, but we are overlooking where our pleasure grows from, our perception. 

II. RECOGNIZE EMERGING MOMENT

Generally most of us have a commitment to familiarity which is not alive but stagnant, and a mental creation rather than one that is emerging in the present.  When we live committed to familiarity, we overlook what wants to meet us. Including the alluring glance of our lover, the air touching our cheek, the adjustment of our lovers voice that tells us something about them and our selves when we receive it, the heat moving through our own being, the space for astonishment and possibility, the blood to nectar moving to our nether regions. 

III. WELCOME MEANING

We give meaning to life. A moment can be mundane or we can allow it to be something worthy of our attention. We can allow a moment to be ordinary or pleasurable. Meaning we let it open us, touch us, penetrate us … To give us information and insight. The way we perceive and the depth of openness to the present experience allows the combination of perception and sensation to intensify and this can increase our experience of pleasure.

IV. SEE DIVINITY

Recognizing we are divine beings. We are not just blah, skin bones blood. We are not our names, lineage, possessions, lack of possessions, family, relationships, you name it … anything we can name lol … we are not just that. We are consciousness, visions of the universe, of all of existence. On the relative state when we see each other, we appear separate. But on the absolute state we are completely enmeshed with cosmic nature. We are divine experiences in human bodies. We are the sun rise, the sun set. What creates the vast experience of AWE.

If we only recognize ourselves as humans, we overlook our perfection and see humans separate from the rest of existence. 

We must learn to see our divinity or else we can not go beyond self. And the reason sexual union is so sublime is it gives us an opportunity to let go of the sense of separation … Here we are in union fully with our divine nature. So fully committed to the brilliance of being, that nothing is lacking. 

To see ourselves as divine, our hands fall open, ready to give the gift, ready to receive the gift. We are empty handed and also full of all of creation. We come with this mentality when we recognize our divine nature. We cover our body in whatever we deem to be the ornaments worn by divine beings. Perhaps we are perfectly naked and our skin is glowing in the splendor of freedom and love.

As divine beings we are not solid. This is important. We can not pin ourselves down and keep our identify and form as it is. In our divine image, we amplify the truth of our cosmic nature. And here we simply radiate glorious pure life and wakefulness. 

V. RELAX

We are often closed and constricted, tight, strained. It’s okay. Our survival wiring and past experiences have smartly given us the gift of being on call at all times! So we have to retrain ourselves to be masters of our state.  So we can be alert when we need to be, and relaxed when we want to be.

Relaxation is essential for receiving pleasure and opening our mind to possibility. The more we open, the further the floods of bliss can pour through our being and we can open ourselves to offer the gift to our lover and the world.  We can drop into the ocean of beingness to help us relax. We don’t need to fight the world, because we are the world. We can relax a bit too. Choose to rest as the ocean bliss and see what happens. 

REMEMBER: PLEASURE IS A CHOICE

At the heart of pleasure we remember that: welcoming pleasure is a choice. 

Life is not easy. Being on earth is truly an elemental experience meaning we feel the grit of life. We are divine beings having a human experience so we are still here feeling, seeing, experiencing bodies that age and with unknown futures. …. Even if we are on our death bed and in pain and nothing seems to be going our way, we still have a choice on our perspective.

Even if we have one drop of possibility to experience something of awe, that is an opportunity for pleasure.