Useful Suggestions to those who are considering long-term celibacy (Brahmacharya)

Dear Buddhists,


Here are some useful suggestions/recommendations for those who hope to maintain long-term celibacy (like those who hope to be ordained as celibate monks in the future). A Facebook group admin sent this as a message to a Theravada Buddhist and he sent this to me also. I edited the text to make it more presentable in this group. Please do note that there is reference to some Hindu-related practices but they will not break our vows (such as Refuge Vows, Precepts, Bodhisattva Vows etc).


1. Diet - Everything you ingest affects the brain and thus your mind and thus your thinking. If you are eating meat, you will feel physical lust and desire sexual release. You will be more emotional and have lustful thoughts. Concentration, meditation will be more difficult. A diet high in fat, sugar, spices, even if its vegan, will cause you to think about, and obsess over sex .it stimulates the right side of the brain, the seat of emotions. I have found a vegan diet, no sugar, no spices, low in fat, to be essential in controlling and mastering my thoughts and conquering lust. I follow a vegan diet called macrobiotics.


2. Mantras -the recitation of a mantra. It will change your thoughts and point your mind in a different direction away from lust. There have been many times in the past when lustful thoughts arose. 10 -20 minutes reciting a mantra and lust, desire was gone. My mind and emotions in a different, dispassionate place. I never found "Buddho" to be effective. Different mantras, different words affect different chakras and different parts of the brain. Some mantras affect the right side of the brain and help to shut down the emotion of lust. They affect higher chakras and draw your energy away from the 2nd chakra, the chakra of lust.


3. Asana - One of these things you must do is redirect the flow of your body's sexual energies. Right now they are flowing downward, you feel physical lust, physical sex-desire. The goal is to redirect these energies so that they flow upward to the brain. I suggest these yoga exercises: Siddhasana, Ashwini mudra, Vajroli mudra, Moola banda.

This one I find most effective :

".During the time of sex-irritations. sit down cross-legged or kneel down in an open place. Inhale slowly, and very slowly but cautiously close the anus firmly, bring the lower. abdomen towards the spine, be uttering OM and slowly. very slowly and cautiously drag the irritating force from the very tip of the genitals backward towards the anus and then upwards towards the head, and then exhale slowly. Continue this process for ten or twenty minutes. Be uttering OM all the while. While tracing the mind from the tip of genital towards the head, think that you are actually taking the irritating force from the genitals upwards. While inhaling or taking the breath inside, think firmly that you are filling your whole body and mind with Purity, holiness, strength, power, and perfection. While exhaling, think that you are throwing out from your mind and body, all the impurities, weaknesses, disease, lust, sins and other evil things. This process will help immensely and will save you from the fall. This process can be practiced daily in the morning and in the evening with an empty stomach for ten to thirty minutes. If this practice is regularly carried out,

it will help one very much to retain Brahmacharya, to check wet dreams, and to dry and convert the secreted semen into the great mental energy called Ojas Shaktiâ. This method helps meditation also'

-Swami Narayanananda.

This is the same exercise -

Contract your anus and hold it as long as possible.

While you are holding the anus contracted, make your sexual energy located at the lower Chakras to move up towards and into your head. This can be done by moving your attention along the spine upwards repeatedly and trying to feel for the energy moving up the spine.

If at first, even if you don't feel anything; continue, gradually after some days you will really perceive the energy moving up your spine with this technique.

Repeat this tracking the energy up the spine 30-60 times while holding the anus contracted throughout the whole procedure

Do this daily to maintain Brahmacharya easily. By doing this technique daily I found that any unfavorable circumstance outside , cannot disturb my Brahmacharya. Also doing this before sleeping will surely prevent wet dreams

This technique will keep the mind pure and you will notice a considerable decrease in lust in yogic terms you are taking energy from the Muladhara chakra up the Sushumna to the brain. Attempting to take energy from lower chakras to higher ones


4. Fasting - 2 or 3 days without food will do much to turn your mind away from lust, build willpower, lessen your attachment to food. Many substitute the pleasures of food for sex.


5. If you haven't already, you will have to say goodbye to your friends who pursue lust. Hanging around people whose every other word is about sex, is about women, will make your own attempts at celibacy fail. These friends will keep ideas in your head that you are striving to rid yourself of. You will without thinking, try to fit in with your friends, laugh and joke with them, take in their ideas and values, and you will remain the person you have been, the person you are trying to change


6. Mindfulness - Are you already practicing mindfulness at every moment? you must keep watch over your thoughts and not allow them to go racing off down a lustful path. Think about how it has been in the past. You saw a woman on television or in real life or in a magazine and you allowed your thoughts to run after her, to dwell upon her, to lust her. You have to decide you don't want to do this anymore. Mantra japa is effective in stopping these thoughts, more so than watching the breath, and can be done anywhere at any time. When lustful thoughts enter your mind, do japa for ten or twenty minutes and it will put your mind in a different place. The repetition of these good thoughts will put the bad ones aside. When you are out in the world it is a good idea to keep japa, to keep your mantra in mind. If you are not thinking about japa, what will you be thinking about then? What you saw on television last night, what you'll have for your next meal, isn' t that woman over there pretty? Keep your mantra with you at all times. Keep wholesome thoughts in your head.

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7. Coming from a Theravadin Buddhist background, you are probably familiar with the Asubha meditations. Meditating on the impurities of the body. The woman whom our lust tells us is so wonderful is like each of us filled with shit and piss and smelly armpits and bad breath. "Even though a woman’s private parts are not different from a deep

and festering ulcer, men generally deceive themselves by imagining them to be different. I salute those who take delight in a piece of skin split in two scented by the breaking of the wind! What could be more rash?" (Naradaparivrajaka Upanishad .looking at the pictures of corpses remembering that we will soon be a corpse, the women we feel lust for will soon be stinking,rotting corpse. Having such an image in mind to be called on when lust arises


8. Books on Brahmacharya - read Moola Bandha. Read the book "the practice of brahmacharya".


9. Pranayama - simple pranayama will help to focus your mind and free it of lust. Here are past posts

https://www.facebook.com/groups/996309883792184/permalink/1530857557004078/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/996309883792184/permalink/1575645989191901/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/996309883792184/permalink/1584342791655554/


Please feel free to add any useful content to the points which are already there or additional suggestions.

 

No problem. I am aware that some of these suggestions are not mentioned in the Buddhist texts such as the Pali Canon or the Kengyur. But some of the points are relevant to a Buddhist lifestyle given that in this day and age we have obstacles which did not exist back in the time of Buddha such as junk food and news.

If we take junk food, this type of food is very low quality and tend to make the mind more dull and more inclined towards mindless sex. Junk food, meat and dairy tends to make the mind more attracted towards lust as compared to eating vegetables. I am not saying that all Buddhists who want to reach enlightenment need to be obsessed about diet - this is not the point. But if we can avoid a lot of these obstacles then the easier the path will become.