Tantric Sex for Men: Making Love a Meditation (10 page)

AWARENESS

The expression “It’s not what you do, but how you do it” is more deeply understood through these simple yet profound words of Osho: “Tantra is the transformation of sex into love through awareness.” These few words encapsulate the essence of tantra, which is about awareness—nothing more, nothing less. If we are aware and conscious during sex, sex transforms into love. Awareness changes the whole quality of sex, and the fragrance and climate of love is naturally generated through awareness. Woman’s heart and body respond vibrantly to man rooted in the present through his awareness.

Staying Present within the Body

The elusive present moment is created through bringing awareness to the body, holding the attention in the body, millisecond by millisecond. Being aware of body position, movements, and breath and relaxing habitual tensions are basic tools to accessing and staying in the present. The body always exists in the present; it is the mind that roams around in past and future thoughts. Before a man can understand how to remain present while making love with a woman, he must first establish a relationship with his own body. He can literally embody his own body by taking his attention inside the body and away from thoughts and fantasies. As one retreat participant a few years ago reported, “It’s incredible, I am a fifty-four-year-old man, and nobody has ever told me to feel inside my body. And it is paradise in there!”

Another encouraging example was this: less than twenty-four hours into the retreat a man raised his hand and complained, “It’s all very well for you to say, ‘Feel all the subtle pleasant inner sensations.’ You’ve been doing it for more than twenty years. I can feel absolutely nothing.” We assured him that he needed to give himself more time and that practice makes perfect. The week continued without any further comment from him, so on the final day we asked how he was feeling in his body. He looked at us, eyes and face radiant with love, and said just one word: “Unbelievable!”

See the appendix for specific exercises to bring attention into your body.

Relax and Breathe

There is a tendency for us to tighten various muscles or clench muscle groups unconsciously, without really realizing it. Such tensions have become a habit and a way of life to the extent that as we are falling asleep, we may realize we are unconsciously holding ourselves up on the bed. We are not letting go and allowing even our place of comfort and repose to fully receive us. Physical tensions compress the energy system and restrict the expansion of vitality through the body. So it is enormously helpful to become aware of these tensions and release them, or breathe into them, while you are making love. Physical relaxation and conscious breathing will also reduce the pressure to ejaculate. (See the appendix for particular ways to scan the body and check for tension.)

Eye Contact and Communication

Generally speaking people make love in the dark, with closed eyes and without much meeting of the eyes. Although it might feel a little awkward in the beginning, connecting eye to eye immediately creates a feeling of intimacy and brings you in touch with the present. The eye contact is not a fixed stare, but an introverted, soft, receptive gaze that invites your partner into you. As you enter woman, or as you change positions, allow the eyes to meet and engage. And at the same time, feel how your genitals engage. Maintaining eye contact is not a rule but a suggestion, a tool to increase awareness and presence. Closing the eyes and taking awareness into your own body, in order to strengthen your inner connection and sensitivity, will also be necessary from time to time. It’s a good thing to tell your partner why you are closing your eyes, so the person doesn’t feel abandoned or excluded.

To amplify the experience of the present moment, you will be surprised how much sharing what is happening to you on an inner body level—communicating out loud—helps to intensify the inner experience. Acknowledging your inner sensitivities and sensations verbally has the effect of intensifying them, and you’ll find your body unexpectedly rewarding you for having noticed the existence of its cellular subtleties and vitality. Only a few words are needed to convey what you feel within yourself on a body-heart-soul level, as if you are giving an inner weather report. Your partner does not have to respond directly, unless she wants to communicate what she feels within herself. These kinds of body reports are a great key to tracking your way to the present and can be done either before as a kind of foreplay or while actually making love. It will also eliminate any need for the clichéd, “Was it good for you?” because you will know during the process.

Consideration of the Receptive Force

As we now can appreciate, there is a distinct advantage to the female partner being in a state of receptivity in order to allow the male force through her. Like man, woman also needs the opportunity to enter her own body and become alive to her inner world. Since you know it will take longer for woman’s body to warm up, wait until your woman says she is ready to take you in. Wait for a “yes,” an invitation. Women tend to yield to pressure because they have not yet learned to trust and honor their feminine systems. They get messages from their bodies, but there is a tendency for woman to override her inner wisdom; frequently she feels compelled to let man into her before she is truly ready. Part of woman’s sexual conditioning is to please man, usually because she is afraid of losing him or losing his love. When man is aware of the pleasing tendency of woman, he can begin to understand it as the female counterpart to the male pressure to perform.

When you wait, create space, and support woman to relax into herself and connect with her internal world, she opens with ease and enthusiasm. Man creates the potential to be inside woman endlessly and tap her higher orgasmic energies. When a “yes” comes from woman in her totality, it is as if she’s plugged into a circuit from which she finds it difficult to disconnect. She is neither frigid nor rigid, but vital and receptive. For man to be a channel or conduit for his true male energy, the equal and opposite force must also be available, so man needs to be constantly aware of the receptacle that is receiving the flow of his life force.

MOVEMENT

There is a common misconception that tantra means no movement during sex. We heartily endorse movement, not for the sake of movement itself, but because it creates more aliveness and presence. Movements should also seek to enhance the correspondent dynamic-receptive potential of the genital contact. Stillness is an option, and something that you may develop an appreciation for over time, but initially most people usually enjoy alternating phases of movement with phases of stillness.

Awareness and Tempo

Any movement done consciously, which means you feel yourself as you do it, changes the quality of the experience dramatically. Done with awareness, all movements naturally become slower, and the body becomes more sensual and sensitive; you become totally engaged in the unfolding present. Be alert and aware as you approach each other, embrace, kiss, move, change position, move the penis within the vagina—be aware in whatever you do. There is a natural slowing down when any action is done with awareness. You are not slowing down to follow a rule, but instead discovering that when you are aware, you do in fact move more slowly. And you can feel more; your sensitivity increases. Slowness is an outcome, a by-product of being more conscious. Out of curiosity or for fun, you can ask yourself, “How slow is slow?” And get into an inquiry.

Come together in an unhurried way, while staying in awareness. Remain alert, attentive, and conscious in the body. Let there be a flow; allow it to happen, rather than forcing or pushing it in certain directions. Allow an easy, innocent, playful, spontaneous unfolding without knowing what will happen next.

Goal-oriented Movement Becomes Mechanical

Movements that have the goal of building up to a climax will have an intrinsic pressure powering them, whereas movements that do not have a goal can arise fluidly from the requirements of bodies in the moment. There is nothing wrong with movement per se; movement is life, but at the same time we need to remain aware and steer clear of the tendency to be mechanical in the sex act. The usual movement of the penis in the vagina is forward and backward thrusts, a linear movement. But movements can also be made in a more expansive three-dimensional way, reaching into different angles of the vaginal canal (as described later, in chapter 8 within the context of sexual healing and male empowerment).

Movements made with the intention of creating pleasure and excitement will tend to become mechanical, and when we become like machines, we lose awareness and sensitivity. With the focus on stimulation, our awareness of what is taking place in the body on a more subtle level tends to diminish. Our attention or focus is more on building up intensity, rather than on taking delight in each of the individual movements taking place.

Usually, a woman will push her genitals forward (using her pelvis) at the very same moment the man thrusts or moves into her. Physically speaking, just from the mechanics of the musculature, the vagina becomes narrower and tighter during a forward push. This tightening results in the vagina being less receptive in this phase of the movement. As a consequence, woman is not truly available to the dynamic force entering her body.

Another option is to let man do the moving, while woman holds still. Instead of woman pushing forward to meet man’s movement, she tilts her pelvis upward at an angle and remains still. In this nonmoving position a woman is able to put all her attention into her vagina—into the receiving, absorbing, and welcoming of the penis into her body. A pillow can be placed beneath the buttocks in order to raise the level of the pelvis, if so desired. Man will perceive his conscious movement in woman far more deeply if she is able to fulfill her part of the design, which is to act as receptor for the dynamic force.

The Difference between Lust and Passion

When the dynamic and receptive forces in our bodies are honored, we become more present and naturally more passionate. Passion is pure presence, aliveness, and spontaneity. In passion there can also be strong movements that might look the same as the movements of conventional sex from the outside, but the inner experience is vastly different. The movements contain an inner stillness because they belong to the domain of the here and now; there is no direction, no goal, and no agenda. Nothing is planned or expected. Instead, each individual is engaged, with full awareness merged into the unfolding of each and every millimeter of movement. Each millisecond of any movement is a completion in itself.

In contrast, when movement contains lust, there is a tendency to be ahead of oneself, slightly mechnical, with the movements being focused on building up to a crescendo. The individual movements are not independent or complete in themselves. When lust drives the lovemaking, frustration and disappointment are likely to follow a sudden interruption because something desired was not reached or achieved. The act is incomplete because the goal was not fulfilled. By contrast, when passion is unexpectedly interrupted, everything is simply perfect as it is. Each second has been utterly complete in itself, so there is simply no sense of any loss at all. In fact, passionate sex can be resumed at any moment, while in lustful sex there will usually be a sense of deflation and loss of interest because the heat and excitement will have gone out of the situation.

THE ART OF CONSCIOUS PENETRATION

When erection is present it is recommended that the very first movement into the vagina be exceptionally conscious. The first move sets the stage for what is to follow. The penis should enter the vagina slowly, millimeter by millimeter. A number of positions are possible, the most direct and easy being the missionary position, with woman lying on her back and man kneeling between her legs. The head of the penis can enter the vagina and gradually open it along its entire length, gently probing slowly but surely up the canal. Resting from time to time allows you to take in the view, which means feeling in and down into your body and especially into your penis. A single movement can easily be extended to many minutes, or an entire lovemaking session of several hours can be one divine immersion in woman’s body. These experiences can change your life and your whole view of sex.

The problem with an entry by the penis that is fast or aggressive and lacking in awareness is that woman (unconsciously or consciously) closes her vagina to protect herself from possible intense pain. The upper vagina tightens to prevent the penis from thrusting into the very delicate and sensitive cervix—the entrance to the womb. When woman is hit here it really hurts. Such naturally defensive contractions, both physical and psychological, definitely influence woman’s receptivity and capacity to absorb, which means she is no longer feminine in relation to man. With conscious, slow penetration, woman has the chance to invite, welcome, and caress each millimeter of the probing penis.

There is a distinction between being careful and being conscious. One is not being “careful” in relation to woman; carefulness implies a certain tension, a holding back, a fear of hurting the other, which is more an attitude lacking in self-awareness. With carefulness, one’s attention is externally focused on the other and not on the self. We are up and out, and have left home, so to speak. When one is conscious, one is self-aware and automatically acts with care as a by-product of that awareness, rather than as an intention to “be careful.” When a man is conscious, he also becomes more confident.

Awareness, Slowness, and Sensitivity

The greatest advantage of awareness, of being conscious during penetration, is that you can feel “into” the penis on a cellular level. Finally you have the time and there is nowhere to go (toward ejaculation), so you can instead focus your attention inside the penis itself. Listening to the penis and becoming aware of its gradual movement greatly increases its sensitivity and allows the perception of inner, fine, cellular, delicate, delightful sensations that expand throughout the body. An unhurried, aimless, no goals approach is vital to making this possible.