Vipassana tantra

Uphekkshanam means equanimity.  It was a word used by the Buddha to describe a mental quality perhaps best described as 'accepting'.  A mind full of equanimity has no desire for things to be other than they are - there is no craving, and no aversion.  Pure contentment, pure acceptance.  Mere perception, without judgment.  There is no judgment, no reaction, mere perception, mere compassion.

Uphekkshanam is a state of mind that meditators aspire to, and often fail to achieve.  Meditators are good at concentrating, but many have not cultivated a nervous system that can handle the true neurological implications of deep physiological equanimity.  Overcoming the desire to move when your back hurts is nothing compared to overcoming the desire to argue when you're triggered, let alone the desire to orgasm when your lover wiggles their hips a certain way... in the greatest of ironies, the sexiest, most sensitive people are the ones most easily pulled away from sacred sexuality into conventional orgasmic sex.

You see, real equanimity is a neurological state of physiological relaxation and peace that is cultivated by experiencing physical, somatic pleasure (or pain) without reacting to it with craving, or aversion.  Tattoos and piercing can be said to be both addictive and possibly therapeutic(!) because they also tap into deep states of consciousness and peace by experiencing tremendous pain without reacting to it with aversion.  According to the Buddha, these tantric practices would qualify as equanimity training.  Indian ascetics have been doing such exercises for thousands of years.

This tantric cultivation of nonreactivity touches us deep in our subconscious, where our sexual and survival urges reside.  Vipassana meditation leads to non reactivity, but non reactivity developed in a meditation hall depends upon a pristine context, or environment, to stay nonreactive.  In other words, equanimity may be practiced in the monastery but it is demanded on the battlefield.

Both pleasure and pain lead us into reactivity, and cultivating a path of nonreactivity that avoids both pleasure and pain can be said to be an aversion to the world of the senses, craving nibbana and rejecting samsara.  In the fractal cosmos, where out-there recapitulates in-here,   we crave the emptying completion of orgasm just as we crave the emptying completion of death and nibbana, and we do everything to avoid the ravenous hunger of unsatiated desire just as we avoid the ravenous hunger of insatiable samsara and the ravenous uncertainty of an unknowable future.  Monastics who hide from sex and pain and life and uncertainty are hiding from samsara, are they not?  Bodhisattvas must be brave, indeed.

Real equanimity requires a balanced attitude towards the world of the senses, adoring it, tolerating it, disdaining it, not attaching to it.   It involves controlling our instinctive reactions during pleasure and pain, and one of many ways to train for it is by making love while mastering the urge to orgasm.  (It can also be trained for by getting lots of tattoos without wincing, which is weird but true.)  In fact, our survival as a finite global ecology requires that we learn about sexuality in this way - the sexual urge overwhelms us on so many different occasions our mastery of it is required for sustainable civilization.  Our collective failure to master the sexual urge has led to an overpopulated planet full of insecurity, violence, and pain.  Cultivating neurological equanimity through sexual mastery is the fast path to enlightenment - far superior to conventional sex, which cannot sustain people or planet.  Of course, the potential exists to fall into the hell of the neurotic and compulsive passions - but hey, we're already there, and we've been there our whole lives, right?  So there's nothing to fear.  Because sexual promiscuity is already the new normal, it makes sense to promote sexual equanimity through tantra as a path to peace and the means to balance the energies of the sexes, the energies of yin and yang.  This is the path of the Way, the Tao.

There are three kinds of sex:

Procreational sex (creation of babies)
recreational sex (creation of pleasure)
transformational sex (creation of power)

My understanding is that forces of black tantra are blanketing the globe with satanic sex rituals in an attempt to cultivate more power.  As this power is fear-based, it really has no strength against love.  When transformational sex is used without compassion, fear runs things.  When transformational sex is practiced with compassion, love runs things.  We have to learn about tantra, and we have to practice proper tantra, because the dark forces are using it as much as possible, taking maximum advantage of our ignorance.  We must overcome the powerful creations of fear with the far more powerful creations of love.

The sex drive is actually an orgasm drive, which can be overridden by bringing the sexual energy into the heart through the will - the practice of compassion.  Think of our chakra system -  moving our energy from our sex organs to our heart requires passing it through our belly manipura chakra, which is the center of willpower.  Moving our sexual energy into our hearts requires an act of will.  If we don't have the willpower, we orgasm, and allow the energy to dissipate.

Thus the sex drive may evolve into a love drive, with discipline.  The sexual urge is actually an orgasm urge, and yet this urge yearns to climb the nervous system's ladder to higher levels of intelligence, yearning to love and be loved, by bringing the sexual energy into the heart through the practice of compassion.  Practicing compassion is an act of will.

In meditation, we learn to observe somatic sensations without reacting to them - this is equanimity, and it actually rewires our nervous system.  In tantric lovemaking, we learn to observe sensations without reacting to them - this is tantric  equanimity,  and it totally rewires the human nervous system at its most primitive level.  What does sex look like when the orgasm drive is removed?  It actually looks a bit goalless, like mere relationship for relationship's sake.  This is the healing dance between the primordial opposites of yin and yang, this is the Tao, the Way - the interpenetration of opposites.  Tantra.  Contemporary talking heads call it karezza - tantric sex, sex without desire, sex without animalistic compulsion.  Angel sex, not donkey sex, but never quote me.

Once we recognize that we want out of the 'feed and breed' domesticated slave life of our lower nature, we tend to yearn for spiritual life, and so we attempt to renounce craving and aversion at the somatic level.  But if we choose celibacy, we may actually be cultivating aversion as much as equanimity.  As westerners we still have sex, which feeds the ultimate craving.  We cannot overcome desire without overcoming the desire to orgasm - and so we repress our sexuality.  This is one very common way to begin spiritual life.

Repressing our sexuality is really just a form of aversion.  We are averse to sexuality, because it ruins our equanimity.  But this is the key - sexuality doesn't ruin our equanimity, orgasm does!  Orgasm destroys our equanimity, but sex can actually be good for it, if we pull the energy into our manipura chakra, which harnesses the energy as willpower and gives us the strength to not orgasm and love instead.  We can actually move away from orgasm by moving deeper into sexuality, but this requires real partnership, real willpower, and real compassion.  We don't need less sex, or more sex, we need sexual maturity, to cultivate mastery, by which we usher in a world of harmony between yin and yang.

Tantric sex?   The key to world peace?  Gimme a break!  Who makes this shit up, honestly?