The Third Grave Precept: I Take Up the Way of Not Misusing Sex.

Bodhidharma: Self-nature is subtle and mysterious. In the realm of the ungilded Dharma, not creating a veneer of attachment is called the Precept of Not Misusing Sex.

Dogen Zenji: The Three Wheels are pure and clear. When you have nothing to desire, you follow the way of all Buddhas.

Robert Chotan Gyoun Aitken Roshi:  Sexual intercourse is misused when it is an addiction rather than the peak experience of love between a committed couple. All the Precepts point to addictive behaviour, stealing, lying, using alcohol or drugs, slandering, even killing. Addiction reveals a lack of confidence, a need for something from others, the interdependence of all things inverted for just one being. It is no good condemning promiscuity as immoral behaviour, for it is only a symptom of general immaturity. Like anybody else, the addict needs guidance to find a way to forget the self.

Recovery is America’s secular religion. It has orthodoxy and orthopraxis, congregations and a whole social structure that surrounds it. One thing I’ve found throughout the years is that the people I trusted the most were people on some sort of spiritual path. Problem was – as with a lot of my evangelical Christian friends – that spiritual path had sides I strongly disagreed with. I have a number of friends in recovery, working the Steps, and they’re similarly people I can trust. And, at least so far, I haven’t found a problem with the program.

Addiction – the compulsion to overuse alcohol, drugs, food, indebtedness… and, yeah, sex,  - is a problem of epidemic proportions in the West. Sex is maybe the most insidious of these, because it’s so closely bound up with – and so can be confused with – love, one of our highest emotions.

Aitken Roshi refers to misusing sex as taking something should be shared… that it’s a kind of pathological selfishness. And if there’s a drug more powerful than romantic love – or a rush more reliably satisfying than a good, screaming orgasm – I haven’t found it yet. And not for lack of trying.

I’ve grubbed around on the addictive side of sexuality, and done myself (not to mention innocent others) a lot of harm. It’s a big part of the reason why I am choosing to remain solo for the foreseeable future, and work on my spiritual growth.  I’d gotten this immense feeling of validation from someone opening themselves up to me, and it became a buzz I chased after. And, you know, fuck doing that kind of harm. I’m not a fighter or a killer, but I did acts of violence just the same.

It’s an intense renunciation. If I can see the emptiness of attachment in this area, it might – it just might – make it easier to realize in other areas as well.

I mean, a brother can hope…