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Tag: epistemology

What can be known, what cannot, and how to tell the difference

  • Immortality in Spiritual Practice: Reality or Lure?

    Humans are the only living beings aware of our mortality. That certainty makes us dream of continuation — and the question of immortality in spiritual practice has haunted seekers across every tradition. But is it real? Or is it the ultimate lure, designed to keep us obedient and hopeful? This post examines the question of immortality in spiritual practice from my own trajectory — from initial belief to growing doubt.

    The Longing That Defines Us

    Humans are the only living beings aware of our mortality. That certainty makes us dream of continuation — the possibility that everything does not end with the inevitable physical death, that somehow we might continue to exist, in another form and another place, and not merely exist but be happy forever.

    How Religions Monetized the Dream

    This longing has been systematically exploited by religions◊On religions. The Egyptians already told their believers they would go to a better place — and an eternal one — after death, provided their soul passed the trial of the scales (if they had behaved well in life) and their corpse was properly preserved and buried in a glamorous location (Saqqara was very fashionable). This made the funerary business a lucrative source of income for those who monopolized it. The Greeks were more austere: after death, the soul continued to exist, but in Hades — a gloomy place where existence did not seem particularly pleasant.

    Today, a large portion of humanity maintains this hope of living forever, preferably in Heaven. For their peace of mind, they prefer to trust the promises of religion: do what we say and you will go to Heaven; disobey, and you will burn in Hell. The ethical rules of religions — thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal — make perfect sense and have served to unite large collectives under a shared code. But they all share a systematic flaw: care for your brothers in faith, but the others you may slaughter — or even must, because “God wills it.” This absurdity is still visible today. And religious leaders achieve an astonishingly effective degree of control over the credulous (euphemistically labeled “believers”).

    The Eastern Alternative

    Eastern traditions do not seem like religions in this sense. They do not sell the fiction of an all-too-human god who rewards and punishes, who rejoices or takes offense according to the behavior of poor mortals. Instead, they suggest that through proper practice, we can realize our own “divine” nature — divine in the sense of transcending the visible. The aim is to overcome a worldview based on dualities and discover that all is one: the Dao of the Daoists, the Śūnyatā (emptiness) or Buddha-nature of the Buddhists. If all is one, there is no separation between human and divine — and that is comforting.

    One conclusion that can be drawn is that, if we do things right, we can indeed become immortal. As the layers of the self are peeled away, we discover a bodiless, genderless “I” with no apparent physical boundaries, fused with the Whole. The most logical conclusion seems to be that this deep self — this pure consciousness — is indeed our immortal soul◊The dissolution of the narrative Self, which will continue to exist forever, perhaps in another form and place we cannot conceive, but which will ultimately allow us to go on existing, happily, forever.

    From Elixirs to Inner Alchemy

    The Daoist tradition is the one that, as far as I have explored, most clearly encourages this hope of immortality. After all, the quest for immortality goes back to very ancient times in Chinese culture.

    First they tried waidan, external alchemy, designing all sorts of potions (elixirs) that supposedly prevented physical death. For some reason they concluded that mercury was the perfect ingredient — and with this belief they poisoned several emperors. When they realized it did not work, they moved the goal to the spiritual plane. The physical body died — that was inevitable — but the spirit could continue to exist. And so they shifted from external to internal alchemy (neidan)◊On neidan. Here, the magical elixir is synthesized in the “elixir fields” (dantians) — also called cinnabar fields, cinnabar being the basic ingredient of waidan — to gestate the “immortal fetus,” which in some way coincides with the deep “I” observed in profound meditation. The hope of immortality persists.

    My Current View

    This possibility is certainly more attractive than accepting the inevitability of our own annihilation. When I discovered my “deep self,” I fell directly into that temptation◊The pull toward belief. But the more I live with this experience — and the more I notice how easily the mind constructs meaning from intensity — the more I question it.

    Living forever sounds appealing — but think about it for a moment: existing eternally sounds more like punishment than reward. However pleasant existence may be, living it for, say, a thousand years must eventually become unbearable. No cosmic reality show could keep us entertained for a thousand years, let alone a few eons.

    So I am inclined to think — and of course, this is only my opinion — that the fruit of practice is precisely this: to face adversity serenely, including our own death, from the perspective of the unreality of the self and with the empathy that comes from perceiving the connection between our particular self and all the other selves around us.

    Nothing more — and nothing less.

     

  • Pleasure as Signal: Unlearning the Religious Handicap

    This exploration did not begin as a spiritual search. It began with curiosity about a physical sensation — something very close to orgasm, appearing in meditation-like states. What I eventually discovered was that pleasure as signal, not temptation, would transform my entire approach to practice.

    A Childhood Suspicion of Pleasure

    Like many people raised in Western societies of my generation, I grew up with a religious education shaped by Judeo-Christian ideas. One of its messages was that pleasure — especially sexual pleasure — was morally suspicious.

    I later abandoned religion altogether when I discovered how closely the official church had supported a dictatorship. That experience exposed, at least for me, the political and intellectual fragility of religious authority.

    Yet even after rejecting religion, a residue remained: the unexamined assumption that pleasure and spirituality belonged to incompatible worlds.

    An Unexpected Collision

    For a long time this contradiction did not matter, because together with religion I had also discarded the very notion of spirituality. I saw it as little more than another conceptual trap.

    Then, unexpectedly, my own experience began to lead me in that direction.

    At first my exploration was driven simply by curiosity about a bodily phenomenon. The investigation was naturally encouraged by the extraordinary pleasure the sensation produced. But gradually the questions changed. My curiosity drifted toward much older questions: what am I, where do I come from, what is this experience I call myself.

    These are questions traditionally monopolized by religion, and for that reason I had always considered them irrelevant. Finding myself confronted with them again was disconcerting.

    Pleasure as Motivation

    At that stage the practice still revolved around pleasure.

    During the period of tantric union, what this meant in practical terms was that I was having extraordinary daily sexual experiences with a woman. Later, when the practice became solitary, the intensity increased even further. Sexual pleasure blended with other powerful sensations—love, joy, emotional warmth.

    From the outside it might have looked like an extremely elaborate form of masturbation.

    Which made the growing presence of spiritual curiosity even more puzzling — and, for someone carrying religious residue, vaguely suspicious.

    Pleasure as Signal, Not Temptation

    This is where I had to unlearn my conditioning.

    Instead of seeing pleasure as a distraction or a temptation to indulge, I began to view it as a physiological signal — the body indicating that the process was moving in a productive direction.

    In that sense, pleasure was not the goal of the practice. It was more like a by-product of the body reorganizing itself. A feedback mechanism, not a trap.

    This reframing was essential. Without it, I would have constantly fought against the very current carrying me forward. The religious view of pleasure as sin — something to resist, overcome, or feel guilty about — would have turned every session into an internal conflict.

    For practitioners who carry this cultural baggage, recognizing pleasure as signal may be one of the most important shifts they can make.

    The Changing Texture of Pleasure

    Another change soon became obvious.

    Experiencing overwhelming pleasure occasionally is very different from experiencing it every day. Habituation inevitably sets in. What once felt extraordinary gradually becomes familiar.

    But something deeper was also happening. The pleasurable phase of the practice seemed to contain the seeds of its own transformation.

    Obstacles and Flow

    Over time it became increasingly clear to me that the waves of pleasure appeared whenever some obstacle in the internal flow of sensation was reduced or removed.

    In the early stages everything felt blocked. Each small opening produced an intense surge of pleasure, sometimes almost orgasmic.

    Later the situation reversed. Instead of a landscape dominated by darkness with occasional points of light, it began to resemble a field of light punctuated by a few remaining dark spots—the last obstacles, gradually shrinking.

    As that happened, the peaks of pleasure became less dramatic. Not because something was lost, but because there was less resistance left to dissolve.

    From Orgasm to Bliss

    The intense orgasmic surges slowly faded. What remained was something quieter.

    No longer sexual pleasure, nor the emotional excitement of love or joy, but a softer and more continuous quality of experience—something that could perhaps be described with the word bliss.

    A gentle background presence rather than an overwhelming peak.

    Instead of explosive episodes, there was a subtle sense of permeation: the body, and even the surrounding perceptual space, seemed quietly saturated with this calm intensity.

    Conclusion

    This seems to be where the trajectory leads. The violent orgasms disappear, replaced by something softer — a bliss that diffuses through the body and the surrounding perceptual field.

    With no remaining points of tension to capture attention, the field becomes continuous, without clear boundaries or form. What once demanded attention now simply remains present, quietly permeating everything.

    At that point the discursive mind — which had been guiding the process almost automatically — finally comes to rest.

    None of this would have been accessible if I had treated pleasure as the enemy.

     

     

     

  • The Pull Toward Belief: Wishful Thinking After Insight

    This post documents a tendency I noticed in myself: the pull toward belief and metaphysical conclusions even after recognizing them as speculation. It is included not as argument, but as an honest record of that tension.

    Unfamiliar Territory

    Dual practice has taken me into unfamiliar territory, altering my perception of my body and, more importantly, of my identity.

    The physical sensation commonly referred to as qi often appears as if a subtle substance were entering through specific points in the body, then flowing along channels, and eventually expanding until it fills the entire perceptual field. As this happens, the ordinary sense of bodily boundaries begins to dissolve. The distinction between inside and outside, near and far, becomes less clear. The experience resembles what I imagine the state of a disembodied consciousness might be like.

    Yet the most striking effect is not the sensation itself, but the way it anchors attention. The flow is so absorbing that the usual stream of thought can come to a complete stop. When this happens, the structure we normally identify as “myself” begins to fade.

    When the Narrative Self Falls Silent

    The narrative self — the ongoing story constructed by the brain, closely associated with what neuroscience calls the default mode network — temporarily disappears. That narrative normally connects memories of the past with projections into the future, maintaining the sense of a continuous personal identity. When the process falls silent, what remains is simply awareness observing itself◊The three layers of the Self.

    In that state, stripped of narrative and largely detached from bodily representation, consciousness appears strangely connected with everything else. The fundamental duality of self versus other begins to look less like an intrinsic feature of reality and more like a functional construct — a mechanism shaped by evolution to help the organism survive in a complex environment.

    The Scientific Interpretation

    From a rational and scientific perspective, the most straightforward explanation is that dual practice induces altered states of consciousness. In those states perception is reorganized in ways that feel profound but ultimately reflect nothing more than changes in neural dynamics. Seen this way, the experience would be comparable to the mental “journeys” produced by psychedelic substances: interesting, perhaps even meaningful, but essentially illusions generated by the brain.

    Under that interpretation, such states are best confined to the context of practice. Taking them literally while interacting with the world could easily become maladaptive.

    A Persistent Question

    And yet, once I return to ordinary awareness, I cannot completely dismiss the possibility that something else might be involved.

    One aspect in particular seems difficult to ignore: the distinction between the narrative self and the awareness that observes it. For most of my life I assumed that the narrative voice in my head was “me.” But closer inspection suggests otherwise. The observing awareness appears to remain constant while the narrative continually changes.

    The Narrative Self as a Cognitive Tool

    Curiously, recent developments in artificial intelligence offer an unexpected illustration of this distinction. It is now possible to construct systems that generate a convincing narrative self — systems that can pass variants of the Turing test and engage in complex conversation. They do so through layers of artificial neural networks that transform language and knowledge into high-dimensional vectors, processing those representations through billions of weighted connections to produce coherent responses.

    From a functional perspective, the process is mechanical. It resembles, at least in broad terms, the way biological neural networks might produce the stream of thoughts that we experience as our inner narrative. If that analogy holds, the narrative self may be less like an essence and more like a tool — a highly sophisticated cognitive instrument that evolution has given us, much as it gave us hands or eyes.

    Useful, even indispensable for navigating the world — but perhaps not identical with what we fundamentally are.

    The Observer Behind the Story

    What feels closer to an essence is the bare awareness that has been present throughout my life, silently observing events from within. When attention turns toward that awareness itself, it seems strangely unaffected by the passage of time. It appears prior to the stories that the mind constructs about the past and the future.

    And when, in certain moments of practice, that awareness seems to merge with a wider field of experience — as if it were part of something larger — it becomes difficult not to wonder whether the experience might point to something real.

    Perhaps it is only a temporary neurochemical state, a surge of endorphins and neurotransmitters reorganizing perception in unusual ways. That explanation is entirely plausible.

    But it is also possible — just possible — that such states reveal a latent potential of consciousness, hinting at forms of experience that our ordinary cognitive framework rarely allows.

    A Space for Speculation

    At this point speculation inevitably begins. Or, stated more charitably, one starts forming tentative hypotheses.

    After all, despite the extraordinary progress of science, our understanding of some fundamental aspects of reality remains limited. We still do not know what consciousness ultimately is. Our grasp of matter and time, although extraordinarily precise mathematically, does not yet explain their underlying nature.

    If we acknowledge that ignorance with some humility, then the possibility — long explored in mystical traditions across cultures — that consciousness might extend beyond the narrow framework of individual identity cannot be entirely ruled out.

    I find myself inclined to consider that possibility, even if cautiously. Not the anthropomorphic God of institutional religion, modeled after earthly rulers, but something closer to what mystics have described in very different languages: the God of Teresa of Ávila, the Dao of Daoism, or the Brahman of Indian philosophy.

    Accepting such a possibility would place me, somewhat reluctantly, among believers — a position that has never felt entirely comfortable to me. For most of my life I associated belief with intellectual laziness, with the human tendency to replace uncertainty with comforting narratives.

    Perhaps the mind is rarely as consistent as it likes to imagine. Even someone deeply shaped by skepticism can find himself wishing that certain possibilities might be true. Recognizing the narrative self as a cognitive tool allowed me to hold my stories lightly, leaving space for the silent observer that remains when the story ends.

     

  • The Dissolution of the Narrative Self: Where Observation Ends

    Most of the reflections in this blog have stayed within the boundaries of observation and cautious interpretation. This post explores the edge of that boundary: the dissolution of the narrative self, and the speculative questions that arise when the familiar sense of ‘I’ begins to fade.

    Psychophysical Effects of Energetic Practice

    The systematic practice of working with qi — stripped of cultural symbolism and observed as a psychophysical phenomenon — produces clear perceptual transformations. It changes the relationship to the body, to thought, and to the sense of identity. There is no need to invoke mysterious energies to describe this: sustained attention is sufficient to alter neurophysiological patterns and, with them, the way experience is integrated.

    These effects are reproducible enough to be taken seriously. They do not require metaphysical assumptions to be acknowledged as real experiences.

    Attenuation of Narrative Processing

    In certain states, discursive thought attenuates significantly. Bodily sensation can become diffuse or even recede from the foreground. What remains is a form of presence without narrative content. There is no story, no project, no internal commentary. Only experiential continuity◊The three layers of the Self.

    From the inside, this can feel more fundamental than the ordinary self. The narrative identity that normally organizes experience becomes less central, sometimes temporarily absent.

    This shift alone can be deeply transformative. And this is where the temptation appears.

    The Interpretive Expansion

    At this point, a predictable cognitive move tends to occur.
    If there can be consciousness without thought,
    if there can be presence without clearly defined bodily sensation,
    could that consciousness persist after death?

    The human mind tends to extend meaningful states beyond their immediate frame. If something feels more basic than the narrative self, it becomes tempting to imagine that it might also be more durable than the self. In classical terms: that what dissolves is narrative identity, but not consciousness itself.

    From there, familiar hypotheses arise:
    Is that “presence” what traditions call God?
    Is individual consciousness a local expression of a universal consciousness?
    Would death be a reintegration into that common ground?

    Intellectually, these questions are understandable. Empirically, we have no basis to affirm them◊Wishful thinking.

    Distinguishing Phenomenon from Ontology

    The fact that a subjective state is experienced as expansive, stable, or impersonal does not imply that it exists independently of the organism that generates it. Contemporary neuroscience provides sufficient models to explain how a reduction in narrative activity can produce a lived sense of unity or presence without self. None of those models require postulating post-mortem survival.

    This does not invalidate the experience. It only delimits its interpretive scope. A state can be subjectively powerful and still remain biologically instantiated.

    What the Practice Actually Demonstrates

    The most honest stance, from a scientific attitude, is to recognize two things simultaneously: The transformative experience is real as lived phenomenon, but the metaphysical conclusions the mind constructs from it are speculative.

    The practice does not demonstrate that consciousness survives. It does not demonstrate that a universal mind exists. It does not demonstrate that “heaven” or “God” correspond to an objective ontological state.

    What it does demonstrate — in a practical sense — is that the identity we feared losing was not as solid as it seemed. Through the attenuation of narrative processing, I encountered a state that, while perhaps not eternal, feels markedly less contracted. As identification with the self loosens, the fear of disappearing correspondingly diminishes.

    Sufficient Transformation

    Perhaps that is transformation enough.

    It does not turn death into an illusion.
    It does not turn presence into an eternal entity.
    But it does make life less contracted.

    At the boundary between experience and speculation, the most stable posture is neither to affirm nor to deny, but to describe precisely what occurs and accept what we do not know.

    That may not be a metaphysical revelation. But, seen with sobriety, it is enough.

     

  • The Three Layers of the Self: Where Western Psychology Meets Meditation

    This post proposes a model of the three layers of the self, synthesizing Western cognitive science with meditative phenomenology. The model is offered as a useful map, not as established fact. Where the post moves into speculation — particularly regarding the persistence of consciousness beyond biological death — I mark those as open questions, not conclusions.

    The Narrative Self: The Social Interface We Mistake for Identity

    The narrative self is the most visible layer — the one we defend, polish, and present to the world. It is built from autobiographical memory, language, cultural norms, social expectations, roles and identities, the stories we tell about ourselves.

    This is the “I” Freud analyzed through the Ego and Superego, the “project” Sartre said we are condemned to create, and the “self-concept” Rogers tried to align with lived experience.

    But modern cognitive science has made something very clear: The narrative self is not the true self. It is a social interface.

    Psychologists like Dan McAdams describe it as a life story we continuously rewrite. Neuroscientists such as Michael Gazzaniga show how the brain invents explanations for our actions after the fact — a storyteller, not a commander. And philosophers like Daniel Dennett argue that the self is a “center of narrative gravity,” a useful fiction.

    If a self changes when we change language, culture, or social context, it cannot be essential. It is software — installed after birth, updated daily, and often buggy.

    The Minimal Self: The Biological BIOS

    Beneath the narrative lies something older and simpler: the minimal self. This is not a story. It is a felt sense: “This is my body.” “I am here, not there.” “I am the one moving this hand.” It is pre-verbal, pre-conceptual, and shared by babies, animals, and humans alike.

    Philosopher Shaun Gallagher defines it as the pre-reflective sense of ownership and agency. Neuroscientist Evan Thompson describes it as the embodied structure of experience itself. Even Thomas Metzinger — who famously argues that “nobody ever was or had a self” — acknowledges that the minimal self is a stable biological model the brain uses to navigate the world.

    This is the layer Jung came closest to articulating. His Persona maps neatly onto the narrative self. His Ego overlaps with the minimal self. And his Self — the deeper organizing principle — hints at something beyond both.

    The minimal self is our BIOS: the pre-installed routines that allow consciousness to inhabit a body.

    But even this is not the core.

    Consciousness: The Layer Science Cannot Explain

    Strip away the narrative self. Quiet the minimal self. What remains is not a “self” at all. It is consciousness — the bare capacity to experience.

    This is not a belief. It is an observable fact in meditation: when thoughts stop and the sense of “me” fades, awareness remains. It is also a scientific mystery. Neuroscience can correlate brain activity with conscious states, but it cannot explain why consciousness exists at all.

    This is the “hard problem” articulated by David Chalmers: why should matter give rise to experience? Why should there be something it is like to be anything?

    Some contemporary hypotheses suggest that consciousness may be:

    • A fundamental property of the universe (panpsychism: Galen Strawson, Philip Goff).
    • An intrinsic aspect of information itself (Integrated Information Theory: Giulio Tononi).
    • A field-like phenomenon not fully reducible to neurons (various quantum-inspired models, cautiously explored by Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose).

    We know how consciousness behaves. We do not know what it is. Just like time. Or mass. Or space.

    Where Meditation and Science Converge

    Meditation does not solve the hard problem, but it reveals something crucial: Consciousness persists even when the sense of self dissolves.

    In deep practice — whether through qigong, Yidam visualization, or silent absorption — the narrative self falls away. The minimal self softens. The boundary between “me” and “world” becomes porous or disappears entirely.

    Yet awareness remains.

    This is why meditative traditions across cultures converge on similar insights. In Daoism: the return to the Dao, the uncarved block. In Buddhism: anatta, the absence of a self. In Hindu traditions: Atman = Brahman, the identity of individual and universal consciousness. In Christian mysticism: dissolution into the Ground of Being (Meister Eckhart).

    What these traditions share is a common observation: The self is not the experiencer. The self is an appearance within experience.

    The Final Step: The Self as a Three-Layer Illusion

    If we put all this together, a radical but coherent picture emerges: The narrative self is a cultural construction. The minimal self is a biological construction. Consciousness is not a self at all — it is the field in which both constructions appear.

    And when the body dies?

    The narrative self dissolves.
    The minimal self dissolves.
    But consciousness — if it is fundamental — may not.

    And here the mind begins to speculate — perhaps to hope:

    Could consciousness re-enter another organism ?
    Could it merge with something larger?
    Could it persist without form?

    I notice the pull toward these possibilities. I cannot claim they are more than that: a pull.

    Conclusion: The Last Illusion

    The deepest insight shared by meditation and modern cognitive science may be this: what we call “self” appears to be a construction — narrative and biological — within a field of awareness whose nature remains unexplained.

    Whether that awareness is fundamental, universal, or simply the last illusion before silence — I do not know. But the question, once seen, does not disappear.

     

  • Interpreting the Three Treasures

    Ancient Daoist texts described the “Three Treasures” as essence, energy, and spirit. However, for the modern practitioner, interpreting the three treasures is a task of decoding biological metaphors rather than taking ancient language at face value. This piece explores how misunderstanding these symbols distorts genuine cultivation—and how returning to direct experience restores their meaning.

    According to the classics, the Three Treasures—or San Bao (三宝) in Chinese—are three essential energies or substances that sustain human life and represent the foundational layers of our existence. They are:

    • Jing (精) — Essence / Vital Base: The most fundamental, dense, and physical form of energy.
    • Qi (气) — Energy / Life Force: The vital force that flows through the body.
    • Shen (神) — Spirit / Consciousness: Our awareness, mind, and emotional balance.

    Jing is the foundation for Qi, and Qi is the foundation for Shen. A weak Jing leads to deficient Qi, which in turn results in an unanchored or disturbed Shen. The ultimate goal in many internal alchemy (Neidan) practices is to refine and transmute these substances upward: to conserve Jing and transform it into Qi, and to purify Qi to nourish and refine Shen—leading to spiritual awakening and longevity.

    Energy, Orgasm, and Misunderstanding

    In practical terms, Qi corresponds to the neural activity perceived as an orgasmic sensation, and Jing refers to the seminal fluid. The practice consists of maintaining the feeling while avoiding ejaculation (in men) and guiding that sensation upward along the spine — a process described in the classics as the reversal.

    This ascending sensation feels like a current. The authors of these theories — unaware of the nervous system — observed that ejaculation ended the feeling. From this correlation, they concluded that the sensation was sublimated Jing, renamed Qi. Modern physiology clarifies the misunderstanding: what they perceived as a “flow of energy” is in fact the propagation of neural and autonomic signals along the spine. The emission of semen merely ends the feedback loop that sustains the feeling. Correlation was mistaken for causation.

    The True Function: Training Consciousness

    Once the decoupling of orgasm from ejaculation is achieved, Jing is out of the game. The only remaining actors are the feeling and the awareness—Qi and Shen, or however one prefers to name them. The sensation acts as a powerful anchor for meditation, training awareness to focus and release thought. This concentrated awareness, in turn, amplifies the sensation — a virtuous cycle. This is the essence of dual cultivation. The goal, as these traditions describe it, is a refined Shen — a consciousness less entangled in narrative and reactivity. Whether this reveals a ‘true nature’ or simply a different mode of processing remains an open question.

    As focused attention is the key, overthinking the theoretical concept of “Jing” becomes a distraction that halts progress.

    Literalism and Its Dangers

    Yet even today, some take the ancient writings literally — with disastrous consequences. I’ve seen online forums where self-proclaimed teachers advise “reabsorbing” semen, inspecting urine for turbidity, or even inserting a cannula into the urethra to “train the bladder to absorb fluids,” citing legendary masters who allegedly ingested mercury. No further comment is needed on this level of absurdity.

    The Myth of Loss

    A related misreading concerns the classic injunction to “avoid losses.” The real message was simple: avoid ejaculation to sustain the feeling. This is the meaning of the phrase, “If the plum has not yet blossomed, it is too early; if it has already blossomed, it is too late.” There is a narrow window of opportunity to “catch” the Qi — during the first stirrings of orgasm, before ejaculation. If ejaculation occurs, it is not a catastrophe; it is merely a missed opportunity. There will be many more, as Jing (semen) is continually replenished by the body.

    Once the skill is stable, occasional losses are inconsequential. In my Tantric practice, such episodes simply made my body temporarily more yin — more receptive — in the next session, which was actually beneficial. Yet many practitioners treat ejaculation as a disaster, believing it erases weeks of effort. In my opinion, this anxiety is unfounded. The body naturally releases excess fluid during nocturnal emissions when full — a physiological fact, not a spiritual failure.

    The Gender Bias and Its Origins

    The distortions reach their peak when addressing women. Since women do not ejaculate, ancient theorists asked: what, then, is their Jing? The answer they proposed was menstrual blood. From there arose the absurd conclusion that women, because of their “monthly losses,” were less capable — or even incapable — of spiritual attainment.

    Beyond its misogyny, this reasoning may have been politically convenient. In ancient China, dual cultivation was often linked to martial training — a strategic resource before gunpowder. Women commonly married into other clans, sometimes potential rivals. Restricting their access to energetic techniques was a form of secrecy, not metaphysics.

    Yet this bias persisted for centuries, despite the evident fact that women are often better suited to sustaining the orgasmic flow. Their physiology supports multiple orgasmic modes — the clitoral (explosive, similar to male ejaculation), the G-spot (absorptive), and the cervical (deeply enveloping).

    A Grounded Conclusion

    From my experience, the principle is simple:

    • The essence of the practice is to sustain the energetic current as long as possible and move it with the attention.
    • This requires avoiding ejaculation while maintaining the feeling. If it happens, you will have plenty of opportunities, simply start again.
    • Seminal losses are natural. Don’t worry, your body replenishes it continuously for many years, and losses don’t harm your abilities once you get them.
    • Far from being a limitation, the female physiology offers a head start in inner alchemy. 

    In the end, correctly interpreting the three treasures reveals they are not substances to be hoarded, but stages in what feels like a refinement of awareness—from gross sensation to subtler perception, from agitation to relative stillness.

     

  • Lightning in the Dark – Shifts in Perception

    A recollection of the first glimpses of shifts in perception—moments like lightning in the dark. These reflections capture the raw astonishment of discovering how tantric awakening and dissolution intertwine, written during the early years of my exploration.

    First Flashes

    What I glimpsed was not a new idea, but a different way of being—brief, vivid, impossible to ignore. These moments came like lightning in the dark: sudden illuminations of a reality I hadn’t known, previews of what was to come. My first insights were always confirmed by later experiences, as the intensity and quality of the feeling deepened.

    On Dilution and Death

    The first departure from ordinary experience was a sense of dilution—long before I felt the energy flowing out of my body—and of connection with something much larger. The feeling was like dying, yet instead of fear it brought a quiet hope. Death was no longer perceived as an end, but as a new beginning—like going back home.

    “Imagine that you are in total darkness. Then, for a moment, there is a faint light—and back to the dark again. You try to reconstruct in your mind what you barely perceived. This is what I will try to do now. Not easy, because what I dimly saw, through the windshield and the rearview mirror, looked very much like Death.

    For us, tantric sex means spending ten, fifteen, twenty minutes being traversed by this energy. And I mean it—we both feel the same thing. It feels like a vast and eternal wave of bliss, not the ‘simultaneous orgasm’ where two private experiences happen to coincide. We clearly experience the same flow, with its highs and lows.

    This is a huge departure from any normal experience. Our minds, our whole beings, are connected. And this communion has deep consequences. We dissolve into each other. And we feel dissolved into something immense—like two drops of water merging into one, and then thrown into a river.

    In those moments, when I can drink from that fountain without being pulled toward physical release, I glimpse the real nature of my thirst—the drive we call sex. What I was seeking in the arms of my lovers was this: dissolving into the other, breaking free from the prison of my ego. And through the other, dissolving into… God? If I were Saint Teresa, my cultural lens would surely point to that as the logical answer. As an atheist, I don’t know what to think. This dissolution feels like death—but under that light, the word loses its sting. It feels more like going home. So what I wanted through sex was dying—going home.”

    On the Self

    Being aware without thoughts, even for a short time, made me realize that what I had always understood as “me” was only a bundle of thoughts—memories and desires. My real self was this awareness, silently watching thoughts arise and fade away. The idea—perhaps just wishful thinking—that this “deep self” was the one going back home slowly began to take shape.

    “But who’s going home? Again, I’ll try to describe another dim and strange perception.

    Tantric sex with a partner requires some attention to the body—movement, balance, physical awareness. But when I lie back and I’m alone with this energy, the mind truly stops, or nearly so. It has to, or the energy will not flow. In that silence, thoughts are perceived very differently. Our hands and feet are useful tools, but we don’t see them as our ‘self.’ With a still, or nearly still mind, I perceive my thoughts the same way—as tools, but not as me. And that changes everything.

    I dimly perceive that this thing I’ve always called ‘me’ is nothing more than a bundle of thoughts, memories and desires. Yet now they feel like a house I once lived in—a space full of memories, most of them good, but no longer home. The melancholy of those empty rooms is mixed with the excitement of moving on.

    That’s how I feel when I look at that old ‘me’ that no longer feels like me. What I really am is that which moves to a new home. The old self must be left behind; it can’t be carried forward. It cannot survive death—that’s impossible. But then, what is this new ‘me,’ and where is it going? Even considering the possibility of transcending death is a Copernican shift for someone like me—an atheist.”

    On God

    If the real self was free of desire, what could we expect from God—if there was one? A god enslaved by his own desires? I was still deeply skeptical about the very existence of anything we could call “God.” But if such a being existed, it would surely give its grace as the sun gives its light: expecting nothing, asking nothing, shining for all who choose to join it.

    “After all, the trees are not worshipping the Sun—they simply stay away from the dark. And the Sun gives life to the trees by burning herself, but not because she receives any worship. What else could she do? She is the Sun!

    So I don’t see myself praying or worshipping any god. But I’ll try to find a little place under this Sun—she who gives without asking—where I can lay my towel.”

    These were my perceptions in 2015, only three years after the shift began. My interpretation ten years later has evolved — toward greater caution about what these experiences reveal beyond themselves — but the raw glimpses remain as vivid as ever.

    A solitary monk stands on a barren shore facing an immense, dark sea under a vast gray sky. The figure is tiny against the overwhelming expanse of nature.
    Caspar David Friedrich, Der Mönch am Meer (The Monk by the Sea), 1808–1810. Oil on canvas, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin.