Good morning P.,
you ask an important question about overcoming lust.
From a certain point of view the first noble truth is that there are circumstantial, physical, social and mental stressors AND (ironically enough) when we indulge our controlling tendencies in an effort to mitigate those stressors we wind up exacerbating them.
The Buddha taught that the key to liberating ourselves from the tyranny of our controlling tendencies (such as pushing, pulling, clinging and competing) is to practice the eight fold path. When you cut through the malarkey it's just about:
1) CONTEMPLATING letting-go
2) and love
3) selecting KIND ways of communicating,
4) conducting our behavior
5) and practicing commerce
6) as well as enthusiastically PRACTICING
7) mindfulness and
8) meditation.
Try this fun experiment: this evening when you sit down to meditate open up a fresh page upon your smartphone's notepad application. Rate the intensity of your lust on a scale from zero to ten. Chant the "Four Immeasurables" once, an English translation of the "Heart Sutra" once, and then sit for 30 to 60 minutes.
Lust will rear it's head. As you inhale you could notice the sensations, emotions, intentions, thoughts, memories, and fantasies that cartwheel across the stage of your mind. Give yourself permission to notice them: vulnerably, viscerally, passively, spontaneously and randomly. As you exhale you could notice your body relaxing and your mind releasing (even just a little bit).
No, our job is NOT to repress NOR indulge our lust. What then is the task set before us? To make PEACE with whatever sensation, flavor, scent, sound, sight, emotion, intention, thought, memory or imagining we experience. As we persist , whatever comes, we will let it come; whatever stays, we will let it stay; and whatever goes, we will let it go.
Any fool can be happy when they get what they want, when they want, for as long as they want. The wise learn to find peace in the midst of turmoil.
At the conclusion of your sitting, repeat the "four immeasurables" and then reevaluate the intensity of your lust on the same scale of zero to ten. It could be fun to play scientist, performing this exercise once, every twelve hours, for twelve consecutive days, collating your findings and then conclude whether or not this has been helpful.
Let us conclude
with a simple
call to action
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