In this episode of the podcast "Rena Malik, M.D.," Dr. Alok Kanojia joins host Rena Malik to discuss the intriguing topic of tantric ...

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Tantric Sex &amp; Semen Retention explained by a Monk &amp; Harvard Psychiatrist | Dr. K

you actually um be became a monk right you went to India um and you learned sort of many practices from Eastern uh philosophy and one of the things I've heard you talk about is tantric or thric sex and so can you talk a little bit about what that is and is it something that people should be trying to achieve yeah so it's interesting I've never gotten that question um but yeah so we can absolutely talk about it so in order to understand tant we have to understand what meditation is and what Tantra is and how sex can be used so this is going to get a bit technical so the first thing to understand is that anytime you meditate you need something called an aluman which is a support so usually there is a focus of meditation so you can have something like prayer beads You Can chant a mantra um you can gaze at a candle or even like an idol or something like that there there's usually a an object of your attention so if we look at meditation the word meditation gets translated into three Sanskrit words and this is what confuses a lot of people DH and samadi so dhana is a focusing technique it's a verb it's something that you do so I'm focusing on let's say a candle so I'm looking at that and the whole point of that is if you look at your mind it has lots of thoughts so how do you get your mind to not think lots of thoughts by having it focus on one thing so if I concentrate on one point then all of the other thoughts as I train myself and I practice all of those other thoughts will go away then what happens is the mind has a very natural tendency to lose track of a constant stimulus so when we we'll acclimatized to a stimulus so if I like um you know if you step into a restaurant at the very beginning you hear everyone talking but then your brain acclimatizes that stimulus and it weeds it out so what we do in meditation is we focus on one thing to push everything else and then we're left with one thing and over time we will acclimatize to that in the same way that will acclimatize as soon as I put my jacket on I feel it but then my brain sort of recognizes this is a constant stimulus and it goes away MH once we acclimatize to that candle then our all mental function stops and we enter the meditative state which is Dian so Dian is a meditative state that is a state of consciousness it's not something that you do the best example here is going to bed and falling asleep technically like no human being on the planet can go to sleep we can't say I'm asleep now we can lay down and in the right circumstances sleep is a state of consciousness that will happen to us and if you're like me it's like in Biochemistry right so we don't want it to happen but it happens anyway that's how the states of Consciousness happen so we have Al Lumas which are like objects of focus and then we want to enter the state of meditation so now let's talk a little bit about sex and then we'll put them together so uh and then the third state of meditation is samadi which which is like a more Transcendent State of Consciousness which is blissful and whatever we'll get to that so now if we look at sex like if if we look at orgasm or sexual activity it's a very potent draw for your attention mhm so if we look at kind of the Neuroscience of it like it's really easy to not get distracted when you are engaged in a sexual act and then the next thing to understand is that people will say that the state of orgasm is like a state ofan or samadi so it's a bliss State and if you really pay attention to your mind and orgasm during the moment of orgasm you actually don't have any mental functioning you can't think about anything you can't think about anything right so the moment after orgasm is over then you're like was it good for her too right and and like before you're thinking lots of thoughts and after you're thinking lots of thoughts and this is why we love sex so much because if you really look at when the mind is peaceful the mind is peaceful when it's actually shut off this is why we love drugs this is why we love sleep this is why we love losing ourself in a Sunset and orgasm mhm so there's a orgasm kind of creates that like no mind State it's one of a very easy accessible physiologic ways so when we put these together what we end up is end up with is sex is a powerful aluman that focuses our mind and then the state of orgasm is a very very good way to get to samadi or then we get into some problems so the the whole point of tantric sex is that okay so but if we want to enter that no mind State like generally speaking orgasm is incredibly brief um if you're a dude um and many women yeah and and so then the goal of of dantric sex is there are certain like yogic techniques that you can use to prolong the state of orgasm and basically what you're trying to do is avoid ejaculation because that's the thing that triggers the orgasmic state in the brain to end because then we're done right we've done our our thing evolutionarily so some of those techniques around thri sex are to delay ejaculation but then you can actually get this sweet spot where there's orgasm without ejaculation MH which is some of the point of thric sex now there's a whole other layer to thric sex which is even more spiritual this is sort of more neuroscientific and Technical but uh during really traditional DC sex people are chanting mantras um and you're chanting a mantra with your partner over the course of potentially hours and it's almost like doing a ritual or a bja or something like that where it's like part of a religious practice and for some reason using the sexual act as like a focus and like kind of getting into these states of Consciousness enchanting Mantra which is really the traditional way to do thxx um is is what it's about and I think that's I mean I can go into more detail if you really want to but there's a whole spiritual side yeah so then you know people talk I think they've try to adapt those things in today's day age with Seaman retention they there's things like no nut November where people and they don't don't always practicing the thic method but that's sort of the goal is to orgasm without ejaculation so from an Eastern perspective benefits in terms of doing it on a regular basis or or trying to achieve that benefits of dric sex well I mean it depends what kind of answer do you want do you want like a physiologic answer a neuroscientific answer or a spiritual answer you give all three okay so this is where things get weird um and it you know so part of what I try to do is like reconcile these spiritual answers with like neuroscience and physiology so if we start with the physiology I'm not sure so if you look at like basically every religious tradition restricted sexual activity is part of most religious Traditions we're not quite sure why but chances are that when you engage in sexual activity it Alters your physiology in some way so what I've sort of found is that when I am celibate for periods of time um which is interesting being married and when I'm celibate for periods of time it really enhances the quality of my meditation so I don't know what's going on physiologically there um what I just a couple of things to theorize so if you look at some of the yogic postures that we do when we are celibate we'll do something called sidas so in sidas you press your heel against your perenium so especially for men the the blood flow to your scrotum and your sex hormone production can be gently suppressed by reducing the blood flow to that area so you're kind of like you know and then you'll you'll even get sometimes I imagine testicular atrophy if you do it for a long period of time which is what yogis are trying to do and so then if you look at okay if we reduce our testosterone levels what effect does that have on our brain it probably has some kind of positive effect for attaining Transcendent States Of Consciousness okay so we're not quite sure what of that is true there's another layer which is that which is a little bit more like spiritual Theory but we don't really know if it's true and that's that see anytime you have sex it creates a powerful impression mhm so if we think about how something enters your mind generally speaking the more active your mind is the less something enters so let's take the example of studying if I'm in a library and the library is burning down and people are making lots of noise and my mind is paying attention to all of that stuff anything I read on the page is not going to sink in mhm if I'm in a quiet place and I'm not distracted and anyone knows this if you're not distracted then you can study and then the knowledge will literally sink in otherwise it's like the information is bouncing out of your mind right so the more no mind State we have the more stuff sinks in and if we look at stuff like the Flow State flow state is a very almost no mind state so the mind is fully focused on one thing so you have a lot of like whatever studying in that moment we will'll really sink in so now let's look at sex so what happens in sex we enter that no mind State during orgasm so in that moment there is a very powerful impression that sinks into your mind from an evolutionary standpoint this is probably has something to do with like if we look at oxytocin the oxytocin release after orgasm which is usually induced especially by things like cuddling and and human human uh you know contact but there's something that goes on that there's a physiologic bond that forms with people who have sex now I've worked with people like sex workers and they have to train themselves to shut off that Bond so their natural reaction at the very beginning is to release oxytocin but the whole point is then they try to like avoid that so if we look at sex then what happens is we create a very powerful impression and then what happens is once we shut off our mind whatever is lying in the subconscious will start to float to the surface so when I work with patients who have a history of of trauma I don't tell them to do standard mindfulness techniques where they just let whatever is in the mind come out okay so often times it will trigger traumatic experiences so if you look at the evidence-based techniques around mindfulness for trauma they're usually grounding techniques or like sensory techniques things like ice diving where I'm taking a bucket of ice and I'm sticking my face in it that's not letting whatever is in my mind flow up it's actually doing the opposite there's lots of stuff in my mind and I empty my mind by sticking my face and ice so whatever is in the mind will come up and anytime we have sex it goes deep into the mind yeah and so if you sort of think about it right like if you meet someone once and and you have a one night stand and then you're going to start thinking about them the next day right so most human beings I think will yeah and so if you sort of think about it there's powerful Impressions that form so then what happens is if we like try to meditate and you've like had sex it becomes very hard to enter those transcendental states of mind I don't know if that answers your question but no I think it's very interesting because you know I don't I what I tell people is like if you want to practice SE retention or celibacy for the purposes of spiritual or um betterment that you feel better I think it's wonderful but I do worry that there's a lot of pressure for people to uh participate in these sorts of things and they actually develop they it becomes so Forefront of mine because they're like when am I going to have sex like I can't wait to have sex because they're so like they're they're trying so hard to abstain and then they also start clenching their pelvic floor and they develop pain or other issues and so that's sort of where I worry as a clinician who sees those patients yeah so I think those people are doing it backwards right so like let's talk about you know in the yogic Traditions the word for celibacy is brahmacharya but brahmacharya doesn't mean celibacy it means to dwell in Brahman which is to dwell in the infinite mm so technically you can have sex if you're a yogi and you can still be a brahmachari which means celibacy so brahmacharya what it really means is non- lustfulness so forcing yourself and struggling with yourself in the mind to not have sex still means that your mind is obsessed with the sex you're missing the point right so if you look at like a yogi um you know when a yogi is like people I don't know if this makes sense but people will try to deprive themselves in order to like become more like detached right so I'm not going to have sweets I'm not going to have this kind of food I'm not going to have this but the Mind still wants the Mind still wants it they're trying to basically starve their mind of the stimulus yeah but the real thing is if you practice meditation for a long period of time the desirelessness becomes natural right so if I stop and I like look at let's say we've got like two glasses of water here and one is the temperature I want and one is the temperature that I don't want and as I look at this if I drink water that I don't like the temperature this creates unhappiness within me but as I do yogic practice and I detach from that unhappiness then it doesn't matter which one that I have because I the negative impact of the desire doesn't actually land so I think a lot of these people are doing this backwards whereas if you practice yoga you will become more detached from the world naturally your mind will be less desirelessness you're not bludgeoning it into submission that's so useful because I think you're right most people are doing it wrong they are like forcing themselves into submission when it's actually the way you're describing and if tell me if I'm wrong is that it's part of your meditative practice like you continue to become free of all these thoughts in your mind through a meditative practice and then the desire for sex goes down and then you realize when you have sex that oh it's actually affecting your meditative practice negatively so then the desire to avoid sex or abstain for periods of time is stronger very well said right so so I think this is something that people don't like so I think it's important sometimes you have to conquer a desire fine you have to strengthen your frontal lobe and restrain a sexual impulse fair enough but I think what with what you're describing like doesn't work like even in Psychotherapy so if we understand something like OCD right so this is a case where someone has these intrusive thoughts which they're wrestling with and fighting with and the more that you fight with your mind the less healthy you're going to be so really good example for people who don't have OCD is think about like stressing about going to sleep oh my God I need to go to sleep I need to go to sleep I need to go to sleep the more that you stress about sleep the more you're like a [ __ ] can I say it's fine so like [ __ ] it I need to sleep right and then like the more you stress about it the harder it becomes to sleep so in that same way there's almost this weird thing that we see in Psychiatry with like defense mechanisms and reaction formation that the more you suppress something you're sort of fueling that tension in the mind and tension in the mind and conflict in the mind will never lead to peacefulness so what I usually have when when I I work with people who are interested in like no not uh November and we have a lot of people who have unhealthy relationships with pornography in our community is we try to teach them this kind of stuff right you can try to force yourself to do it and that can have some value but it's way easier to sublimate your desire than it is to conquer it yeah because the other thing physiologically right is your body will sometimes eject it on its own at night right you'll get nocturnal emissions so it's not the act of ejaculation I think it's probably the act of being with someone and having those other hormonal connections with that person that that may have a physiologic impact but we know that people e jaate at night right it happens especially the younger you are the more testosterone you have the more ejaculation you're going to have at night and that's normal physiologic healthy not a problem and so I think that people get very fixated on like oh I need to not ejaculate and then they'll have a nocturnal erection or ejaculation and they will feel so much deep shame that they failed and that's not the point I think that's really important because I um you know again this is something that people struggle with and they really they want permission to not do it because they're like hearing all these benefits but I think again the thought is that you have to conquer it versus you actually have to yeah so when I work with people who are like really interested in in no not November like usually my question is like why yeah like what's driving your desire to like not not and and usually it's like some kind of weird transmutation of something else like they it becomes a proxy battle for them where like I need to conquer this thing because I'm unable to conquer something else generally speaking I I don't have you know I've never worked with anyone who's like happy and content and is obsessed and beating themselves up over no not November usually the picture that I see anyway is someone who's like addicted to pornography and in an effort to conquer their pornography addiction they're going to do no nut November or no fap or something like that and then in that process it can be good because it's not that noof fap has all these magical benefits but if you look at the harms of pornography addiction and then you start doing nofap and you free yourself of that phys I ologic cycle that can be a net positive

Dr.

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