In Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, Jung Chang recounts that her widowed grandmother married an older widowed Manchu doctor. “He subscribed to a theory that a man over the age of sixty-five should not ejaculate, so as to conserve his sperm, which was considered the essence of a man.” According to her happily married grandmother, the doctor, never ill, enjoyed extraordinary health for a man of his age.
Even today, Chinese men find intercourse without ejaculation just as satisfying as ejaculatory intercourse. Western researchers affirmed this reality not long ago, probably much to their surprise.
China has a rich history of careful cultivation of sexual energy. Some of its most beautiful and inspiring texts appear in SynergyExplorers’s Traditions section.
Two of the oldest texts turned up in 1973 in a Han Dynasty tomb from the second century BCE. There, archeologists discovered fragments extolling the benefits of intercourse without ejaculation.
Dr. Douglas Wile translated one of them, Discourse On the Highest Tao Under Heaven, as:
One arousal [without orgasm] and the ears and eyes are sharp and bright.
Two arousals and the voice becomes clear.
Three arousals and the skin becomes radiant.
Four arousals and the backbone becomes strong.
Five arousals and the buttocks become muscular.
Six arousals and the “water course” flows.
Seven arousals and one becomes stout and strong.
Eight arousals and the will is magnified and expanded.
Nine arousals and one follows the glory of heaven.
Ten arousals and one manifests spiritual illumination.
Next, consider The Way of Harmonizing Yin and Yang.
The Path of Constructive Life by Hua-Ching Ni claims that Emperor Chuan Hsu authored this collection of wisdom around 1000 BCE. Chinese Emperor Chuan Hsu was the grandson of the famous, mythical Yellow Emperor, who invented wells, field design and weapons, devised garments and established palaces and houses.
This Emperor, Chuan Hsu, concerned himself with his people’s health. He recognised that no medical remedy exists for the anxiety, emotional turmoil, longings and pains suffered by those without mates. His advice for achieving happy unions includes this excerpt from The Way of Harmonizing Yin and Yang:
Together, you hold each other face-to-face, and listen to the breath in its smooth, unceasing rhythms.
At this moment, you begin by letting go of the impulse to maximize the excitement and simply be with the joy of pure pleasure.
This can be achieved by placing the mind in between the states of desire and no desire.
Gradually, as you both unite your chi, you forget the existence of your individual selves and no longer feel your separate bodies.
With the interweaving of yin and yang, the two types of chi return to the oneness of the origin of life.
The Hua Hu Ching contains some particularly inspiring passages.
A Chinese Taoist collection of wisdom, the Hua Hu Ching came down through the ages by oral transmission because authorities forbade the distribution of the text. Consider these excerpts:
Section 67
….Because higher and higher unions of yin and yang are necessary for the conception of higher life, some students may be instructed in the art of dual cultivation, in which yin and yang are directly integrated in the tai chi of sexual intercourse….If genuine virtue and true mastery come together, the practice can bring about a profound balancing of the student’s gross and subtle energies [otherwise it can have a destructive effect]. The result of this is improved health, harmonized emotions, the cessation of cravings and impulses, and, at the highest level, the transcendent integration of the entire energy body.
Section 69
A person’s approach to sexuality is a sign of his level of evolution. Unevolved persons practice ordinary sexual intercourse. Placing all emphasis upon the sexual organs, they neglect the body’s other organs and systems. Whatever physical energy is accumulated is summarily discharged, and the subtle energies are similarly dissipated and disordered. It is a great backward leap. For those who aspire to the higher realms of living, there is angelic dual cultivation.
Because every portion of the body, mind, and spirit yearns for the integration of yin and yang, angelic intercourse is led by the spirit rather than the sexual organs. Where ordinary intercourse is effortful, angelic cultivation is calm, relaxed, quiet, and natural. Where ordinary intercourse unites sex organs with sex organs, angelic cultivation unites spirit with spirit, mind with mind, and every cell of one body with every cell of the other body. …
Modern Chinese Taoists continue to share the wisdom of carefully cultivating sexual energy.
In 1984 Mantak Chia and co-author Michael Winn published one of the most influential books on this subject entitled, Taoist Secrets of Love. Excerpt from the First Principle:
Conservation of sexual energy is the first principle of cultivation. … The energy loss over long periods of time weakens the physical health of the male, can lead to unconscious emotional anger towards women and gradually robs the male higher mind/spirit of its power to rejuvenate itself. …
Taoists accept sexual love as natural and healthy, but know the momentary pleasure of genital orgasm with ejaculation is superficial compared to the profound ecstasy possible when love is enjoyed without the loss of the powerful male seed. It’s every man’s birthright to have full control over his bodily functions and prevent this loss. …
We in the West owe a debt of gratitude to the Chinese for preserving this ancient wisdom with such clarity. Similar Western wisdom has often been driven underground, and thus rendered obscure and easily misinterpreted by those ignorant of Synergy practices.
