Unlocking the Enigma of a Zen Koan… With Sex.
First, there were mountains and rivers.
Then, the mountains were not mountains and the rivers were not rivers anymore.
Now, the mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers again.
— Zen Master Qingyuan Weixin
Funnily enough, it’s the way my sex life panned out that helped me finally figure out what Weixin meant by his Koan.
First, sex was sex.
It was exactly the way it is depicted everywhere around me. Everywhere I turned, sex was all about raunchiness, about performance, about crude pleasure.
And even though I was turned on by the notion of sex the way I understood it, I had an eerie notion that something was missing.
If you assume I didn’t actually enjoy sex, you are correct.
But more than that.
Something essential around the entire topic of sex made me feel fazed, but I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly it was.
So I did the best I could to learn techniques to enhance my own, and my partner’s, pleasure. I read advice online, in magazines, and in books.
Nothing elevated my uncomfortable sensation that lay underneath every time I engaged in any sexual (even sensual) activity.
