The instinct of sexual desire

Huân said:

• Uncle Hải, I am a criminal investigation police officer and have been coming here to practise calming the mind for more than 6 months. All my life I have been tracking down and arresting criminals of every kind. But there is one kind of criminal I both hate and find hard to understand: those who sexually abuse children. I don't understand how a criminal can feel sexual desire for a child whose body is still tender and weak and has nothing at all that arouses desire.

Once I received a report and ran to the scene, where the man had already taken a little girl hostage, after people discovered that he was about to harm the child. He held a knife to the girl's neck, threatening to kill her if anyone rushed in. His face looked like nothing but a demon's, brutal and ugly. The poor girl kept crying and struggling. I was afraid that if she struggled too much, the man would act recklessly and slit her throat.

I saw that time could not be stretched out and that no negotiation was possible, so I asked for orders to take a risk. My superior agreed when he heard my analysis and permitted me to act urgently, because we couldn't wait: the man was too tense and might slip and cut her throat.

I asked a fellow officer standing on the man's left to shout very loudly so that he would start and turn to look. In that split second I slid in from the right and drove my knife in under his armpit so that the arm holding the knife could not move. Then I seized the arm holding the knife and, choking his neck, dragged him away from the child. At that moment I truly felt such contempt and hatred that I only wanted to snap his neck and kill him; why should such a creature live? But the law is the law, and everything must be brought to court for trial.

Everyone has affection and sexual desire because it is instinct, but I don't understand how a person can go beyond the limits of being human to commit a crime like an animal.

Mr Hải said slowly:

• The sexual instinct is something all species have. In animals it is almost uncontrolled, so it is very indiscriminate. In humans it is controlled and somewhat restrained by reason. And in a saint, sexual desire is gone entirely. Those are the three levels of the sexual instinct: indiscriminate, restrained, and completely gone.

A person who has a tendency to act like an animal has a strongly increased sexual instinct, so that reason can no longer control it, and goes beyond the limits of human moral principle to do what animals do, that is, to have indiscriminate sexual relations, including incest, rape, paedophilia and so on...

A person who still has human dignity tries to restrain it even though desire still arises in the mind when they see someone of the opposite sex. As long as they keep restraining, they remain human. The day they stop restraining, they gradually become an animal.

A saint, through the power of deep calm, has completely extinguished this sexual instinct. In that calm, the saint sees that the feeling of sexual desire is defiled, troublesome and painful, so they can no longer desire sex.

But the key here is why a person suddenly develops the tendency to act like an animal so that the sexual instinct boils over. What did they do that made the storehouse of sexual desire burst its doors and pour out with no way to stop it?

There are three reasons, from far to near. One is thinking about sex too much, stimulated by images or stories. Two is that straining the brain with too much thinking also stirs the sexual nerve area in the brain. Three is cause and effect: having insulted a saint in the past, or having brokered the buying and selling of sex.

So to avoid stirring up sexual desire, we must also do three opposite things. One is to avoid thinking about sex, avoid looking at revealing, arousing images and avoid listening to sexual stories. Two is to practise the method of calming the mind to keep the brain quiet. Three is to revere saints and often encourage everyone to give up sensual desire.

Huân and the others applauded and said it was excellent. One of the meditators said:

• It's true that since I began practising this method of calming the mind, my sexual desires have lessened a great deal. 🧛♂️

Everyone is silently governed by the sexual instinct, whether little or much. If we do not know how to cultivate ourselves, that dangerous instinct will burst out powerfully and make us do wrong and bear a disgraceful name for life. If we know how to cultivate ourselves, we gradually restrain it, control it within human limits and keep it within the range permitted by law and morality.

And if someone knows how to cultivate themselves deeply and does many good deeds that bring merit, then, together with the practice of deep calm, they can reach a level where sexual desire has completely ended. This is the conduct of a true saint.

As for anyone who keeps committing wrongdoings, these wrongdoings will provoke other wrongdoings to rise along with them, including sexual desire. Every bad person always carries along with them one basic fault, which is heavy lust. Sometimes everything else is good and yet the sexual instinct is the last thing still not removed; how much more so for someone who lives in greed, selfishness, scheming and cruelty, whose desire is without limit. When desire is without limit, such a person will commit crimes that law and morality do not permit. They end up imprisoned and despised.

Besides, those who deliberately dress in revealing ways, circulate revealing images, tell sexual stories and arouse the desire of many people will themselves become heavily burdened by sexual tendencies, and in the end will also commit wrongful, sinful acts.

To restrain the sexual instinct in ourselves, we must spend our whole lives advising everyone to limit sexual indulgence.