Category: The Mind

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100 Verses on Renunciation (Vairagya)

Here is Swami Vivekananda’s translation of Bhartrihari’s poem, Vairagya Shatakam, referred to in English as 100 Verses on Renunciation. I haven’t been able to find a complete version of his translation online, so this is only some of the verses and a bit out of order. It is still a fantastic and inspiring read!

Vairagya is a concept from yoga and other Indian schools of thought that means a type of dispassion for worldly concerns, name and fame, and sensory pleasures. In short, it is conscious and protracted renunciation, and the reason for cultivating it is simple – it’s hard to make progress on the spiritual path when you’re too preoccupied with chasing tail, gorging yourself on chicken vindaloo, imbibing wine and beer, and being too addicted to comfort and pleasure in general.

And to think, yogis of old thought ancient India had too many comfortable and pleasurable snares – what of us in the modern world??

Of course, not all of us are looking into the spiritual side of life, and that is all well and good, so let’s bring our focus back to semen retention. The concept of vairagya, of renunciation, still applies – in fact, renunciation is the name of the game, the whole kit and kaboodle! The whole essential point of semen retention is to renounce porn, masturbation, and orgasm. Many would say retention entails the renunciation of all forms of lust, even looking at that cute tart on Instagram or having lustful thoughts.

This is the true meaning of brahmacharya. Brahmacharya is typically translated as celibacy, but it goes beyond abstaining from mere sex and masturbation – it is the giving up of lusting after any and all objects or sources of pleasure. It is cultivating the conduct (charya) of God or the Higher Self (Brahman).

Don’t mistake what I’m saying here. It is perfectly fine to enjoy the good things that come to you in life! It is well and good to try to further yourself, to accomplish goals, and to live in basic, simple comfort. I’m not advocating constant penance and asceticism (though these are interesting avenues to explore), but simply learning to give up the lusting after things and experiences that you think will bring you ultimate happiness and contentment.

Brahmacharya means working to realize that everything you have to be happy and content for the rest of your life is already within you.

A Thought Experiment

Let me give you a little thought experiment to work with.

It can be said with much certainty that almost everyone that has ever lived has run from the painful and uncomfortable and chased after what was thought to be pleasurable and satisfying. All day, every day, we chase after what we think will bring us happiness and run from the uncomfortable, trying to stave off our subtle, or not so subtle, sense of incompleteness.

When do we ever “arrive” at our destination – lasting happiness and contentment? Why do so many celebrities commit suicide? Don’t they “have it all”? What Christmas present that we craved so badly ever brought us lasting happiness and contentment? When did we ever find a girlfriend or spouse who brought us nothing but joy and happiness without a fair amount of pain?

Here’s a good one – when did you ever masturbate and feel happy, proud and fulfilled?

Why do so many people “succeed” in life – getting the good job, the nice and attractive spouse, the nice car and house, and the 2.5 perfect children – only to have a midlife crisis? They did everything they were told would make them happy and content, and as it turns out… They still aren’t happy or satisfied!

And therein lies the crux of the matter – until you realize that a part of your mind is always craving more, you’ll never be truly happy and fulfilled. It’s time to stop looking solely for external sources of happiness, and time to cultivate inner happiness and contentment.

Going back to vairagya and renunciation – if you’re practicing semen retention, you’ve already begun to practice renunciation, at least from porn and masturbation. Try kicking it up a notch and renouncing a bit more – do you really need to be scrolling Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, etc constantly? Do you really need to be constantly distracting yourself with Netflix, video games, and Discord? How happy can you be living simply?

Ponder how those “uncivilized” tribes of people could manage to have any modicum of happiness without any of our “modern luxuries”. In fact, many people are starting to believe they are likely happier in many ways.

Ponder how we live in a capitalist society that pushes you to buy more, do more, be more – party more, fuck more, make more money, buy more things, masturbate more to porn and OnlyFans, post more on social media to show just how much “more” and “better” you’re living as compared to your peers… Ponder how the message is “more consumption will make you happier”, because that’s how a capitalist society runs!

Fuck off, consumerism.

Ask yourself – are you wisely and consciously using the things in your environment, or do they have you hooked, are they using you? Do you seek all of your happiness and pleasure from external quick fixes, or do you have some practices that help you to cultivate inner joy, happiness, contentment?

“So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. Lightly my darling, on tiptoes and no luggage, not even a sponge bag, completely unencumbered.” – From the book Island, by Aldous Huxley

On to the Poem

You can find copies of his poem in book format, although I haven’t found one that is this translation.

BHARTRIHARI’S VERSES ON RENUNCIATION

I have travelled in many countries, hard to travel in,
And got no result;
Giving up pride of birth and position,
I have served all.
Like a crow stealing into a kitchen,
With fear I have eaten the bread of others in their homes,
Yet thou, Desire, who leadest to evil deeds,
Leavest me not!

(Verse 2)

I have crossed oceans to find wealth.
I have blasted mountains to get jewels.
I have spent whole nights in graveyards
repeating Mantras
And have obtained — not the broken cowrie
of blessedness
Ah, Desire, give me up now.

(Verse 3)

I have borne the wicked words of the wicked;
To please fools, when my heart is weeping,
my lips ever laughed.
Stopping my judgment, I have with folded hands
Stood before unworthy persons.
Even now, my Desire, why do you make me dance 
like a fool?

(Verse 4)

For this life, which is like a drop of water 
on a lotus leaf,
We have not enjoyed, but enjoyments have enjoyed us.
We did not penance, but penances burnt us up.
Time did not fly, yet we are gone.
We become decrepit with age, but not so Desire.
Infirmity assails us, the skin wrinkles,
The hair whitens, the body becomes crooked,
Old age comes on.
Desire alone grows younger every day.

(Verses 5-8)

Hope is the name of this river, whose water is Desire,
And Thirst the waves thereof.
Passion is the crocodile living in that water,
Vain resolves are the birds that reside
In the tree of virtue on the shores and kill it.
But there are the whirlpools of Delusion
And Despondence, the high banks.
The great Yogis are blissful because they,
With their pure minds, never crossed this river.

(Verse 10)

Blessed are they that, living even in the
caves of mountains,
Meditate on the supreme Light.
Even the birds will fearlessly drink of the
tears of pleasure
That flow from their eyes.
Alas, our minds grow familiar, even in imagination,
With palaces and pleasure — gardens,
And thus our lives fleet by.

(Verse 14)

Even when the only food is gained by begging,
and that is tasteless;
One’s bed, the dry earth;
One’s whole family, his own body;
His only clothing, a ragged bit of cloth —
Alas, alas, the desire for enjoyment does not leave a man.

(Verse 15)

Not knowing the power of flame, the insect falls into it.
The fish swallows the bait, not knowing the hook inside.
That, well aware of the vanity and dangers of the world,
We cannot give it up —
Such is the power of Delusion.

(Verse 18)

Have such places in the Himalayas become extinct
That a man should go begging at others’ doors?
Have the roots in the mountain forests all disappeared?
Are the springs all dry?
Are the trees all withered that bear sweet fruits 
And bark for garments
That a man should look with fear on the face of a fool,
Whose head is turned by a little wealth?
(Lit., “Whose eyebrows are dancing with the wind of the
pride of a little wealth”.)

Verses 24-25)

Arise! Let us go into the forest
Where pure roots and fruits will be our food,
Pure water our only drink,
Pure leaves our bed,
And where the little-minded, the thoughtless,
And those whose hearts are cramped with wealth
Do not exist.

(Verse 26)

In enjoyment is the fear of disease;
In high birth, the fear of losing caste;
In wealth, the fear of tyrants;
In honour, the fear of losing her;
In strength, the fear of enemies;
In beauty, the fear of the other sex;
In knowledge, the fear of defeat;
In virtue, the fear of scandal;
In the body, the fear of death.

In this life, all is fraught with fear.
Renunciation alone is fearless.

(Verse 31)

The root of health has always round about it
A thousand worms in the form of dangers and disease.
Where fortune falls, open a hundred gates of danger.
Whosoever is born, him death will surely swallow.
Say, where is that Providence who ever created 
Anything that died not?

(Verse 33)

Life is like a wave upon the waters,
Youth only remains a few days.
Wealth is like a fancy of the mind,
It immediately vanishes.
Enjoyment is like a flash of lightning
amongst dark clouds.
Our most beloved one is only for a moment.
Knowing this, O man, give your heart unto Brahman
To cross this ocean of life.

(Verse 36)

. . . Living in whom gods like Indra, Brahmâ 
      and others appear like a blade of grass,
Whose anger can destroy the worlds in a moment.
O sage, know Him, that One Supreme
Who dies not,
And give not your mind to false enjoyment.

(Verse 40)

Ah, where is happiness in this life?

(At best it lasts but a hundred years, of which half is spent in sleep; of the other half, half in decrepitude; of what remains — one half goes in childhood and, of the rest, still half in serving others!)

O man, in this futile, wave-like life
Where is happiness?

(Verse 49)

Now you appear as child
And now as a youth, whose whole occupation is love.
This moment poor, another wealthy,
Now a babe, and again a decrepit old man.
O actor man, at last you vanish from the stage
When death beckons you behind the scenes!

(Verse 50)

You are a king, but we have served Gurus,
Who are great in knowledge.
You are known by your wealth as a king,
We for our knowledge.
There is infinite difference between us and you,
Therefore we are not the persons to wait upon you,
O Kings!

(Verse 51)

Oh, when will that day come,
When in a forest, saying “Shiva”, “Shiva”,
My days shall pass?
A serpent and a garland the same,
The strong foe and the friend the same,
The flower-bed and the stone-bed the same,
A beautiful woman and a blade of grass the same!

(Verses 85, 90)

O Shiva, when shall I be able to cut
To the very roots of my Karma,
By becoming solitary, desireless, quiet —
My hands my only plate, and the cardinal points 
my clothing?

(Verse 99)

The fruits are sufficient food,
The waters of the mountain sufficient dinner,
The earth a sufficient bed,
And bark a sufficient garment —
These are all welcome.
Only I cannot bear the proud words of fools,
Whose organs are all disordered by the drink
Of the wine of new wealth!

(Verse 54)

What if you have got the wealth that fulfils every desire?
If your foot is on the heads of your foes,
What of that?
If you have made all your love wealthy,
If your body remains a Kalpa (A periodic cycle of creation and dissolution.) — what of that?
The only thing to be desired is Renunciation
Which gives all love to Shiva.

(Verse 67)

Fear only life, that brings Birth and Death,
Have no love of friends, no lust, no attachment.
Alone, living alone in a forest,
What is more to be longed for than this Renunciation.

(Verse 68)

Going searching in the lower regions,
Going into the skies,
Travelling through all the worlds,
This is but the fickleness of the mind.
Ah, friend, you never remember the Lord
Who resides within you!
How can you get happiness?

(Verse 70)

What is there in the reading of Vedas,
The Shrutis, the Purânas and doing sacrifices?
Freedom alone takes off the weight
of this dreadful world,
And manifests Self-blessedness.
Here is the truth: the rest is all shop-keeping.

(Verse 71)

When the body is still healthy and diseaseless,
When old age has not yet attacked it,
When the organs have not yet lost their power,
And life is still full and undiminished,
Now, now, struggle on, rendering great help to yourself!
My friend, it is useless to try to dig a well
In a house that is already on fire!

(Verse 75)

In Shiva, who is the Lord of this Universe,
Or Vishnu, its soul, I see no difference,
But still, my love is for Him
Who has the young moon on His forehead.

(Verse 84)

Oh when will that time come,
When in a beautiful full-moon night,
Sitting on the banks of some river,
And in a calm, yet high notes repeating
“Shiva! Shiva! Shiva!”
All my feelings will come out through the eyes
In the form of tears?

(Verse 85)

When, wearing only the Kaupina, (Loincloth.)
Lying on the sands of the holy Ganges in Benares,
When shall I weep aloud, “O Lord of ghouls”,
Saying this, and whole days shall pass like moments?

(Verse 87)

When, bathing in the pure Ganges water,
Worshipping Thee, Omnipresent, with holy fruits
and flowers,
Stretching myself on stones in a stony cave,
My whole soul shall go into meditation,
And according to the voice of my Guru,
I shall avoid all misery, and purify
The mind defiled with serving the rich.

(Verse 88)

This whole wide earth my bed,
My beautiful pillows my own two arms,
My wonderful canopy the blue sky,
And the cool evening air to fan me,
The moon and the stars my lamps,
And my beautiful wife, Renunciation, by my side,
What king is there who can sleep like me in pleasure?

(Verse 94)

This Universe is only a little circle.
What is there to desire in it?
Will the ocean go into waves
By the jumping of a little [fish?]?

(Verse 92)

There was a time when I could see nothing but Women
in this world:
And now that my eyes are opened,
I can see nothing but Brahman.

Beautiful are the rays of the moon,
Beautiful are the lawns in the forest,
Beautiful is the meeting of the good,
Beautiful is poetry, and
Beautiful is the face of the beloved.
But to me none of these are beautiful,
Knowing that they are evanescent.

(Verse 79)

Oh mother earth, father wind,
Friend light, sweetheart water,
Brother sky,
Here take my last salutation
With folded hands!
For today I am melting away into Brahman,
Because my heart became pure,
And all delusion vanished
Thro’ the power of your good company.

(Verse 100)

Old age watches us, roaring like a tigress.
Disease, like enemies, is striking us often.
Life is flowing out like water from a broken jar.
Curious still how men do evil deeds in this world!

(Verse 38)

Those beautiful cities.
Those mighty monarchs.
Those powerful nobles.
Those learned assemblies.
Those moon-faced women.
Those proud princes.
And those that sang their praises —
They have all been swept away from the memory
of man.
My salutation, therefore, is to Time who works
all these!

(Verse 41)

The sun by his coming and going every hour
is lessening the life of man.
Time flies without our knowledge,
Crushed as we are by the load of many works.
Seeing the evils of Birth, Old Age, Danger, and Death
We are not afraid.
Ah me, drinking the wine of delusion,
The world has become mad.

(Verse 43)

I have not learnt that knowledge which defeats all
opponents!
Nor have been able, at the point of the sword,
Which can cut thro’ an elephant’s back,
To send our glory even unto the skies;
Nor, under the light of the full moon,
Drunk the nectar of the budding lips of the Beloved.
My youth is gone fruitless
Like a lamp in an empty house.

(Verse 46)

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Why You Continue to Fail, Pt. 1

What Is Failure?

What constitutes failure on the path of Semen Retention? This will vary from person to person a bit – some will consider failure to be only if they ejaculate. Others are a bit more strict – they consider failure to be even having a sexual thought about any woman they see. Others are more liberal, following something more in line with what the Taoists taught – that occasional emissions are allowed and perhaps even beneficial every once in a while according to your age and health.

For the sake of this article, failure will mean any loss of semen. Here are some common causes of failure on the path, and how to go about avoiding them.

Insufficient Transmuting 

Plain and simple, if you’re not transmuting the sexual energy you’re building up, it’s gonna find a way to be released, and that usually occurs right out your dick, whether that be a session on PornHub or a wet dream. This sexual energy also finds an outlet by causing you to have sexual thoughts, lust after hot “babes” you come across in daily life, and by having daydreams and fantasies about sex and women in general. Having sexual thoughts is much less of a waste than ejaculation, but for many it is still a slow leak.

Transmute that sexual energy! You can do this any number of ways – weight training, running, journaling, meditating, cold showers, prayer, yoga, breathing exercises, Qi Gong, reading uplifting texts, focusing on self-development, diving deep into your career, hobbies and passions – there are countless ways to transmute this energy. Make sure you’re doing at least a few of these things DAILY.

I’m personally a fan of yoga/Qi Gong techniques that have been specifically designed to transmute sexual energy. Journaling, meditating, cold showers and exercise are absolutely amazing practices to have, not just on the path of retention but also in daily life, and they are useful for transmuting sexual energy, but they do so indirectly.

Practices like spinal breathing, testicle breathing, the Microcosmic orbit meditation, vajroli mudra (kegels) and so on directly transmute sexual energy up and out of the crotch, allowing it to be used by both the body and mind for more beneficial activities.

And if your problem is wet dreams, for god sakes do your kegels! This is probably the easiest way to prevent wet dreams, by tightening up those PC muscles. I wrote a whole post on wet dreams on my website for those interested. Part 2 – Cultivation and Sublimation Basics and Part 3 – Strengthening Your Magnetism and Aura go into detail on how to begin sublimating sexual energy via yogic techniques.

Poor Libido Management

In the beginning, many guys will succumb to the libido’s temptations before understanding how to sublimate it into a force to accomplish their goals. Let’s take some time to learn how to tone down that ravenous, sexually glutinous beast within.

Increase serotonin levels. Ever heard of people going on antidepressants, particularly SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), and complaining of having no libido? I am absolutely not recommending that you go get a script written for SSRIs, but there are easy ways to naturally increase serotonin. Try out the supplements l-tryptophan or 5-HTP – both are precursors to serotonin. Reddit even has quite a few posts from guys taking 5-HTP and complaining of loss of libido. 

It’s important to make sure that these supplements are safe to take with any prescription meds you may be on, particularly any MAOIs or other antidepressants, as too much serotonin is a big no-no, as in a potential visit to the ER no-no. Same goes for certain illicit substances, especially MDMA/molly/ecstacy. Just google any drug you’re taking, prescription or otherwise, along with “serotonin syndrome” to double check that there aren’t any negative interactions. 

If you aren’t on prescription drugs, aren’t taking illicit substances and are otherwise generally healthy, consider giving it a shot. Increased serotonin may also boost your mood, reduce hunger/carb cravings, improve sleep (and dreams) and provide a feeling of overall contentment. Tryptophan can be taken 2-3 times daily, before meals, with no need to cycle. Take 5-HTP as directed on the bottle, but this one should be cycled – I wouldn’t go more than a month or two before taking an equal amount of time off. 

Both should be considered crutches, only to be used in the beginning or in a pinch until you’ve got your libido under control.

Modify your diet. Ayurvedic texts state that garlic, onions, black pepper, chili peppers or any foods from the allium family boost libido, as do most spicy foods. I’ve never made a conscious effort to remove these foods from my diet but it seems to be the consensus out of both Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine, both of which I have deep respect for, so it’s worth considering.

Consider cutting back on meat consumption – I went strict vegetarian for a month and a half once just to try it out and it drastically reduced my libido. Your results may vary, but most spiritual traditions agree that meat consumption raises libido. Makes sense – meat’s chock full of zinc, a mineral that’s essential for testosterone production.

Eat more soy products. A study titled Hypogonadism and erectile dysfunction associated with soy product consumption concluded “This case indicates that soy product consumption is related to hypogonadism and erectile dysfunction.” Granted this was a case study on just one 19 year old individual, but it showed that overconsumption of soy produced hypogonadism – essentially under production of androgens from the testicles. It also showed that hormone levels returned to normal after a year of going off a vegan diet. And this was in a 19 year old – testosterone levels at this age should be through the roof.

Another study on soy consumption showed that over consumption of soy caused “estrone and estradiol concentrations to be 4-fold increased above the upper limit of the reference range.” Again, this is a case study, so it’s only one individual. But soybeans, and therefore the products made from them, are well known to be chock full of phytoestrogens, plant compounds that act like estrogen in the human body.

For those not looking to reduce libido, small to moderate amounts of soy consumption is probably fine. I personally avoid it as we live in a world FILLED TO THE BRIM with xenoestrogens, chemicals found in nature as well as synthetic ones that act like estrogen in the body. But if you’re struggling with a rampaging libido, try eating more soy for a while, and then drop it down the road once your libido has calmed down.

Try fasting. As a libido reducer, fasting works amazingly well. Only problem is, we all love food and can’t be fasting all of the time, right? However, simple caloric restriction and intermittent fasting can be used instead of straight up fasting. 

This study concluded “Ramadan intermittent fasting might be associated with a decrease in sexual desire, frequency of sexual intercourse and serum FSH level.”

Another short study concludes, “These results imply that: short-term fasting exerts inhibitory influence on Leydig cell function via a mechanism which might involve a reduced hypothalamic and/or pituitary stimulation.” Leydig cells are responsible for the production of most of the testosterone in a man’s body. Reduced Leydig functioning -> reduced testosterone production -> reduced libido.

When are you most likely to masturbate? Right before bed? First thing in the morning? Pick up intermittent fasting and make it so that whenever you’re most likely to be choking the chicken, you’ve already been fasting for a few hours at least. Try a 24 hour fast once a week – eat a big breakfast and lunch, skip dinner, and don’t eat again till lunch the next day.

Fasting is also a great way to build mental toughness and grit.

Now this is not to say that regular intermittent fasting or occasional 24-48 hour fasts are going to demolish anyones libido or testosterone levels. For most people these kinds of habits will only help to improve hormone levels and libido in the long term, but fasting or even caloric restriction can absolutely serve as a targeted approach to libido reduction, and can be used as another powerful tool in your toolbox.

Take Sattvic/Shen-boosting Herbs

Along with increasing serotonin levels, we can look to certain herbs from Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Within Ayurveda, there are certain herbs known to increase the quality of sattva within a person – that quality within that is good, honest, peaceful, calm, noble and drawn to the spiritual side of life. This is in stark contrast to the other two “modes of existence”, rajas (passion and activity) and tamas (destruction, chaos, darkness). Most of us are perpetually stuck alternating between periods of rajas and tamas, of thoughtless activity and dull lethargy, rarely tapping into our sattvic side. 

What is PMO but an over-abundance of passion and chaos and an utter lack of a calm, peaceful mindstate?

TCM’s Shen–boosting herbs largely do the same thing.

Holy basil, also known as tulsi, is considered the most sattvic of all herbs within Ayurveda, with gotu kola and bacopa monnieri close behind. While I couldn’t find any studies showing a reduction in libido, any increase in sattvic qualities will be of huge help in the beginning of taking up the practice of retention. They’re of a huge help all of the time we’re on this path. I find tulsi to personally be the most sattvic, and it can be found in tea or concentrated extracts.

Within TCM, reishi mushroom is considered the king of all Shen-boosting substances. I couldn’t find any studies showing a decrease in libido, but it is a proven 5-alpha-reductase inhibitor – meaning it prevents the conversion of testosterone into its more powerful cousin, dihydrotestosterone, or DHT. Remember, anything that boosts Shen will help you to overcome desires and urges.

My favorite reishi products are this potent Dragon Herbs Purple Reishi Extract, or Nootropic Depot’s 8:1 Red Reishi.

Lion’s mane mushroom is another popular Shen tonic, and one which many folks claim kills their libido. It also has DHT-blocking properties. Just search Reddit for “lion’s mane + libido” for many case reports of lowered sex drive from this fungus. It’s also one of the best natural cognitive/memory enhancers out there. Search r/nootropics for more info. I recommend Nootropic Depot’s 8:1 Dual Extract Lion’s Mane.

The classic stress-reducing formula Bupleurum and Dragon Bone is one of the most commonly prescribed formulas within TCM to help manage and reduce addictions, and what is chronic PMO but a deleterious addiction? Bupleurum and Dragon Bone has a “stabilizing” effect on Shen, meaning it settles erratic emotions and urges, perfect for anyone struggling with riding the straight and narrow. It’s also the most commonly prescribed formula for wet dreams.

I prefer Jing Herbs Bupleurum and Dragon Bone powder or pills.

Anything that disrupts hormones is something I would only consider for a short-term solution, until you’re able to get your mind and libido under control. Reishi and lion’s mane mushrooms have so many benefits that it likely outweighs the slight drop in DHT, but it’d still be wise to cycle these guys. As for eating boatloads of soy… Drop that habit as soon as your libido is in check. 

Poor Habit Management

One of the best books I read in 2020 was Atomic Habits by James Clear. I’m the type of person who can really drag their feet on doing certain things. I can be very motivated about things that interest me and that I’m passionate about, but things that I need to do but don’t necessarily want to do? Yeah, I tend to dilly dally and get to it when I get to it.

That’s why Atomic Habits was such a good read for me – it gave me strategies to deal with my lazy side. One of the most useful hacks I got out of it is the concept of making habits you want/need to accomplish attractive and visible, while making bad habits unattractive and invisible. 

How does this apply to us on the Semen Retention path? This practice is mainly about one thing – not ejaculating. That’s a habit we’re trying to break, so we need to focus on making that habit unattractive and invisible. 

The easiest way to do this is to get rid of all temptations in your life. Start by unfollowing risque accounts on Instagram, Snapchat, Tik Tok and Reddit. Delete these apps if need be. Download an app that locks you out of other websites/apps if you can’t control yourself – definitely do this with Porn Hub or similar sites.

Stop hanging out with jabronies who only talk about what girls they banged or want to bang. Don’t watch movies or tv that you know have overly sexualized images of women. So… I guess just throw out your tv and netflix subscription.

Got a buddy that’s into SR? Set up a system where if either one of you fails, you owe the other person five/ten/twenty bucks. Raise the stakes for your failures! 

Don’t have an accountability buddy? If you fail you have to do 100 burpees/run 5 miles/something else extremely unattractive. Of course both using an accountability buddy and doling out self-discipline require honesty and integrity, but those come with the self-improvement territory, right?

Hang a calendar up somewhere visible and each day that you succeed in SR, put a big X or smiley face on it, then make sure, no matter what, you don’t break the chain of smilies! This was comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s method – he made sure that no matter what, he’d spend some time each day working on new material. Doesn’t matter if it sucked or not, as long as he worked on something, he’d put a big X on his visible calendar for that day and just made sure to never break a streak.

The same things apply in reverse for habits you’re trying to build – make them attractive and visible. 

Trying to get in the habit of journaling? Leave your journal out wherever you normally drink your morning cup of coffee.

Trying to hit the gym more? Keep your gym bag in your car, with pre-workout, your whey and your shaker bottle all in there and ready to go.

Make the habits you’re trying to start attractive and visible. Make the habits you’re trying to break unattractive and invisible..

Grit Training

Plain and simple, you need to toughen up. Toughness is a skill, not an inborn trait, and toughness can be trained, so start training it.

If you guys aren’t familiar with David Goggins y’all have been missing out. Not only has he competed in and won many 100+ mile races, but he is the only member of the U.S. Armed Forces to complete SEAL training (including two Hell Weeks), the U.S. Army Ranger School (where he graduated as Enlisted Honor Man) and Air Force Tactical Air Controller training. 

All this came from a shy, meek, overweight and self-proclaimed pussy. In high school he started forcing himself to wake up early before the bus and run. When he got to school he felt like a badass, knowing he’d already been up getting it.

You need to start doing the same thing. Actively put yourself through that which is uncomfortable but which you know is beneficial.

Start waking up an hour earlier each day, and use that extra hour productively.

Don’t workout? Start working out. Already workout? Take it to the next level or better yet, get out of your comfort zone and try something new like Brazilian jiu jitsu, rock climbing or mountain biking.

Eat a bowl of ice cream every night before bed? Smoke a bowl of grass before bed? Have a few beers each night while watching Netflix? Na man, cut that shit out, build some calluses on your mind.

Obviously this is something you should be applying to all aspects of your life, but you need to toughen up when it comes to your views on women and your constant need for self-pleasuring. 

Not getting enough validation from women? What do you need validation from anyone for? Where does that get you? Earn that validation by toughening the hell up and turning into a badass, and then if/when you do get validation, laugh at yourself for ever having wanted it in the first place.

You really can’t go a couple days without pleasuring yourself? You need that five minutes of shameful masturbation every. Single. Day? 

Really?

Time to start training your mind more. Time to embrace the suck. Time to trim the excess fat off your mind, and make it a lean, mean killing machine. 

Here’s how it’s done. Be mindful of your internal state at all times. You should already be doing this anyway. Notice when an urge or desire pops up to do something that is enjoyable but detrimental, and resist that urge. Likewise, being mindful, be aware of when your mind experiences resistance to doing something unpleasant but beneficial, and do it immediately. 

That’s it. 

It’s simple and straightforward, but it ain’t that easy.

Now this doesn’t mean you only apply this practice to when you get the urge to beat your meat. That’s the whole name of the game of semen retention – saying no to that urge to jack off. 

You do this mindfulness-based practice all day, every day. With everything.

You need to build momentum. You need to cut out the weeds from your mind. You need to trim the fat.

At first this will be difficult, maybe even painful. That’s ok. Are you someone who shirks the slightest discomforts needed to grow? Are you a weak little man-child that has to be spoon fed everything in life?

No! You’re aware of your shortcomings and you’re willing to put in the work needed to overcome them, to level up. 

You may fail. You may fail repeatedly. Good. Embrace failure as a good thing – it means you’re trying. Learn from these failures and build back better and stronger.

Failure is almost always a necessary requisite on the path to success, never forget that. The only thing that matters is that you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and then make it further than you did last time.

Grit and toughness is not something you’re born with, it’s something you have to train to have. Start training.

“If you are irritated by every rub, how will you ever be polished?” – Rumi

“For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.” – Plato

“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go their graves with the song still in them.” Henry David Thoreau

“The obstacle is the way.” – Ryan Holiday

“Resistance is the grindstone of our soul.” – Aubrey Marcus

“No man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity, for he is not permitted to prove himself.” – Seneca

“Discipline is the precondition to freedom else you are just a slave to your impulses.” – u/RaphizFR

“Don’t expect to be motivated every day to get out there and make things happen. You won’t be. Don’t count on motivation. Count on Discipline.” – Jocko Willink

“Pain unlocks a secret doorway in the mind, one that leads to both peak performance, and beautiful silence.” – David Goggins

“Only you can master your mind, which is what it takes to live a bold life filled with accomplishments most people consider beyond their capability.” – DG

“You are in danger of living a life so comfortable and soft, that you will die without ever realizing your true potential.” – DG

“Don’t focus on what you think you deserve. Take aim at what you are willing to earn.” – DG

“You have to build calluses on your brain just like how you build calluses on your hands. Callus your mind through pain and suffering.” – DG

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Get Your Head Straight

I wrote this piece as a reminder to myself on what the proper mindset to have on this path would be, although these principles apply to any discipline in life.

Fall in Love with the Process

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my short time here on this earth is to be process oriented, not goal oriented.

Obviously we need to be setting new goals, working to accomplish the ones we already have, all the while constantly tweaking and refining our methodologies.

The problem is, once most people set their goals, they remain myopically focused on just the goal. Let’s say you want to look like Brad Pitt in Fight Club. In your mind, this is the ideal physique, and if you could just look this way, all your problems – with the ladies at least – would be solved. You watch Fight Club four times a week, you research Brad’s training program, you cut out pics of him shirtless and bloody in that dungeon of a basement. No homo, of course.

You switch your diet up and start eating “healthy”. You hate the food, but you keep the fantasy in your mind of you looking shredded, bruh. You start hitting the gym. It’s gruesome, tiresome, and frankly kinda embarrassing how weak you are, but you think about all the ladies you’ll get once you’re ripped. Hell, maybe you even start taking Muay Thai or Jiu Jitsu to get a “fighter’s physique”, whatever that is.

And then you quit after two months. What gives? You wanted so badly to look ripped, to be a badass, to get all the ladies. You still want that, in fact. So why did you quit?

You quit because you were goal-oriented, not process-oriented. You did shit you hated in hopes of achieving some far-off goal, instead of learning to love the healthy habits that will get you there.

What you should have been doing instead was falling in love with the process.

Finding a workout program that is both challenging and rewarding, and loving the slow change you start to see in your physique.

Finding bomb recipes of healthy foods and learning how to prep and cook them exactly how you want them to taste.

Learning to love how it feels to go to bed just a little hungry, because that physical hunger will transfer over into your personality, and you’ll become hungry for life itself.

You learn to find pleasure and joy in bettering yourself for yourself, not so you can bang every girl in your social circle.

“You do not rise to the level of your goals – you fall to the level of your systems.” James Clear, Atomic Habits

Same applies with Semen Retention. Learn to love the daily discipline, the daily growth, the daily challenge. Don’t do this for some grand prize that is months or years away. All you have is the present moment, the here and now. Revel in the fact that each day you’re improving yourself, each day you’re better than the day before. 

You might not notice many changes or benefits at first, although some of us do. Again, don’t be focused on and looking for benefits. Trust the process! You can’t transform your physique over night, or even in a month or two. It takes many months, if not years, to build a truly impressive physique. Day by day you may not notice much, but month by month? You can begin to see your body change.

Same with semen retention. Some people might feel amazing after a week of retention, some not so much. Everyone will notice vast improvements after a few months though. Think long term, not short term. Think end game.

And if you slip up, reframe it as a learning experience. Whatever caused you to slip up, well, you’ll be better prepared next time.

Set a goal and then fall in love with the process – don’t chase results. 

Change Your Identification

After learning to love the process, we must learn to overhaul our identity. 

Let’s keep someone wanting to lose some weight as our example. They set a goal – to lose 50 pounds. They may have the best workout plan available, the best trainer money can buy, and they’re following their diet to a T. 

After a few months, lo and behold, they’ve lost the weight! And after a few more months, they’ve gained it all back, and then some.

Why? They didn’t fundamentally change who they were. In other words, they were still a person who used foods for comfort, who loved relaxing at home binging Netflix and eating Rocky Road ice cream, who hated the effort of working out, who never learned how to prepare healthy food in an appetizing way. To be a bit blunt, they were still just a fat person in a fit person’s body.

“Behavior that is incongruent with the self will not last… You may want better health, but if you continue to prioritize comfort over accomplishment, you’ll be drawn to relaxing rather than training… The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity.” – James Clear, Atomic Habits

Keep that quip in your mind at all times – “If you continue to prioritize comfort over accomplishment, you’ll be drawn to relaxing rather than training.” For us, training doesn’t mean so much physical training, but training our mind, our emotions, desires, fears, habits.

James goes on to say,

  • The goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader.
  • The goal is not to run a marathon, the goal is to become a runner.
  • The goal is not to learn an instrument, the goal is to become a musician.

Therefore, our goal is not to hit 30, 60, or 90 days. Our goal is to become a man in harmony with and in control of himself, including his sexual desires. Once we become that man, 90 days (and beyond) will come easy. 

We need to fundamentally change how we view ourselves, and how we view sex and women in general. 

We must transform from pleasure-seeking monkeys that mindlessly smash our dopamine buttons into men who love striving for what’s best for ourselves. 

We need to learn how to view sex as a means of self-transformation, not as the end-all be-all, granddaddy of all pleasures. 

We need to view temporary, voluntary celibacy as a necessary practice for self-growth. 

And we need to start viewing women as actual people, as friends, as fascinating partners for personal growth, not just as warm bodies to come inside of or notches on our belts.

Avoid Quick Fixes

Studies on delayed gratification show that kids who chose to put off a small but immediate reward in favor of a bigger reward that they had to wait for went much further in life than kids who took the quick fix. It was shown that the ability and preference to delay gratification is correlated with academic success, physical and mental health, as well as social competence.

The obvious ramification for us is to not watch porn and beat our meat into a sad, chafed state. We put off these tiny, fleeting, empty pleasures in our quest to become the ultimate version of ourselves. But putting off the small, meaningless pleasures in favor of the big wins applies far beyond semen retention. Start practicing delaying gratification in all aspects of your life.

This all goes back to Stoicism and learning to embrace discomfort like we discussed in Part 4 – This Is Your Brain on Semen Retention. To make it anywhere in life you must break free from the shackles of comfort and immediate sense gratification. You must learn to ignore the near-infinite amount of tiny distractions so that you’re able to focus on the big goals in your life.

These tiny distractions, which give you nothing but miniscule and ephemeral hits of dopamine but no true satisfaction, drain you of the will to accomplish your actual goals, which are the source of true satisfaction. Brush these distractions to the side. Stand up tall and delay that immediate, flimsy-ass satisfaction in favor of chipping away at your actual goals. The feeling of satisfaction gained from accomplishing something real and challenging is 1,000 times greater than the empty stimulation from browsing Reddit or dicking around on the same video game you’ve played one hundred times before.

More importantly, the sense of gratification and accomplishment of achieving a hard-earned goal creates a positive feedback loop, leading to you wanting to accomplish other big goals. Success begets even more success.

Starve the weeds of distraction at the roots, embrace discomfort and forgo the empty stimulation that fritters away your psychic and mental energies – that is the deeper meaning of Brahmacharya.

Within yoga, the practice of tapas, which literally translates as “heat” or “to burn”, is the practice of austerities. These austerities are the fire that burns away the dross of the mind. This can take on many, many forms, from extended fasting, to braving the heat and the cold, to even the practices we’re currently doing – yoga postures, pranayama, and meditation. One simple form that I practice every day is simple delaying of gratification. 

You get a text from a cute girl – most guys open it immediately and read it, even respond immediately. Or, you can notice that urge in your mind, leave your phone where it is, and check it and respond in 15 minutes. Not only have you built up some willpower, you’ve also created a bit of tension as the girl sits around wondering, “Why hasn’t he responded yet?” Congrats, you remained in control, you just leveled up.

You open the fridge and immediately reach for a soda – do you follow through with this unhealthy desire? Or do you turn it down and reach for something healthier? Boom, leveled up again.

How many times a day do you pick up your phone to check if you have any notifications, even though it’s been sitting right next to you and you know you don’t? Ignore that impulse, master your mind! 

QUOTE: "If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?" --Rumi | Rumi quotes, Irritated quotes, Cool words

The above is one of my favorite quotes of all time. Life presents you with an excellent battleground to learn to train and master your mind – use it wisely.

Be mindful of those nigh subconscious urges to waste time, overcome them, and spend that time wisely. Those little distracting urges are like weeds in your mind – starve them out. These little wins add up, and then when you have the urge to masturbate, guess what? You’ve got so much positive momentum going that it’s a cinch to turn that urge down too.

When have you ever gone to bed feeling happy and content from browsing the internet and masturbating all day? Compare that to the feeling of going to bed knowing you spent the majority of the day productively, and maybe you threw in some Netflix or gaming there at the end. Very different feeling.

Each time you say no to these tiny impulses to distract yourself from existence not being stimulating enough, each time you choose something that builds your skill base or knowledge instead of the mental masturbation of the internet, it’s like you’re doing a mental “rep”. It’s a workout for your mind and your willpower. Enough of these tiny wins every day and you’ll become unstoppable.

“Through tapasya, you are trying to set in motion a process of metabolism, by which all the habits that create weakness and obstruct the awakening of willpower, can be eliminated. You must know what your necessities are. Your life has to be made simpler. You have to make a choice, that’s all. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Either you want samadhi (success in meditation) or you want sensual life. To some extent you may be able to continue, but there comes a moment when you will have to make a departure from sensual life…

That is why tantra is practised. Its purpose is not to indulge in drinking, meat eating or sexual life, but to transcend your addictions. This is an important aspect of spiritual life. Mind is a very good advocate; it always argues for the senses. But in fact, even if you let your senses run riot, that doesn’t bring you happiness. So it doesn’t matter what the mind says. Go on with your tapas.” – Swami Satyananda Saraswati

“Worship of the gods, the twice-born, the teachers and the wise; purity, straightforwardness, celibacy and non-injury – these are called the austerities of the body.

Speech which causes no excitement and is truthful, pleasant and beneficial, the practice of the study of the Vedas – these are called the austerities of speech.

Serenity of mind, good-heartedness, purity of nature, self-control – these are called mental austerity.

This threefold austerity practised by steadfast people with the utmost faith, desiring no reward, they call sattwic (pure, wholesome) austerity.” – Bhagavad Gita, 17:14-17

Expect No Reward

I was speaking with another Redditor who became interested in yoga through the practice of semen retention. We got on the topic of the myriad different forms of yoga, and I mentioned karma yoga, the path of unselfish action. Basically, your every action is done with complete awareness, as an offering to God/the Ultimate/the Universe/your Highest Self, and is done without any expectation of award. 

You do the dishes with complete awareness, and you do them because they need to be done, not to please your wife in hopes that it’ll lead to your one night of sex this week. You do your job at work with complete mindfulness, and not with the hope of getting a raise, but because it’s your damn job. 

While I’m not trying to push this practice on anyone, I think the aspect of not expecting rewards is very beneficial for us on the path. Many of us hear about semen retention and all the nearly magical powers that can come along with it, and all the benefits it can bring, and so we start expecting these things, right off the bat in some cases.

In my eyes, this is the absolute worst way to go about things. You’ll constantly be second-guessing every little aspect of your life, looking at everything that happens to you under a giant magnifying glass, wondering if this is because of this benefit you heard about, or if that was because of that other benefit. 

If a girl looks your way, is it because of your magnetic aura?? Or was she just looking around the room and noticed you were already looking at her? 

You wake up and you’re feeling kinda blah today. Are you flatlining?? Or did you forget that not every day is gonna be the BEST. DAY. EVER?

If you’re constantly on the lookout for, and striving after, any of these seemingly magical benefits we get from SR, you’re just shooting yourself in the foot. It’s kind of like befriending a wild animal, or your neighbor’s cat. Just do your thing, don’t chase after the cat. When the cat is ready and comfortable around you, she’ll walk up, sniff at you, maybe rub up on your leg. If you try to pet her, she’ll just run off, so just keep on doing you and ignoring her.

The same thing applies to any “powers” gained from the path of retention. Maybe that girl was looking at you cuz your aura is growing all huge and magnetic – great, no biggie. As some obscure band from the 60’s was fond of saying, “Let it be”.

This is for YOU

Don’t do any of this for anyone other than yourself. Don’t walk this path to attract and seduce females. Don’t practice retention in the hopes of gaining the respect of other guys, or, worse yet, to intimidate them. 

Practice SR for one reason and one reason only – self mastery. If you can conquer your sexual desire, you’ve slayed perhaps the biggest dragon of your psyche. A better analogy is you’ve tamed that dragon, and now have the most powerful ally in all the kingdom.

Semen retention is for you, and you alone.

“For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.” – Plato

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Overcoming Wet Dreams

I’ve seen multiple Reddit posts recently about people having issues with wet dreams and nocturnal emissions, so let’s have a little chat about the topic.

Repressed Sexuality

I think the biggest issue for a lot of guys on this path is that they mistakenly wind up repressing all sexual thoughts and feelings. This repression and bottling up of sexual feelings means that they wind up getting expressed when we’re no longer in control, oftentimes in an explosion of jizzum while we’re asleep. This is awfully frustrating when we’re putting so much conscious effort into not ejaculating in the waking world.

When you go on the semen retention path, it’s important to not have things in your environment that stimulate sexual thoughts. So we cut out racey accounts that we follow, avoid going out to bars with all the scantily clad girls, and we definitely cut out porn. But we’re left with one very fundamental thing that we can’t just “cut out” – our mind. You may have removed every possibility of seeing a sexually stimulating image, but controlling the mind and its desire for the female form is a bit trickier.

So many of us repress these thoughts, desires, and cravings. This is not the move! Just like letting little annoying things that your girlfriend does bottle up until it bursts out of you in an embarrassing display of frustration and anger, bottling up and repressing sexual thoughts/desires leads to, well.. A different kind of embarrassing explosion.

The trick is to allow these thoughts and desires to pop up, remaining aware yet detached. In Part 5 – The Alpha and the Omega, we discussed a type of meditation where you just remain a passive observer to thoughts as they arise, as if they were just ephemeral clouds passing through your mind. 

You guys have been practicing this, right?

“Your goal is to identify as the passive witness to all these thoughts/images/feelings as they arise. They are like clouds, coming about on their own, evolving and changing on their own, and fading away.”

In regards to emotions, “I’ve found it helpful to reframe emotions as just flavors of energy that come into my field of consciousness, stick around for a quick sec, and then start fading away. They’re impermanent and only hold as much weight as you give them.”

So instead of repressing and shoving sexual thoughts and desires down into your subconscious, where they’ll simply explode out of your dick while you sleep, just remain detachedly aware of them. The goal is to learn to identify as that part of you that is pure awareness, and to view your thoughts and emotions (sexual or otherwise) as an interesting and amusing thing that seems to be playing out in front of you. 

In this way, sexual thoughts and desires get fully acknowledged, not repressed. The energy that makes them up is able to be expressed, without shaking your strong foundation of mindfulness. 

It can be tricky, cuz these types of thoughts are sticky – they have a tendency to suck you in and pull you and your Johnson along for a ride. That’s why this is a good meditation to practice with everyday thoughts and emotions.

Learning to identify as “the witness”, that impersonal but imperturbable aspect of pure awareness, will get you far in life, not just in retention. The more you identify with the witness, and less with your thoughts, emotions, and desires, the less you’ll be swayed by the ups and downs of life.

Lack of or Improper Sublimation

I reckon that many on this sub that are still struggling with nocturnal emissions aren’t taking their sublimation practices seriously. When you retain and begin building that sexual energy up, if you don’t actively sublimate it and circulate it throughout the whole body/mind complex, what do you expect is gonna happen? That energy needs to find an outlet somewhere, and it’s gonna take the route it’s most familiar with.

You don’t have to do the whole yoga/breathing exercise route I espouse, but it is exceptionally good for this issue, specifically siddhasana (Part 7) and the spinal breathing technique from Part 2 and Part 3.

Non-yoga sublimation techniques that would be best would be working out and cold showers or baths before bed, or even just an ice pack on the crotch. Journaling is another way to get those sexual thoughts and emotions expressed without them ruffling your feathers too much. 

Over-stimulated CNS

A big contributing factor is likely that many people experiencing wet dreams are going to bed too stimulated. This could be from too much caffeine late in the day, watching action movies or gaming right before bed, being overly stressed out, or not getting enough exercise. 

Exercise is key here. If you get a solid hour to an hour and a half workout 4-5 times a week, your body will be so busy rebuilding itself and recovering during sleep that it won’t have the energy or need to have a nighttime orgasm. If any of you brothers aren’t exercising you REALLY need to get on it! It is easily almost as beneficial as the semen retention path – the benefits are nearly endless and come quickly. It might not take you as far semen retention but it will improve every aspect of your life. Get on it fellas, whether it’s running, weight lifting, rock climbing, mountain biking, whatevs.

If you’re struggling with wet dreams, cut back on the caffeine/nicotine/adderall, especially later in the day. Avoid video games and movies that are over-stimulating before bed, at least until this issue resolves itself.

Practice some calming breathing exercises just before bed. Along with spinal breathing and alternate nostril breathing, you can practice either box breathing or 1:1:2 breathing.

In box breathing you simply breathe in, hold, exhale, and hold, all for an equal count. Breathe in 5 seconds, hold the breath inside for 5 seconds, exhale for 5 seconds, and hold the breath outside the body for 5 seconds. Repeat for 5-10 minutes.

1:1:2 breathing is similar, except you double the length of the exhale, and omit the external breath retention. So you’d breathe in for 5 seconds, hold for 5 seconds, exhale for 10, and then repeat.

Box breathing is a technique used by Navy Seals to calm down, switching their body from fight-or-flight mode into the relaxing rest-and-digest. 

1:1:2 breathing accomplishes the same thing. The sympathetic nervous system is activated when you breathe in, while the out-breath activates the calming parasympathetic nervous system. You can actually feel your heart beat faster on the inhale and slower on the exhale if you pay close attention. By doubling the length of the exhale, you double the amount of parasympathetic activation.

If you’ve worked up to it, you can also practice alternate nostril breathing in a 1:2 fashion, or a 1:1:2 fashion. The left nostril is the start of the cooling, calming energy channel, while the right nostril is the beginning of the warming, activating energy channel. By equalizing the breath in both nostrils in an alternating fashion, you balance the nervous system.

Kegels

Do your damn kegels! Do ’em all the time, whenever you have a second to think about them. Lots of quick, short holds, medium length holds, long holds. Practice reverse kegels too, as if you were trying to hurry up and piss faster than Sonic the hedgehog.

There are apps out there for you to follow specific routines, but I’ve never used them and don’t see any need to. If that sounds like your jam feel free to check ‘em out.

Kegels not only help to sublimate sexual energy up out of the genitals, it also helps prevent leakage, whether awake or asleep. It’s also a fundamental practice for Tantric sex, if you ever decide to go that route, so get reaaallll comfortable with em.

Set Intentions

What’s the easiest way to have a lucid dream? Go to bed and as you’re drifting off, program your subconscious mind to become lucid while dreaming. Ever had to wake up in the morning for something really important, and even though you forgot to set an alarm, you still woke up early for it? 

The whole thing about sleep is that “you” aren’t consciously there. However, by setting intentions before bed, you can program your subconscious mind to some degree. When you go to bed each night, set an intention to sleep through the night with no leakage. Don’t have a mindset of fear or worry that you’ll have an emission – you’re talking to your subconscious here, you’re talking to yourself – there’s nothing to fear. You’re on the same team, you are the same team.

Tell your subconscious firmly – not angrily – that these wet dreams are no longer serving you, and that your seed and sexual energy are now to be retained and used for self-evolution. Program your mind for a few minutes each night before bed, and then forget about it and drift off to sleep. It’s important to not obsess over it – just set the intention and let it go. Your deeper self will take care of the rest.

On Herbs and Supplements

Back in Part 6 – Cultivating Sexual Energy with Herbs, we discussed some herbal hacks for building and transmuting Jing, our sexual energy. If you’re having issues with wet dreams, I would make sure to avoid cistanche, as it’s not only spermatogenic, but is also a fairly strong aphrodisiac.

While schisandra is also spermatogenic, it has been used for thousands of years by Taoists and practitioners of the “bedroom arts” to help preserve and “lock in” sexual fluids. Its astringent and sour qualities are excellent for this purpose. Because it is a potent adaptogen, it will also help you to destress, and as we covered earlier, being overly stressed is likely contributing to nocturnal emissions.

Ashwagandha would be of use here as well. It increases GABA within the brain, which is our main inhibitory neurotransmitter, helping us to get deep, restorative sleep. It’s adaptogenic and also lowers cortisol, one of our main stress hormones.

Polygala would still be safe to use, and as it helps to build up the “Fourth Treasure”, our willpower, and opens up the “Penetrating Vessel”, allowing sexual energy to be transmuted up the spine from the sexual organs. Polygala on it’s own might be a bit too stimulating right before bed, however. Dragon Herbs has a great product called Will Strengthener which contains some supporting herbs (such as dragon bone – see below) that will help calm the nervous system. If you already bought straight polygala, just make sure to use it in the morning or early afternoon.

A few other things may be important to ensure deep sleep. I would avoid 5-HTP, tryptophan, B Vitamins and melatonin before bed, as these generally increase REM sleep, the stage of sleep where most dreaming, wet or dry, occurs. While we certainly don’t want to abolish REM sleep outright, those struggling with wet dreams probably don’t need anymore than they get naturally.

Magnesium improves deep sleep and is crucially missing from pretty much everyone’s diet, as we’ve done an excellent job of raping and leaving for the dead the soil of our farms here in the West. This is one of those few supplements I think everyone should be taking, especially anyone with sleep issues or anxiety. Magnesium glycinate, chelate, citrate or threonate are all excellent choices.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shen–tonifying herbs are split into two categories – Shen-stabliizing and Shen-developing herbs. The stabilizing herbs help to settle our spirit, mind and emotions. They’re very calming and grounding. Shen-developing herbs, like polygala, help to bring positive emotions to the forefront of our experience. 

Most Shen-stabilizing herbs and formulas are very calming to the nervous system, particularly Pearl powder and the formula bupleurum and dragon bone. Pearl is just what it sounds like, pearls that have been ground up into extremely fine powder. This mineral rich powder helps to “weigh down” the electrical impulses of the nerves. 

Bupleurum and dragon bone is the most widely used anti-stress formula in TCM. “Dragon bone” refers to pulverized remains of fossilized animal bones, traditionally mastodon. Yeah, they go hard in TCM. Again, this mineral-rich compound is “heavy” in the sense that it calms the nervous system, and also has the same astringent property that schisandra has, helping to “lock in” sexual energy and fluids.

Bupleurum and dragon bone is “known for its ability to help stabilize addictive-compulsive behavior and is widely used in the withdrawal from the addiction to smoking, drinking, and a large variety of addictive drugs by both lessening the cravings for the drug and reducing the common withdrawal symptoms… It is said to improve willpower, strengthen the mind, and reduce anxiety, frustration, and anger.”

Dragon bone itself is useful for nocturnal emissions. As Ron Teeguarden states in The Ancient Wisdom of the Chinese Tonic Herbs, “It is often used in formulas to control seminal emission… It is often found in formulas designed to enhance male sexual performance. In this usage, it has a calming effect on the mind, preventing premature ejaculation, as well as the astringent action, which literally locks in semen.”

Recommended Products –

Drs. Best Magnesium Glycinate Lysinate

Jing Herbs Pearl Powder

Dragon Herbs Pearl Capsules

Jing Herbs Bupleurum and Dragon Bone Powder

Dragon Herbs Bupleurum and Dragon Bone Capsules

Dragon Herbs Will Strengthener

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Part 4 – This is Your Brain on Semen Retention

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

For all you SR homies that aren’t as much into the esoteric and more into the down-to-earth, this post is for you.

Motivation

Think back to Post 1. I argued that retaining is a just a means to an end, that end being enhancing a type of energy called Jing. Jing is our vitality, which can be physically described as the sum total of our hormones, neurotransmitters, immune system and DNA integrity.

An interesting thing happens to a man during orgasm. Prolactin explodes onto the scene, and dopamine plummets.

Dopamine is that feel-good, tons of confidence, get shit done neurotransmitter. It’s key to confidence and motivation. We want dopamine, and we want it in abundance.

Prolactin is a necessary hormone even for men, just like estrogen is.. But it’s also the hormone responsible for breast growth and lactation in women. As guys, we want the bare minimum of prolactin floating around.

That sudden depletion of dopamine and surge in prolactin is why guys feel like they “lose their power” after “relapsing”. It’s a sudden diminishing of Jing.

Now the good news is, if you retain for 6 months and then have sex, you don’t go all the way back to square one. It sets you back, but not all the way to the beginning. Even better news, certain techniques can be used as “harm reduction” to prevent the loss of Jing and to quickly replenish it if this does happen. That is beyond the scope of this post, but I’ll get into this as we go deeper down the rabbit hole.

Back to hormones and neurotransmitters –

Low dopamine levels are associated with depression, low energy, lack of ambition, social anxiety, among others (Dailly et al., 2004).

Why does dopamine drop? Well, to make sure we attend to other aspects of our life, our brains come hardwired with a neurochemical mechanism of satiety. Prolactin, another hormone, surges right after orgasm, and is considered a reliable marker of such (Kruger et al., 2003). Prolactin works as a dopamine inhibitor, curtailing our sex drives once we consummate orgasm and providing us with feelings of satiation and sexual gratification. So the happy feelings impulsed by orgasm are carried along by prolactin. These secretions are relatively long-lasting after orgasm (Kruger et al., 2012).

Now prolactin doesn’t just curtail our sex drives, it curtails our drive in general. And studies have shown this dip in dopamine takes about two weeks to recover. That’s a looooong time to have reduced drive, energy and confidence..

When we practice semen retention, we’re trying to “stay hungry” and accomplish goals, but prolactin is a “neruochemical mechanism of satiety”. No bueno.Sweet, Sweet Dopamine

The problem is, jacking off and prolactin isn’t the only thing fucking with our dopamine system. Remember, high dopamine = lots of motivation, drive, desire, and confidence. This is why people love drugs like Adderall and cocaine, and why, if they have nothing better to focus on, they clean the shit out of their apartments. They’re on a dopamine high and gotta do something, anything.

But we live in a world that is beyond oversaturated with things that stimulate dopamine release. They’re massive time-wasters, and they fuck up our dopaminergic systems.

They hack into our brain’s reward system and prevents us actually getting things done.

Neurochemistry 101

I’ll keep this short guys. In the brain you have these chemical messengers called neurotransmitters. They fit into receptors, much like a lock and key. It’s important to remember that the brain and body are always trying to maintain homeostasis.

If the brain detects too much of a certain neurotransmitter, it reacts to maintain this homeostasis. If there is too much dopamine in certain parts of the brain, the brain first ceases to release more dopamine. If that doesn’t fix it, it de-sensitizes dopamine receptors. If that still doesn’t fix it, it starts removing dopamine receptors completely!

This is how addiction comes about. Look at the image below – see how amphetamine looks almost identical to dopamine? It fits right into that receptor, and over time your body down-regulatesdopamine receptors, meaning you need more and more of the drug to get high, and feel worse and worse when you don’t have it.

This is how porn in particular, and modern society in general, have been able to ensnare us in their clutches – they make our brain less and less sensitive to its own neurotransmitters. You need more and more stimulus (more exciting video games, kinkier and kinkier porn) to get the same dopamine release, and things that you once found interesting (books, sports, conversations with friends, whatever), are no longer stimulating enough.

  • Food is literally engineered by scientists to hack into our reward system. Why eat anything healthy and nutritious when there are Cheetos in the cupboard and Mountain Dew in the fridge? Why eat a nice, big salmon salad when I can just pop in a pizza that floods my brain with dopamine and endorphins and leaves me comatose on the couch afterwards?
  • Social media, with its fast pace, endless novelty in the never-ending scrolling, and system of intermittent reinforcement is addictive as hell. Why go through the work of actually hanging out with friends and family? God, you gotta sit there, actually listen to what they say, and then formulate a response? Not enough dopamine for me, I’d rather do the scroll of death or post a photo and revel in the brief, short squirts of dopamine I get with each like.
  • TV shows, immersive video/PC games, constant music playing.. Again, engineered to be addictive and hack into our reward system. Who has the time to learn actual skill sets? To learn how to play a musical instrument? To read a book? How many more pages do I gotta read till I get some damn dopamine?
  • And of course, our personal favorite.. We can have “virtual sex” at any time with an ever increasing variety of women with bodies that are just rarely found in real life. Why go out and try to meet actual women (and face possible “rejection”), when we can stay at home and get off to our weirdest, kinkiest desires? You know how long it’s gonna take to get my hit of dopamine by actually trying to learn to talk to girls?

I could go on and on here, but the point is that we’re constantly bombarded by things that trap us in this negative hedonic feedback loop. How are you going to accomplish anything when you can’t make it past your fuckin’ cell phone?

Now here’s a caveat – the less you partake in dopamine-depleting acts, the more dopamine your brain has for daily life, and the less you’ll crave these time wasters. This is why after a certain amount of time, you longer no miss porn. It doesn’t even sound appealing.

As time goes on, and your receptors become re-sensitized, they become that much more sensitive to dopamine. Things that are “less exciting”, but probably more beneficial, become more enjoyable. That’s a big win. That said, addictive behavior becomes that much more pleasurable. So you gotta be careful, because it could quickly spiral way out of control.

Our goal then is to re-sensitize our brains to our own natural production of dopamine, and use to it ravage our women and crush our enemies. I mean, uh, to accomplish goals and shit.

The True Meaning of Brahmacharya

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” – Blaise Pascal

I would argue that preserving dopamine is as important as preserving semen. Really.

Semen retention is the doorway to realizing this. Semen retention is step one.

People think Brahmacharya is just celibacy. The word literally means “to live in higher awareness”. What does this mean in relation to semen retention? Yes, retain. But you must also not squander your dopamine, just like you wouldn’t squander your seed.

You are in the market, but not to buy anything.

This is a very important concept, and is the true meaning of Brahmacharya. It means you are immune to the seductions of the world, and those seductions come in the form of enslavement to dopamine.

You have controlled your lust for sensual pleasure, sensual pleasure meaning pleasure derived from any of the senses! One who has command over his mind and its lust for constant stimulation – that is a true Brahmachari.

It goes far beyond celibacy.

If you can’t get through a few pages of a book without going crazy with the itch for dopamine, you need to work on this.

If you can’t go even 20 minutes, never mind an hour, without checking your phone, your Snapchat, your texts.. You need a lot of work here.

Can’t go a couple days without gaming? Need to work on this.

If you can’t eat a home cooked meal without enjoying the flavor, and coming away satisfied, you need to work on this.

Perhaps most terrifying of all.. can you just sit and be still with your thoughts for five minutes? Ten? No phone, just you and yourself? Go to the local park, leave your phone at home, and just watch the world go by for 15 minutes. It will be torturous. Now ask yourself why the hell simply being is such a painful thing? I dare you to try out a float tank some time.

Addicted to Comfort

We’re addicted to the good feelings dopamine provides us, but we’re also addicted to our modern comforts. We’re weak, weak little babies, and the slightest discomfort makes us cry for mommy.

This is where Stoicism and guys like David Goggins and Jocko Willink come in. According to Stoic philosophy, “the path to eudaimonia (happiness, or blessedness) is found in accepting the moment as it presents itself, by not allowing oneself to be controlled by the desire for pleasure or fear of pain, by using one’s mind to understand the world”. Stoicism doesn’t mean running from pleasure, but it does mean not mindlessly chasing it or shirking from a little discomfort.

Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of laziness, fear and discomfort, and it would do you well to remember this. Conquer those three, and you’ve conquered yourself.

If y’all aren’t familiar with David Goggins yet.. Y’all are missing out. The guy went from a self-proclaimed pussy to probably the toughest guy out there, being the only member of the U.S. Armed Forces to complete SEAL training (including two Hell Weeks), the U.S. Army Ranger School (where he graduated as Enlisted Honor Man) and Air Force Tactical Air Controller training. Then he went on to break a fuckton of records, including the Guinness World Record for pull-ups, completing 4,030 in 17 hours.

Peep the dude’s athletic accomplishments here.

Funny thing is, he started off as a self-proclaimed pussy, clocking in at 300 lbs.

Regaining dopaminergic tone only takes you so far – you’ll only be motivated to do things in order to get that dopamine hit, and that’s powerful, that gets the ball rolling, but it only takes you halfway. You gotta push past discomfort to be truly outstanding, or to be “Uncommon amongst uncommon men“, as Goggins put it. Motivation is what gets you started – discipline is what keeps you going.

Figure out ways to practice and embrace discomfort, and, key to this practice, reframe it as something positive. You gotta heat iron to 2750 degrees and then beat the living shit out of it forge a sword, so use the heat of discomfort to make the mind malleable and then beat the shit out of it with difficult endeavors to forge a mind that isn’t weak, that doesn’t constantly chase after the tiniest empty pleasures and mortal comforts.

“You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” – Marcus Aurelius

“Don’t expect to be motivated every day to get out there and make things happen. You won’t be. Don’t count on motivation. Count on discipline.. Discipline equals Freedom” – Jocko Willink

“I had to build this callused mind, and I built it through suffering… I wanted to be a man who detested mediocrity.. This motherfucker is gonna keep coming after whatever the fuck is in front of him.” David Goggins on JRE #1080

Tapas – Toughness Training

Each time you say no to a useless urge that pops into your head, you level up. You build up personal power. It’s that simple. Any time you practice something that is good for you, but that is difficult and that you don’t want to do, boom, you level up again. This is callusing the mind. Do this enough times, and one day a Warrior is born.

In yoga there is a concept known as Tapas, or spiritual austerity. Just as heating ice turns it into water, and heating water turns it into vapor, Tapas is the inner heat that sublimates the energy we conserve by retaining into pure, fiery drive. The word tapas literally means “to burn”.

Any time you say no to an urge, or welcome and embrace discomfort in search of growth, you level up. It’s that simple. That is what tapas is all about.

Stop chasing empty stimulation.

Embrace discomfort.

Practices

So what is one to do?

  1. Cut out empty, short-lived dopamine highs.
  2. Train your brain to have to work for its dopamine hits.
  3. Practice beneficial discomfort and adversity.

Dopamine “Fasting”

Set a time limit on your phone for your biggest time wasting apps. You have to use some discretion here. I first had mine set for 15 minutes, and I’d only allow scrolling for 15 minutes in the morning, and 15 in the evening, and that was for Instagram, Facebook and Reddit combined. Nowadays I just pop on each app in the morning to check notifications, then log off. I also don’t allow notifications from any apps except for Reddit, and that’s only so I can keep up with you fellas. That way I’m not constantly getting updates on my phone, draining my precious attention and dopamine. Check out the app Forest.

Cut out junk food and eat as much home-prepped, whole foods as possible. A lot of people only find snacks, fast food and restaurant food palatable. Their tastebuds have desensitized and they basically get no dopamine released from actual food. Time to change that.

Practice intermittent fasting – You gotta break the chains to food in general! I have a 8:16 feeding window – all my calories are consumed within 8 hours. This means I don’t eat until 10 am, and wrap up eating at 6 pm. Considering I’m asleep most of the fasting time, this is simple. Tons of other benefits, look it up.

Try occasional 24 hour fasts – Once you’re comfortable with IF, try out the occasional 24 hour fast. Eat a big breakfast, and then a big lunch. Stuff your face up until noon, and then no calories until noon the following day. Your first couple times you can drink some bone broth if you’re really hurting.

Fast for everything else – I highly suggest social media / gaming / Netflix fasts. Do one whole day with no screen time whatsoever. Then do a week. Every year take a whole month off. I can feel y’all cringing – if it makes you cringe thinking about it, then you know you need it. Do the same thing with whatever other addictions you have. You will be amazed at all the stuff you can accomplish when you cut back on social media, gaming and other time-wasters.

Start reducing consumption of booze, nicotine, caffeine, and other drugs. Again, this just floods your brain with dopamine. You’re burning through your Jing each time you drink booze, smoke a cig, pop an Adderall or drink a Redbull. You don’t have to quit, but reduce consumption of these things in general. Keep track and just slowly reduce.

Use nicotine/caffeine/booze for a purpose. Tie your addictions up to useful actions. I’ve whittled my caffeine use down to only before a workout or when writing. It’s become a tool, instead of an addiction. Smoke cigarettes? Start changing your habits so that you mostly smoke while you’re accomplishing some goal, or only as a reward. Love craft beer like me? You gotta earn that shit, son.

Practice “sitting still, doing nothing” – This is one of the ways Taoists refer to meditation. I’m a big fan of meditation, but even most forms of meditation involve doing something, focusing on something, visualizing, etc. Sitting still, doing nothing, and just being should be your litmus test for how well you’re beginning to progress on the dopamine recovery path – if you can just sit and be comfortable for 10 or 15 minutes, you’re well on your way.

Earn Your Dopamine

In Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Total Recall – My Unbelievably True Life Story, he spoke about how as a child in Austria, his father used to make him do pushups each time he entered the kitchen, earning his meals. This always stuck with me.

A lot of people think that as guys, we have to earn our keep. This needs reframing.

As guys, we GET to earn our keep, and how glorious it is.

Set goals each day – start with 3, make ’em small, and stick the fuck to ’em. You want to achieve that “Winners Effect“, where success begets more success. We want to rewire our brain to meet challenges head on, to live off the highs of accomplishments, not mashing buttons while staring at a screen, endless scrolling of social media black holes, or beating our meat.

Put a price on things – 15 pushups each time you open the fridge. 20 air squats any time you leave the house. 20 burpees before any screen time that isn’t productive.

Easy Peasy or Worst First? A matter of personal preference here – some like accomplishing their biggest/least fun goal first and getting it out of the way. Other’s prefer to ride the high of smaller accomplishments and let that lead into bigger daily goals. Find which one works best for you.

Leverage your addictions – Set it up so that you can only take part in your biggest time wasters afteryou accomplish one of your goals for that day. That said, don’t accomplish one goal and spend the rest of the day lounging on Netflix.

Practice Adversity

Start waking up earlier – “The test is not a complex one: when the alarm goes off, do you get up out of bed, or do you lie there in comfort and fall back to sleep? If you have the discipline to get out of bed, you win—you pass the test. If you are mentally weak for that moment and you let that weakness keep you in bed, you fail. Though it seems small, that weakness translates to more significant decisions. But if you exercise discipline, that too translates to more substantial elements of your life.” – Jocko Willink

Cold showers – Lots of you guys are already doing this, and it has tons of benefits beyond toughness training. Cold exposure increases norepinephrine 200-300%, meaning an instant energy and motivation boost. It’s even been studied for its effects on depression. Start hot and end cold, do contrast showers, cold the whole time, or ice bath style.. However you wanna slice it, this is a great way to get used to being uncomfortable.

Exercise – if you already do it, great. You lift but hate running? Start running. You run only? Start lifting. Don’t exercise at all? Get the fuck on it.

Meditate – If you don’t meditate.. I just don’t have words. Your mind is the medium through which you interact with the world, and therefore shapes your entire existence. The mind is how you

  1. Perceive the environment around you
  2. Perceive your internal environment (emotions)
  3. Get shit done

Meditation is the science of mastering your mind. If you’ve mastered your mind completely, you can get whatever you want done whenever you want it done, and will feel good doing it. There are a million ways to practice meditation. Find one you like and do it every single damn day. Period.

Embrace the Suck – doesn’t matter what that suck is. Hate your math class? Nut up and just do your homework. Hate running? Time to start. When you start to get the feeling of straight UGH just thinking about it, recognize that as positive thing. That becomes the trigger for success! Befriend that feeling. Just remember, it will help you build that “calloused mind”, and you’ll get some dopamine upon completion, which is exactly what we want.

Feel the fear and do it anyway – This one might not be applicable for every single day, but if something scares you, that’s your cue to go ahead and do it. Don’t think, just act. Reframe it as excitement – in fact, fear and excitement are nearly identical internal states. We don’t run from discomfort, we welcome it. We don’t run from fear, we meet it head on.

In a nutshell, force yourself to do something you don’t enjoy doing, but that is beneficial. And when your mind tells you to quit, keep going until you reach your predetermined goal.

Recommended Reading ~

The Oatmeal – 5 Stages of Caffeine Intake

The Oatmeal – The Terrible and Wonderful Reason I Run Long Distances – comic but very relevant

The Winner Effect – how winning begets more winning

Discipline Equals Freedom – Jocko Willink

Can’t Hurt Me – David Goggins

Total Recall : My Unbelievably True Life Story

Recommended Viewing / Listening

Bill Hicks – It’s Just a Ride – not relevant to this topic, but one of my favorite clips and relevant to life in general

Goggins on JRE #1080

Jocko Willink on JRE

How to be Comfortable Being Uncomfortable – 43 Weird and Wonderful Ways to Build a Strong, Resilient Mind

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The Ten Semen Retention Commandments

This was a post meant for Reddit, but it kept getting banned for some reason. A user was curious so here it is – enjoy.

These are just ten guidelines I keep in mind when it comes to SR. Yours may differ, and these might even change for me as time goes on.

The Ten Commandments of Semen Retention

  1. Thou shalt preserve thy seed and retain this sacred energy
  2. Thou shalt increase, nourish and protect this energy
  3. Sublimate and invest this energy in the betterment of thyself
  4. Thou shalt strengthen and develop the physical body
  5. Thou shalt strengthen and develop the mind – meditate
  6. Free thyself from the shackles of comfort, distraction and sensual lust, meeting fear head on and seeking beneficial discomfort
  7. Thou shalt develop and grow the heart
  8. Thou shalt actively help others – a rising tide lifts all ships
  9. Separate from Woman, that one may learn what it is to be Man
  10. Return, and embrace and respect Woman as equal

1. Preserve thy seed – This one needs no explanation. It’s the essential first step. Abstain from masturbation, and if having sex, try not to release. That second part is tricky, but can be done.

2. Increase, nourish, protect this sacred energy – That sexual energy can still be squandered though, throwing it away to social media, excessive gaming, drugs/partying, etc. Many people stop at simply not masturbating. They’ve plugged the leak – what else is there to do? Unfortunately, they fail to realize all the ways in which this energy can be further enhanced. They also don’t realize how easy it is to waste this energy in sensual distractions. The rubber meets the road when you learn to not just prevent its leaking, but to increase this sexual energy as well.

3. Sublimate and invest this energy back into yourself – Conserving sexual energy means a sudden increase in willpower, and a drive to get things done. What are you going to do with all this new energy? Now’s the time to set up healthy habits and routines to invest this energy and newfound badass-ness in. Read uplifting texts; start working out; start that business you always kept on the back-burner; ask out that girl you’ve been crushing on; pick that guitar back up; figure out your goals, write em out, and start chipping away. Investing this energy back into yourself increases it ten-fold – don’t squander it on meaningless pursuits. It also keeps your motivation high – look at all this stuff you’ve accomplished after you started retaining. Part 2 went over some sublimation insights.

4. Strengthen the body – I highly recommend you guys look into lifting weights – it will help rebalance hormone levels, i.e. increase testosterone, DHT and HGH. Hill sprints are great in this department as well, and you’ll get a huge confidence boost once you see your body starting to develop. It’s also a great way to practice discomfort. Whatever you do, stay healthy through diet, exercise of some sort, stress reduction and good sleep hygiene. If you’re massively overweight, sickly, or up all night getting high and gaming, you really think cutting out porn and masturbation is gonna improve your life much?

5. Strengthen and develop the mind – The mind is the tool through which you interact with the entire world around you, and through which you interact with yourself. IT IS THE GATEKEEPER! In my eyes, this is the most important commandment. You don’t want to be at the mercy of the world, because the world is unpredictable. It’s unreliable. At the same time, you don’t want to be at the mercy of your internal world, of your cravings, desires, attachments, fears, and emotions. A strong, well-developed mind is unruffled by both exterior events and internal states – it is like a huge battleship, able to weather any turbulent storm, and wait it out till the seas settle. The mind is key – see Part 5.

6. Overcome your attachment to comfort and sensual distraction, and embrace fear and discomfort – Part 4 went into detail on this. Your fear and attachment to comfort keep you stuck at your current level. You must confront both to start progressing. “We don’t rise to level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training” – Archilochus. You’ll never reach your goals if you keep doing the same comfortable, safe shit you’ve always done. And when shit hits the fan, if you’re weak in heart and mind, you’ll get scared, you’ll falter, and you’ll shrink from the uncomfortable. Time to shake things up, challenge and scare yourself, and nut up!

7. Develop the Heart – At a bare minimum, practice compassion, patience, generosity and forgiveness. Start developing these things towards yourself first, then others. Think of your heart and mind as a movie projector. Thoughts and feelings pop up, and these get projected outward. This is why some people have good vibes, and some people bad vibes – you’re just picking up on their thoughts and feelings. When you start retaining, you start projecting those thoughts and feelings out there BIG TIME. Your little movie projector has turned into a spotlight/Bat signal situation – your vibes become strong as hell, and right as rain, people will notice. You don’t want negative thoughts and feelings muddying up your Shen/pranic field/aura, so as we develop the mind, we simultaneously develop the heart and emotions. Part 3 goes into detail on this.

8. Help others, a rising tide lifts all ships – What do you think of when you think of a real man? Big, buff, burly and strong? Rich and charming? Athletic prowess? I think of my father, my grandfather, and my stepfather. Each are very successful by every metric of the word, but most importantly, these are men that come from a place of abundance, and are quick to help those around them. In my eyes, a willingness to help others comes from a place of strength and abundance. Think of the alpha male in a tribe – sure, they get all the credit as the toughest guy in the group, but they also provide for the rest of the group. They look after the others, and they make sure they’re taken care of and protected. You’ve discovered this great gift of retention – it’s now your responsibility to help others less fortunate. Generosity is a gift that gives back, and a gift that you can never run out of. People are more willing to help you when you’ve already helped them. It’s called the rule of reciprocity.

9. Separate from the Feminine for a period of time – Why do you think rites of passage are common among all indigenous peoples? Both the men and women have their own versions. For men, it usually involves separating from the women for a period of time, during which they complete arduous tasks and hardships, even usually a symbolic death and rebirth. The child dies and is reborn a man. Semen retention is a step in this direction. But you can’t reap the benefits of semen retention by simply not ejaculating – if you’re still obsessed with women, well, this practice won’t fully blossom. I strongly advise to start a period of deep self-discovery and self-development when you start retaining. I’m not saying dump your lady, I’m not saying avoid all females like the plague, and I’m absolutely not saying look down on them or disrespect them. I’m just saying don’t obsess over them. A bit of selfishness is healthy right now. It’s likely not feasible for you to split from society and go hunting wild boar with the boys for the summer, but just focus on yourself. David Deida talks a lot about this.

10. Return to and embrace the Feminine – This is the last step in the process, but guess what? It’s come full circle, the process has been completed. But like the alchemists that we are, we no longer are dealing with women from a place of craving or want – we are now complete, whole, and able to appreciate the feminine as our equal and our complement. It’s very important to cultivate the feminine energy within as well, and as counterintuitive as it sounds, it will make you into more of a man. But that’s a topic for a whole other time.

What would some of your commandments be?

My challenge to you brethren – create a modern version of a rites of passage. This could be a weekend solo camping trip, with no cell phone and no distractions, where you contemplate your place in this world. It could be 3-5 day fast – work up to this one if you’re inexperienced. It could be a meditation retreat. For the psychonauts, it could be a heroic dose. You could go all out and do a 3 day contemplative fast/vision quest out in the woods culminating in a psychedelic experience!

Whatever you do, make sure it contains three elements – it is done with intentionality, that some part of you symbolically dies, and that you are reborn and reintegrated into the modern world.

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The Mind – The Alpha and the Omega

What got you into semen retention?

What is your end goal here? It might look different for everyone, but one thing is for certain – we do it for self improvement.

We abstain and we retain, so that we one day may gain, blessed be thy retention.

Most likely you realized that all the porn, masturbation, maybe even all the sex wasn’t really that fulfilling. In fact, it may have been noticeably contributing to your depression. So you picked up semen retention and lo and behold, it was just what you were looking for. A boost in energy, charisma, confidence and more. But we don’t stop there. We want to transmute this energy we build up. Cold showers, working out, projects, breathing exercises, meditation. Time to dig deep into your most valuable asset to the semen retention game, and also your biggest enemy – the mind.

It is my belief that our key to success in this world is the mind – it is the Alpha and the Omega, it is the beginning and the end. Every single thing in this world, be it internal, such as thoughts, feelings, memories, desires and fears; or external, like your friends, your family, your enemies, the environment – you interact with EVERYTHING through the mind. And everything in turn affects the quality of your mind, your energy levels, your emotional state.

Why, then, are we not spending as much time as possible to strengthen and cultivate our minds?

We think we have control over our minds, but we don’t, not fully at least. Try to sit calmly for just ten minutes, no phone, no distractions.. It’s maddening. Why? Your mind is weak, my friend.

Someone says something that you don’t like and suddenly your world plummets into darkness, rage, despair.. Or the converse happens. Something good happens and suddenly you’re elated and thrilled. This is a poorly developed mind, this is a mind that is at the mercy of the external world. A weak mind.

How about the internal world? When something upsets you, are you able to transform that anger into compassion, or to at least to neutralize it? Are you able to enjoy something pleasant, be it a relationship or even simply the high of an orgasm, and not be attached to it, knowing that it won’t last forever? No? Your weak mind is to blame.

We think we’re in control of our minds, but as anyone who has ever meditated will quickly tell you, those thoughts just keep on coming, and distraction abounds within your own mind, even when you ask it kindly focus on just the object of your meditation.

Your mind is weak, my friend. It’s time you start strengthening it.

You have some goal in mind, something you want to accomplish, but you’re afraid. Guess what? Emotions are part of the mind, and if your mind is weak, you’re at the mercy of your emotions.

You have some goal in mind, something you want to accomplish, but it will take a lot of work, an overwhelming amount of work. Guess what? Motivation comes from within, from the mind.

You have some goal in mind, something you want to accomplish, but you don’t know how, you don’t know where to start. Guess what? A powerful mind is able to sit with and chew on problems until they begin to break down, and the mind eventually wins.

The mind is the Alpha and the Omega. It all starts and it all ends in the mind. It’s the most powerful tool you have and yet, it can be your worst enemy, if you don’t train it.

The Body/Breath/Mind Connection

If the mind is so goddamn important, why didn’t I start all these posts with it? Well, quite simply, while it is the most important facet here, it’s also, for most people, the most difficult to train. That’s why we start with the body and the breath. If I tell you to raise your right hand, you can do that easily. You can change your breathing patterns easily as well. If I tell you to not think of a green dragon, well, you just failed. If I tell you to sit and focus on the sensations of the breath to the exclusion of all other thoughts, you’ll fail. If you’re pissed off and I tell you to just be happy, good luck.

Here is a little secret – the body and the mind are not separate, the mind is just a more subtle aspect of the body. I actually prefer to think of the body as a more gross, physical extension of the mind. But the point is, they are different aspects of the same thing and they influence each other.

When an emotion such as anger affects your mind, what happens to the body? You clench up, blood pressure raises, you get hot and bothered, your face may even get red. The reverse is true as well – you can change your mental state and emotions via changing your posture.

A bit more subtle than the effects of emotions on the body is their effect on the breath. If you’re afraid, your respiration increases. If you’re relaxed, it is slow and deep. Wim Hof style breathing amps you up – box breathing calms you down.

The breath is the bridge between the conscious and the unconscious mind – you breathe roughly 20,000 times a day without consciously trying to, but it is always there for you to consciously take control over. Through the breath, we can access deeper layers of the mind. This is part of why pranayama is such a crucial tool for us.

This is also why in yoga they start with the physical postures, then the breathing exercises, and then finally they move on to meditation. The goal of yoga is just to master the mind. We start with the most easily controlled aspect of this triune, the body. Then the breath. Then the mind.

So yes, the physical postures and breathing exercises of yoga or of Qi Gong help to cultivate our sexual energy, our Jing, but they also help us start to control our mind. That’s what we all really want, right? All of your success in life comes from having this powerful mind that helps you to accomplish your goals, and if you train your mind well, you’ll have access to positive emotions all along the way. This is the natural next step of semen retention.

Facets of Mind Training

When we start mind training, we want to focus on two areas in particular –

  1. Concentrative power
  2. Taming and transforming emotions

We want a mind that is pliable, strong, and most importantly under our control. We want it to do what we say when we say it, and we want it to be strong and not easily swayed by our emotions. This is where concentration meditation come in.

How is David Goggins able to put himself through tortuous 100+ mile runs, again and again and again? How was Einstein able to sit with a particular problem and just mull it over for days, weeks, years on end, until the universe relented and gave up its secrets? They built up strong minds, minds that had great endurance, did what they wanted them to do, and weren’t easily distracted.

Along with developing a strong mind, a mind that is obedient, we want to reel in our emotions, our cravings, our urges. We don’t want them to overpower us, and we want less of the negative emotions, more of the positive ones.

By starting our retention journey, we’ve already begun to shift the dynamic towards more positive emotions and experiences, and less negative ones. Now we’re going to add on to that and speed up that process.

And remember, because you’ve built up this energy and you’re starting to increase the power and magnetism of your aura, your emotional state is constantly being projected, and loudly. Make sure it’s a state of positivity.

Concentration

The goal here is to build a powerful mind that does what you want it to, when you want it to. One of the best ways to do this is through concentration meditation practices.

In concentration meditation we narrow the field of awareness down to a very limited area, usually with the goal to exclude other thoughts and sensations. It makes no difference what we pay attention to – a candle flame, a cross, a mantra repeated mentally, a visualization, a sensation of the breath or within the body – it can literally be anything.

We focus on that one thing, say the sensation of the breath at the tip of the nose. Then a thought or sensation pops up – the goal is to recognize this and bring the mind back to the sensation of the breath. Then a thought pops up again, but this one was juicier, and it takes us off into a daydream. Eventually we realize this and bring the mind back to the sensations of the breath at the tip of the nose. We bring the mind back again, and again, and again.

A lot of people think they can’t meditate because they keep getting distracted, thoughts just keep popping up. Well, that’s half the point. You thought you were in control of the mind, but those damn thoughts just keep coming at ya. As long as you bring your awareness back to the object of meditation, over and over again, you are succeeding in meditation!

Each time you notice that your concentration has lapsed and you bring it back to the object of meditation, that’s like a rep. Each millisecond you stay with the object, boom, that’s a ton more reps. This is how you make the mind strong, give it the ability to focus on what you want for as long as you want it to.

Another thing that this meditation does it creates calmness. This calmness is a respite from the constant planning, thinking, daydreaming, worrying, craving modalities of the mind. If you stick with this process, you’ll not only create a very strong and obedient mind, but you’ll generate contentedness within. This is why in Buddhist traditions it is called śamatha meditation – it means “calm-abiding”.

Emotions and the Nature of the Mind

When we begin learning about how to tame our emotional mind, it helps to understand a little bit of how our minds work in the first place. We’re going to focus on two aspects of the mind, that of unsatisfactoriness, as well as craving/attachment and aversion. We also need to realize a fundamental truth about all mental phenomena, be it emotions, thoughts, images, feelings, bodily sensations, any and everything – they are impermanent.

Later in the series we will discover how to straight up transform our emotions, turning things like lust for women into fuel for our own personal evolution.

Unsatisfactoriness

The mind is naturally inclined to seek out pleasant emotions and sensations, and run from negative ones. This is the basis of what drives human behavior. But why does the mind do this? Why does just sitting still cause us such torment and misery? It’s the most natural thing possible, to just be… Yet it’s excruciating for us. Why is this?

The untrained mind is always unsatisfied. Why do we turn to porn and masturbation every time we’re bored or need a hit of dopamine? Evolutionarily speaking, this is good news – if we were content from the get-go, we never would have made it past just another species of great ape. Taking this to the extreme, if we never felt displeasure and were always perfectly content, there’d be no drive to reproduce, even to forage for food. Our discontent with the present and drive to have things be even better are what allowed us to progress so much as a species.

Problem is, now we can’t turn it off. Discontent has become our default mode. The goal in all spiritual sciences is to learn how to flip the switch, so that no matter our external circumstances, on the inside, it’s alllll good, baby. This doesn’t mean we get so high on our own supply that we give up on life, but that we’ve trained the mind to be content with what it has.

It is not the man who has too little, but the man that craves more, who is poor. – Seneca

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants. – Epictetus

Take a page out of Stoics’ books and start developing contentedness. Sublimate that sexual energy up to the mind and develop concentrative calm-abiding.

Impermanence

All mental phenomena is, by its very nature, fleeting and intangible. Purely mental aspects, such as thought, memory, visualizations, these all arise in the mind for a brief time and then fade away.

Emotional phenomena are the same – how many cycles of emotions do you go through in a day? Frustration while stuck in traffic, joy while playing with your dog, anger, sadness, lust – these all arise from a given circumstance, abide for a bit and then fade away.

Even physical sensations are the same – you may have chronic back pain but if you really pay attention, you’ll notice certain times when it isn’t present, until you move at least. The high of an orgasm, we know that one is over real quick.

The point is, every single aspect as perceived by your awareness is impermanent – it arises due to certain conditions, abides for a short time, and fades away. If you get your mind very strong from concentration practices, you’ll notice that even very persistent sensations flicker in and out of existence. But we don’t need that strong of minds to realize that the good feelings, these are fleeting. The bad feelings as well.

Craving/Attachment and Aversion

Now because we haven’t cultivated contentedness, because we start out with a mind that is never satisfied, our mind has these two modes of being – craving/attachment and aversion.

We naturally crave “good” experiences, be it good thoughts, good emotions, good bodily sensations, whatever. When these arise, we naturally become attached to them. We get a girlfriend and she makes us sooooo happy – until she dumps us. Because we were attached to her, or more specifically the good feelings she gave us, we suffer because we no longer get those feelings.

We also naturally have aversion towards “bad” experiences, be it emotions, thoughts, bodily sensations, whatever. We’re on the way to work and encounter traffic – it might not even make us late but it’s frustrating. Or we ask a girl out and she says no – we experience a sense of suffering because it wasn’t what we wanted.

Contrast this with a mind that knows everything is temporary. Your mind will still enjoy your relationship with that girl, but if she decides to end it, it isn’t so bad anymore. You knew the relationship would end one day, today is that day. You might still be bummed but it isn’t a crushing loss.

And why do we go out and seek whatever is pleasurable, and run from what isn’t pleasant? Because we’re starting out from a mind that is untrained and, by default, discontent.Freedom from the Cycle

How do we break free from this cycle of discontent -> craving/attachment -> aversion?

First off, we learn to still and focus the mind through concentration-type meditations. As the turbulent mind calms down, it finally experiences some peace. That peace builds and builds, and carries over into our daily life.

Next we keep in mind that all mental phenomena are impermanent. Experiencing something good right now? Great, enjoy it, but realize thoroughly that it won’t last – that will help lessen your attachment to it, so that when it does end, you don’t suffer so much.

When you encounter something displeasing, remember that it won’t last! Think of every bad event that has ever happened to you. 90% of them likely have zero effect on you right now, in this current instant. Whatever the nightmare, it ended, and here you are, still standing.

Think back to every Christmas you’ve ever had as a kid – how badly you wanted that Playstation 2, lego set, whatever. You wrote letters to an imaginary fat man, hoping you’d get it. Maybe you even prayed to your creator for it, thinking how happy it would make you. And then, the big day came.. and you got it! Your prayers were answered! And now it’s probably in the trash somewhere, or stored away in the attic. You slowly lost interest in every Christmas gift you’ve ever wanted because your mind constantly needs more, it’s never satisfied. Much easier to just build contentment from within.

Every girl you’ve ever crushed on and wanted so desperately to date, and then when you finally did, it eventually ended.. Now you’ve broken up, and she no longer is a source of happiness, she’s probably even a source of unhappiness. Or maybe you’re still together, maybe you’ve even managed to keep up a happy-ish relationship – but there are still occasional fights, she still occasionally annoys you, and you’d damn well be lying if you claimed you never thought of another girl, even if briefly. No matter how great the relationship, it is never 100% pure joy.

Remember this – happiness, pleasure, pain, sadness, they don’t exist “out there”, they exist within the mind. You run from girl to girl, experience to experience, drug to drug, toy to toy, job to job, video game to video game, and you can never quench the thirst of the mind, it never is satisfied. Celebs who “have it all”, the money, the women, the parties, the status – many are depressed, commit suicide, become addicted to drugs, because their minds are the same as ours.

The untrained mind is never satisfied. Whenever it gets what it wants, the joy it experiences peaks and then slowly, surely begins to fade. This is the nature of an untrained mind.

Putting it all into Practice

Calm-abiding meditation

In some traditions, concentration meditations are called “calm-abiding” meditation. This is because as the mind slowly calms down and distractions start dropping to the side, as it becomes one-pointed and starts generating energy, joy naturally arises.

Imagine the relief a kindergarten teacher feels when they finally get home after a long day of teaching. All those annoying brats no longer bugging them, they can just sit back and relax. That’s how the mind feels when it’s no longer bombarded by thoughts, cravings, fears, emotions, worrying about the future or dredging up the past.

The untrained mind is unsatisfied – but the trained mind.. Ahh, the trained mind is naturally satisfied.

The joy and calmness you build in meditation seeps over into daily life as well. So while you build a strong, powerful and obedient mind, you also make your aura that much more attractive, you’ve increased your Shen that much more, you’re that much more magnetic.

The instructions are very simple – pick something as your meditation object, set the intention to focus on just that object, and if the mind gets distracted, gently bring it back to said object. Repeat this formula again and again and again.

Your stretches of concentration on the object will slowly increase, and the day dreams will become less and less. You’ll start to wonder why just paying attention to your breath can create such pleasant feelings. You’ll also notice a sense of calm and contentedness in your day to day life if you keep up with this practice, as well as a mind that is focused and obedient.

Simple instructions for meditation on the breath can be found here.

Mindfulness of thoughts

This simply involves remaining detachedly aware of thoughts as they pop up into your head. You can be seated for this, eyes open, eyes closed, walking, hiking, whatever. Just be aware how a thought will arise on its own, stay for a short while, and then fade on its own. It may have a feeling attached to it, it might not. It might have an image or usually a vocalization along with it, though possibly not.

Your goal is to identify as the passive witness to all these thoughts/images/feelings as they arise. They are like clouds, coming about on their own, evolving and changing on their own, and fading away.

Try not to get attached to any thought without retaining a sense of being a detached observer.

Mindfulness of emotions

In your day to day life, notice how any given external event elicits a feeling and/or emotional response internally. Stub your toe, anger and pain arise. See pretty girl, lust arises. Pretty girl smiles at you, giddiness arises. You realize she was actually smiling at the guy behind you, giddiness fades and disappointment arises. So step one is being mindful and noticing how any given event elicits an emotion or feeling within you.

The second step is really paying attention to how that feeling or emotion feels. What’s its flavor? Does it have a color? Does it arise somewhere in the body specifically? You want to recognize this feeling and then take a big, deep dive into it and reeeallly get to know it. Label it, experience it fully, completely, let it saturate your whole mental bandwidth.

Finally, pay attention to how long it lasts. It might hit you like a ton of bricks, and then slowly fade away. It might start as just a tiny note, and then get louder and louder. It might come in waves, intense for a bit, fading away, becoming intense again. Most of the time, no matter the feeling or sensation, it sticks around for anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes and then starts fading away.

This is how we can take meditation off of the cushion and into the real world. We no longer confine meditation to just sitting at home in our dark room – if we maintain mindfulness, our whole day becomes a meditation.

I’ve found it helpful to reframe emotions as just flavors of energy that come into my field of consciousness, stick around for a quick sec, and then start fading away. They’re impermanent and only hold as much weight as you give them.Acceptations vs Expectations,

One last bit – it is much easier to go through life accepting reality as it is, rather than to have expectations of reality. The world doesn’t owe you anything. More importantly, people don’t owe you a damn thing either.

If you set your expectations high, you’re bound to be let down most days. Just accept reality plainly, as it is. Your day went well? Great. Your day was shit? Well, that’s life.

You do all you can to improve your life, to improve yourself – that much is in your control. The weather, the news, current events, traffic, your boss being a dick, a girl not texting back – none of that is in your control, so don’t place your expectations on any of it.

Accept more, expect less.

Obviously, hold some expectations for people. If you’re in a relationship, you should expect that she is faithful. Obviously don’t just let her go out on dates with other men. You should expect to be respected by your boss, but first you’ve got to have earned that respect, and sometimes your boss may be a bit of a prick.

Finally, when negative feelings arise, don’t resist them. When a negative feeling arises, we tend to shirk from it, to try to escape it. This resistance makes it that much worse, because we can’t just make it go away, not yet at least.

Negative emotions and sensations are kind of like a Chinese finger trap – the more you try to pull away and resist, the stronger they latch on.

The next time you feel bummed, don’t try to run from it, dive deep into that feeling. Pull it in close and get to know it intimately. Analyze it and break it down as much as possible, noticing exactly where you feel it, how it feels, how long it lasts. You’ll notice that, by and large, it is just another sensation, just like hunger is a sensation, pain a sensation, heat a sensation.

We make things a thousand times worse when we resist whatever we are experiencing.

Suffering = Pain x Resistance – Shinzen Young

Pain is inevitable. Shit will happen. Suffering is largely optional.

Don’t chase after and become attached to what is “good” or pleasurable – it won’t last.

Don’t resist what is “bad” or uncomfortable – it won’t last.

Develop inner contentment – this is your secret. People will wonder why you’re so cool, calm, collected, content, and happy. That is true magnetism.

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Start Here – Semen Retention 101

New to the art of Semen Retention? First step is.. Drum roll please…….

Stop watching porn and masturbating! If you’re currently booed up, you should talk to your lady and explain that by not coming, you can focus more exclusively on her wants and needs. It will be very difficult for the novice to have penetrative sex without orgasm at first, but keep at it.

After that, you’ll want to stabilize your mind so as to prevent overwhelming urges and “relapses”. Many guys aren’t prepared for how powerful these urges can become – our boy Josh Hartnett knows.

Then, you’ll want to start sublimating this sexual energy so it isn’t locked in your cock and you’re able to use it for kicking ass in life. This is JUST as important as not succumbing to coming – no sense building up this sexual energy if it just stays in your balls.

Finally, you’ll want to start further building and enhancing this energy to use it for higher purposes, but that will be a topic for later posts.

Calming the Mind to Prevent Relapse

  1. Get off of tempting platforms – If you’re going to keep social media platforms, make sure you aren’t following users who post a lot of tantalizing photos.
  2. Exhaust yourself each day – I can think of no better way to get your mind off of getting off than to just be exhausted. Long ass runs, heavy sessions in the gym, tons of work/school work; no matter how you slice it, if you’re too beat to beat it, it’s a win.
  3. Modify your diet – Make it light and a little bland. Cut back on meats, especially red meat and shellfish. They’re high in zinc and carni-nutrients, loads of which go into your loads. Cut back on the allium family (garlic, onions, leaks, etc) and spicy foods, as these are traditionally said to increase libido and “irritate the uro-genital tract”. This only needs to be done in the beginning, when you’re beginning to find your strength. Despite not being Catholic, I gave up meat once for Lent. This meant I unknowingly also gave up my sex drive.
  4. Practice fasting – This goes hand in hand with point three. Look into intermittent fasting, where you only eat your food in a 16 hour window. Try out the occasional 24 hour juice or bone broth fast. Fasting can really help to reel in the libido in the beginning.
  5. Take calming herbs and supplements, and avoid stimulating ones – Herbs such as reishi mushroom, polygala and lion’s mane really help to calm the mind and curb desires. Avoid libido boosters and stimulants, such as ginseng, maca, coffee and adderall. Alcohol should be strictly off limits for the first couple months.
  6. Start meditating – While desires do have a physical (hormonal) component, you interact with them via the mind. The stronger and more pure your mind is, the less lust rears its ugly head. Start with 10 minutes of calm-abiding or metta meditation each day.
  7. Cultivate the Yin within – To put things in to Taoist parlance, masculine energy is yang, female energy yin. We’ve all seen the Yin Yang symbol. By practicing semen retention, we start cultivating yang energy – we increase our drive, and women take note of this masculine energy. Because we become much more yang, we need to balance it out by cultivating yin within ourselves. We can do this with yin herbs, things like goji berries, dendrobium or peony. We can also spend time in nature, preferably the forest or ocean, or working with our emotions, either through music, metta and compassion meditations, and by practicing generosity.

Great, so now you’ve calmed your mind a bit. What about starting to transmute that energy? Sublimation is just the act of turning one substance into a higher, more valuable substance. So we sublimate this sexual energy into drive, motivation, accomplishment – in short, we channel this sexual energy towards achieving our goals.

Transmutation Basics

  1. Do kegels – Do em while driving. Do em while at work. Do em while making intense eye contact with your boss so he knows who’s really in charge. This will help prevent wet dreams, it helps prevent that sexual energy from leaking out, and kegels build a base should you ever want to have sex without emission.
  2. Start a mental discipline – I personally think meditation should be a part of every mans semen retention protocol. Journaling, reading, thought exercises, and even playing chess are good additions as well – basically anything that is “heady”. The point is to keep the mind engaged and not thinking about the female form, and then building up mental power and discipline.
  3. Read elevating texts – David Goggin’s Can’t Hurt Me, Jocko Willink’s Discipline Equals Freedom, Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, Seneca’s Letters From a Stoic are all great choices. If you wanna throw a little spirit in there, check out Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, The Bhagavad Gita, The Bible, Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, or Ram Dass’ Be Here Now.
  4. Work out – You’re going to start having a surplus of energy from retaining – put it to good use by building up your physical body. Working out is as much a mental discipline as a physical one, so you’re really killing two birds with one stone here. Doesn’t matter what you do, but it must be sufficiently challenging, which means as you get better at x, y, or z, you’re going to have to keep upping the intensity or switching to other types of working out.
  5. Cold showers – A lot of guys are fans of the cold showers/baths in the semen retention community, and I’m one of them. Most people don’t realize the immense benefits of cold immersion, how it increases epinephrine by up to 300% (fat loss, energy, drive and motivation), decreases inflammation in the body and brain, releases cold shock proteins which actually help to repair the brain/blood brain barrier, boosts immunity and more. Cold immersion also helps to lock in jing, as the body shunts blood and jing towards the organs and brain and away from the extremities.
  6. Journal – Keep track of how you feel and the progress you make. As the old adage goes, “What doesn’t get measured, doesn’t get managed.”
  7. Yoga – What do you think of when you think of yoga? Soccer moms and new-age women practicing their sun salutations, or maybe some honey bunnies in skin-tight yoga pants? I can’t blame you at all, for that’s how far yoga has been bastardized in the West. As for me, I think of ash-covered sadhakas who have been up all night in the cemetery, meditating on death. I think of sages and seers who’ve reached the pinnacle of human evolution. I think of people who have mastered the art of semen retention and with it, perfected self-evolution…

The physical side of yoga, all the asanas, or postures, help to massage and tone the endocrine glands, those glands in your body that secrete hormones like testosterone and that produce sperm and semen. Breathing practices helps to further calm the nervous system and are probably the single best way to transmute sexual energy for higher purposes, and meditation brings it all home – when you have a powerful mind under your control, there’s just no stopping you.

Now certainly, you don’t need to become an ash-covered yogi. I’m just trying to point out that abstaining from masturbation, cold showers and lifting weights will only take you so far. If you want to stop there, by all means, please do.

If you’re interested in taking Semen Retention and, by extension your whole life, to the next level, to beyond anything you thought was possible.. You’ve come to the right place.

Just make sure you’re ready, because beyond a certain point, there’s no turning back.