Personal Life Media

The Buddhist and Sensuality with Tempel Smith

Announcer: This program is intended for mature audiences only.

[music]

Judy Silber: Tempel Smith had romantic notions about what it would be to be a monk. He liked the idea of going deep into his meditation practice. Also the tranquility he imagined he would find in a monastery. And so…

Tempel Smith: Few weeks after turning 30 I got on a plane for Burma.

[music]

Judy Silber: He moved to Burma and became a celibate Buddhist monk.

[music]

Judy Silber: From One Taste™ Urban Retreat Center in San Francisco, we bring you “A Taste Of Sex: a Reality Audio Show About Real People and Their Exploration of Conscious Sensuality”. This week: the life of a former Buddhist monk and his relationship to sex.

I’m Judy Silber, tune in and turn on!

When going to be a monk, were you conscious, were you thinking about the fact that you would, as some say, be giving up your sexual self while you were there?

Tempel Smith: Yeah, I knew that in advance. Actually that wasn’t a big sacrifice for me. Up to that point I’d been in a few sexual relationships, and I did love the challenge and the intimacy, but I also found them very complicated.

Judy Silber: What was it like when you got to the monastery?

Temple Smith: Monasteries had very different than I had imagined. One: they’re over in Asia, compared to being in the United States and so… there’s the background of being in a totally different country with totally different customs. And different language, different standards of living. Once you close your eyes and start feeling your own breath, it doesn’t really matter were you are. There’s no end to the variations of what arises inside.

While you’re supposed to be feeling your breath the mind gets very creative, it gets very angry, it gets very sad… You remember all the sad things that ever happened in your life, you remember all the happy things that ever happened, all things that frustrated you, all the things you were curious about. Being over in Asia my mind wandered a lot to certain practical concerns about the heat and the food and… then I’d really understand what the Burmese teachers were saying, passing through a translator.

And then they’d understand what I was saying and… was I meant for that level of intensity of practice? One place that the mind goes a lot for most people is sexual desire.

Judy Silber: What was it like to feel sexual lust at a monastery where I assume there were mostly, if not all, men?

Tempel Smith: You were coached to guard your senses so that if you saw a woman walk by and you felt some attraction, that right away you would go to… this is a visual image that I’m desiring and that desire may be causing craving and that craving can cause clinging. So right away, as soon as you see a woman, especially a woman you feel a lot attracted to, you very quickly shift to be extremely careful around that visual experience.

Judy Silber: So how was it to for you to have women there but to know that you were forbidden from even putting any of that energy out?

Tempel Smith: It was confusing. I definitely understood the teachings and quotes from the Buddha that I have that were for the most part very skeptical around sexual desire. And then I had my own belief from my own culture that says that it’s not that bad, that it’s actually healthy, and so... In a sort of post 70s liberal culture that I grew up in there is a lot of celebration of sexuality and people trying to come out of social repression around sexuality. It was very confusing.

Judy Silber: Falling ill with a disease called chronic fatigue syndrome, Tempel could no longer sustain the rigors of 14 hours of meditation a day. After one year in Burma, he left and returned to the United States.

What was it like for you coming out of the monastery? Did you – and I mean this especially in terms of your sexuality – did you feel a sense of freedom like: “OK now I can go explore this!” Like there had been a sense of waiting, or was it something that you slowly came into?

Tempel Smith: One friend that I had actually done some practice with - some of the monastic practice with - we had a little romantic connection and we tried sort of exploring the possibility of being in a relationship. And right away I seized up with a lot of fear that… How could I have worked that hard for my own enlightenment and gotten back involved in sexuality and start to feel the amount of desire and agitation and processing we had to do, and the possibility of upset and it started to seem like…

Yeah, this is a very difficult field. That relationship, for other reasons, didn’t last. I kept traveling, she kept traveling… I traveled for a couple of years after that so… I wasn’t in any one place long enough to have a long term relationship.

Judy Silber: He ended up settling in California, teaching teens and leading retreat weekends. This is a friend of his, Justine.

Justine: I’ve known Tempel… oh it’s been almost five years and when I first came to California I met Tempel as part of a circle of young adult Dharma practitioners. Originally through the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. He’d been back from Burma for a few years but still was involved quite intensively in the Dharma. At that point he hadn’t started looking at his sexuality. Back then Tempel was really… the word that comes to mind is demure.

Like he really had that quality of… his energy was very contained. He was really nice. But underneath that he was actually very controlling. He really didn’t have a sexual presence at all. He was that person that like people… all women could feel comfortable around Tempel because he was not sexual in any way so he was completely non-threatening. And I think he really learned to play that role well.

To be someone who could be a facilitator. I knew him when he facilitated a group I was in. He could be that facilitator that’s kind of… almost androgynous.

Judy Silber: You’re listening to “A Taste of Sex”. We’ll hear more from Tempel Smith and how he found his way into sensuality, after this short break.

[commercial break]

Judy Silber: You’re listening to “A Taste of Sex”. For six years chronic fatigue took its toll on Tempel.

Tempel Smith: It felt like my body and mind had gotten very out of balance. I’d be extremely tired during half the day and then very restless and agitated during the other half and my mind felt very confused, my body would be sore and restless. I wasn’t sleeping well but I’d be tired all day. One of the things that I had noticed was that when I had been sexually active my body actually felt really good.

I had two friends at the same time get involved in the work that’s offered at One Taste™ and they liked it a lot. They’d suggest I try it and I was worried that I didn’t have the energy or the health to try it but I decided I’d at least go to one workshop and see what it was like. I went to the opening course here and found that, just after that one day, my body and mind felt a lot better.

Judy Silber: I met Tempel on that day. It was just after the opening course, the class at One Taste™ where students learn about the practice of orgasmic meditation. He looked ecstatic! In the following months he continued to come around to One Taste™ and eventually moved into the community. One night, just before he moved in, I commented that he looked really good.

“What’s happened to you?” I asked. “Lust” he said.

Tempel Smith: In hindsight I can understand how One Taste™ has been so healing for me. But at the time all I knew was that I felt better and that I needed to feel a lot better, and after a while began to see there were tremendous parallels between my celibate monastic practice in the jungles of Burma and these conscious connective sexual practices done here in this modern urban environment.

Justine: It was probably about a year and a half ago, maybe two years ago… maybe a year and a half ago. I remember I was meeting him and I was walking down the street near the Buddhist Peace Fellowship where he worked – where we both work now – and he was walking towards me and I was like “Tempel, is that you??” He’d shaved his head, he’d gotten rid of his side part, just kind of like his signature style, like this 80s haircut.

He was wearing black, it was like he had muscles where he never had muscles before! It was almost like they were representing externally what was happening internally. It was like all that softness which had really been this kind of flacc… - like a flaccidness about him? – was becoming stronger. And then when he approached me and he gave me this hug it was like his whole body was in the hug. His whole presence was in that hug and I could really feel him in my entire body.

Judy Silber: After about a year of living at One Taste™ Tempel moved out to further pursue his meditation studies, but this time rather than completely shut off his sensuality he became involved in trying to build a bridge between the Buddhist and One Taste™ communities. In promoting the idea of using sensuality for awakening he’s become somewhat of a rebel in Buddhist circles.

You’re now involved in trying to merge these two worlds? Trying to merge the world of Buddhism with that of One Taste™ and conscious sensuality, and I’m wondering how that’s playing up for you?

Tempel Smith: It’s fascinating and exciting, and feels dangerous. And I think both communities want the gift of what the other has to offer, but I also see that both sides can be skeptical of the other. That’s something I would like to lend some confidence to, that the meditators I know would gain a lot from the communication and sensual practices that are done at One Taste™.

Of course I know that One Taste™ would probably digest their experiences more fully if they had the power that would come through meditation practice.

[music]

Judy Silber: You’ve been listening to “A Taste of Sex”. You can find us on the web at personallifemedia.com. For more information about One Taste™, including our lectures and workshops on sensuality, relationship and communication, check us out at onetaste.us. Music on this episode was composed and performed by Aaron Bolster.

I’m Judy Silber, tune in and turn on!

Announcer: Find more great shows like this on personallifemedia.com