When I say I'm not interested in relationships or intimacy anymore, it's more that I'm no longer interested in that sort of human attachment anymore; the banal desire, the wanting, the pursuit.

But when I say I reject relationships and intimacy, it would be mistaken to infer any undercurrent of prudish or moral rejection of human sexuality. There's a spiritual aspect of human sexuality that I think is worth exploring.

It's hard to discuss because it's such a fine line and slippery slope between the crass, carnal lasciviousness of the sex act and exploration of the divine nature of male-female union. There's a distinction between strictly animal sex – carnal drive, lust; which evolutionarily speaking likely has something to do with reproduction and propagation of the species – and the exploration of human energies, the most potent possibly being sexual energy.

To paraphrase Aerosmith's Steven Tyler in his memoir, he suggests you can have two people having sex and if they concentrate their minds and energy enough, they can hypothetically cure someone's cancer. It's an unscientific statement of potential, but I don't disagree with the basic principle.

And what Tyler is talking about likely involves a certain amount of "training" by both parties as well. This training being most thoroughly investigated in the human realm through Tantra, of which I'm no expert so I'll leave it at that.

The only thing I want to say is that sex is important to spirituality. It isn't to be shunned by spiritual seekers, but investigated.

Not to entirely remove pleasure from my observation, is there anything in the world aside from sex whereby when one person does something to please oneself, it brings pleasure to the other, or when doing something to please another brings pleasure to oneself? And this act, by design, is what creates human life. I dunno, but there seems to be something possibly inherently spiritual in that equation.

Of course, humans can have sex selfishly concentrating only on their own pleasure, but therein may be what distinguishes animal sex and the potential of understanding the spiritual aspects of human sexuality. Animals fuck. They go into heat, lust and satisfy their urges. Some humans do that, too, but other humans do more.

Sexual union is perhaps the analog of the bliss of enlightenment to which Buddhists and Hindus refer. As separate individuals, we feel this separation is normal and that sexual union is something special and different and wonderful. But maybe that's because we've gotten used to the separation as normal.

But really the bliss of union is what's normal – being complete, fulfilled, without desire – and our state of individual separation is a state that is lacking.

And I'm heterosexual, so the male-female union is what makes the most sense to me, but that doesn't preclude homosexuality in this equation. It doesn't matter that it removes the connection with the procreation of human life (it should be recreation, but that's kind of another word totally. Or not). It's the energy created that matters.

And personally, the Buddhist framework of reincarnation reasonably accounts for and accepts homosexuality just fine. The only thing that continues from lifetime to lifetime is karmic matter, and part of that karmic matter for many includes what we call sexual preferences; what gender we're attracted to.

Genes determine sex, not what gender we're attracted to. In the reincarnation process, I think karma does have something to do with what we become in the next life, which is based on familiarity and habit (species tend to be reborn as the same species as a matter of familiarity until some other karma changes it), and so there may be strong inclinations for previous men to be reborn men and women, women, but with genetics, there's an uncertainty involved. Karmically imprinted males and can be born females and vice versa and to whom they're attracted to is karmically the same.

Karmic intolerance, hatred and judgment of people who are different and other is a whole different matter.

A couple days ago I was in the public library and I saw a woman who I found stunningly attractive. She was three tables away from me and I kept on looking up to astonish myself at her beauty. Perfect hair, round face, perfect skin.

Mind you, I'm done with relationships. I'm done with "being attracted to" people. I'm done with intimacy. These things, as a matter of practice, do not cross my mind. I have no problem in seeing someone of the opposite sex and objectively observing, even appreciating, their aesthetic qualities, but such an assessment in no way ever gives rise to desire.

But seeing this woman in the library, it was different. I was bewitched. I imagined that given the proper sets of circumstances, I could find myself drawn into entering a relationship with her. If we had a common language, if we were in a social setting to get to know each other, if we had commonality to be interested in each other . . . I just might be tempted.

Or not, in reality. I resisted Hyun Ae and there's no reason to believe I couldn't resist any other temptation. The calculus involving considering where this would all lead to, and the conclusion being, from a practice point of view, no where I'd want.

But I couldn't stop looking at this woman. I was having trouble establishing an upper limit of her age. She could have been young enough to still be in her 20s, but I finally decided that it was possible for her to be as old as 37. Within my range.

But as time went by at the library, something changed. I don't know if it was a trick of the light, but as I kept looking up to catch glances at her, she changed. She didn't change before my eyes, just between furtive glances.

She wasn't beautiful at all. She was no where in her 30s, but late 40s at best, even 50s. Her hair was dry and middle aged, and her face wasn't round but oval. At first I wondered if the original woman had left and this was someone completely different, but no, her clothes were the same as well as the pen she was using.

After that, I continued to steal furtive glances to acknowledge a complete misperception.

I'm not reading anything totally strange in this incident. My pragmatic, scientific side sees it as psychological misperception. Mind fooling me. It wasn't something magical or mystical whereby the appearance of something changes before my eyes (or between furtive glances).

Still, there's a side of me that doesn't totally side with science. Science does science very well; science is great with science, but I also don't believe science explains or can explain all various phenomena in the human experience.

Subjectively, I remember seeing a woman who was ravishingly attractive at one point, and then ordinarily old a little later on. I'll accept an objective conclusion of delusional perception. I would never testify my experience as evidence of anything. Still, I recall what I saw, and I have to acknowledge to myself that strange shit happens even just to teach us something and that makes it no less real.