Moderation in Desire, Preserving Essence, Cultivating Spirit and Nature
Moderation in Desire, Preserving Essence, Cultivating Spirit and Nature
Sexual health practitioners believe that without moderating desire and preserving essence, true sexual health cultivation is impossible. Today, many interpret “moderation in desire” simply as restraining sexual urges, preserving essence and Qi, and protecting yin essence. But this interpretation is incomplete. “Desire” here includes greed for wealth, power, material goods, and emotions. Moderation means curbing extravagant desires, reducing excessive mental burdens and stress, cultivating inner peace, embracing simplicity, relaxing the mind, eliminating worries and anger. Restraint and quiet cultivation can repair psychological trauma, restore functional disorders, and preserve kidney essence. Excessive pursuit of money, property, power, office, fame, and status inevitably consumes essence and spirit. Such pursuits often involve scheming, deceit, and constant mental strain, exhausting essence and blood.
Controlling emotional desire and rationally managing sexual life reduces physical exhaustion and preserves essence and spirit. Yuan Dynasty’s Li Pengfei wrote in *Three Essentials for Prolonging Life*: “Only by moderating desire can one preserve essence; only by preserving essence can one fully cultivate spirit.” Unrestrained indulgence, obsession with pleasure, and addiction to sensual pleasures are like “axes that split bones,” “drifting aimlessly in the sea of life and death,” ultimately resulting in blindness, deafness, emaciation, a withered appearance, and a life as fleeting as morning dew.
Controlling material and power desires is even more effective in conserving essence and cultivating spirit. For example, obsession with power leads to constant strategizing to defeat rivals, plotting alliances, scheming for promotion and wealth, devising plans to outmaneuver opponents. Constant plotting breeds guilt and fear—fear of others’ betrayal—leading to perpetual anxiety, exhausting both essence and spirit, secretly draining kidney essence, inevitably impairing sexual function.
Moderation in desire not only enhances sexual harmony and satisfaction but also effectively maintains sexual function, boosting energy and preventing mental dullness, lack of willpower, and impaired work or study performance. It also supports healthy conception and childbirth. *Records for Promoting Offspring* states: “One must cultivate virtue and conserve essence to nurture natural innocence, reduce emotional desire to extend lifespan. Thus, cherishing essence and protecting the body ensures offspring and longevity.”