Another sharing from Mai who has attended Make Love (not war) workshop that I organized in November 2022 in Nha Trang.

When I was a child, my house was near the Commune’s cultural library. I remember since I was a child, I had few friends, and I liked to read, so I went to the library often, and I was almost alone with the librarian there.
I was passionate about reading Grimm fairy tales, world fairy tales, Vietnamese folk tales, etc. I remember, I read all the good books there. At Tet, I saved up my lucky money to rent reading books, I used to liked Harry Potter, Queen of Egypt, Doareamon, etc.

I read somewhere that “The reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. Those who don’t read books only live one life.”. This is true for me, I have imagined and lived with fairy characters all my childhood. Therefore, the dream of a prince on a white horse, one day will come to pick me up and live happily ever after in the castle, had always in my deepest wish.

Growing up, with a lack of affection from my father, I fell in love like a moth, looking for love from my lovers; I loved everyone foolishly and wholeheartedly, devoting everything I had. I loved hard from 17 to 30 years old, 13 years, with full of illusions about couple love, I have encountered all suffering, hurt, disappointment and loss;

It can be said that I wounded myself all over with my devotion in love. It wasn’t until I started to learn how to surrender and let my emotions surface, every time I had sex with my boyfriend, I would secretly cry. I was not abused, he was gentle with me, after finishing sex he also took care to get water for me to drink, gently wiped me with a paper towel, but I still felt distant, hurt, and extremely disappointed. About 2 months later, I left. I decided to live alone and not engaged in sexual or love relationship with anyone. I gave myself a 2-year break.

During 2 years living alone, I practiced being awake and in touch with reality from Ms. Ly’s teachings, a lot of hidden memories have been raised, embraced and understood by me, but when it came to sex, I still felt something was stuck again. It was only when I finished the course “Making Love” taught by Ms.Ly, that I fully understood why before, every time I finished making love, I cried and was so disappointed, and where my yearning for a prince really came from; I also got rid of misunderstandings about my own body.

Through direct experiences in the workshop with teacher and other female participants, I realized that a woman’s body and vagina are sacred and magical, it turns out that authentic love making is really beautiful, very pure, and can even heal oneself and his/her partner. And I then understood Osho’s saying “sex gives you the first glimpse of the ‘meditative state’ – because the mind stops, time stops”

After the class, I had a special experience  One morning I felt stimulated in my body, and my sexual desire rose. At that time, according to habitual inertia, I had a fleeting desire to masturbate to orgasm; But I decided to give it a go and see what happens. So, still in a drowsy dream, I relaxed my body completely, letting the sexual energy be up and spread throughout the body. I took off my clothes, my body curled slightly, my legs touched and caressed each other. I felt my hands move gently along my body, I moaned softly and naturally, I saw the curves of my body were beautiful, I let my hands melt into my skin and caressed me lovingly. I found myself joyfully let the sexual energy flowing through me.

Just like that, the feeling of immensity spread over, for 10 minutes lying down to enjoy and I experienced for the first time, that’s oh, I was making love to myself!

But, why does it feel as full as when I had a partner or even fuller than that?!! I felt touched and loved, not touching my body, but touching my heart, I was moved, sobbing; oh, so that’s it…

I recalled, when I interacted with my mate in the workshop, I didn’t really do much, I simply relaxed and gently followed the feedback of my partner’s body, I experienced the emotions and electromagnetism flow  through her into me. I cried before she even cried, and I clearly saw that I was just a channel of energy, her energy and emotions flow through me, there was not me in it. Having gone through that, when I relaxed to make love to myself, I could see clearly that there was not much differences between whether I had a partner that penetrated me or whether I was alone allowing sexual energy flow naturally and spread throughout my body.
Even if I had a partner and made love in the way that seeked restricted and rough rubbing, .. it would actually cause more damage and pain without me realising.

In the past, when I had a desire, I would tried to relax so that the sexual energy could be released, but I would still want the penis to penetrate inside, and if I didn’t masturbate but simply let the sexual energy be revealed, then after that, I would be still a bit jittery, feeling incomplete. Or if I masturbated to have an orgasm, then I would feel meaninglessly depressed, etc. At such time, I would still want a partner, a prince to be loved and cuddled with me.

And, thanks to what I had learned and experienced, I no longer cling to a partner, cling to the fact that there must be a penetration, or that there must be a man in my life.
However, I am not extreme in the way that from now on I do not accept anyone entering my life, but I see the opposite. If there is a lover, or an orgasm, or an interest, then I am open to receiving and enjoying it; But if I don’t have those things, or one day the fate of the breakup ends, I will still be happy alone, still sublimate, still calmly live.

So, isn’t that freedom? Freedom from sex is a big milestone in my life, freedom from assimilation of love, sex, home with a man also makes me lighter. Now I really understand, if I have a partner, I would be happy, without a partner, I would still be happy.
Previously it was just a theory. Now I truely see that if a man enters my life, my garden has a man; and if the man is gone, my garden is still full of sunshine, wind, flowers, fruit trees and full of happiness.