Ty, this evening there were a number of questions about mindfulness practice and sexual energy. And you've been invited to speak about practicing and working with sexual energy in general. And specifically, whether you have any observations on practicing with loyalty among spouses and partners, including gay and lesbian partners?

So many things, just one question at a time.

So please just extract one question from that whole bunch of questions.

Thay, how might our mindfulness practice help us live with our sexual energy?

Sexual energy is only one kind of energy. And if we go back to its source, we cannot name it. At the source, that energy can be channeled into other directions. If you have so many things that are interesting for you to follow, to realize, then that initial energy will be channeled into these directions. And you will not have a lot of time and occasions to think about sex. Like we monastics, we do recognize that sexual energy is there. But living in a sangha, we follow a schedule. There are many things we are interested in.

In order to do it as a sangha, we need the time for learning the Dharma, studying the Dharma. We need the time to discuss about how to put the Dharma into practice. We need the time to take care of our second body, because every monastic has a second body to take care of. He or she has to be responsible for the well-being, for the practice of the second body.

And we have many things that we do as a community. And then we should also have the time in order to help the people who come to us with the need to practice and to relieve the suffering. So many, many things are interesting.

And we can have a lot of happiness doing these. That is why sexual energy is not a very big problem for us. That is why what we can say from our experience is that if you organize your life intelligently, if you have many meaningful things to do, if you are capable of helping other people to suffer less, then sexual energy will no longer be a major problem of your life.