What causes passion to die in marriage — and how to revive it through polarity, not novelty. From couple teachers who've kept fire alive for 16+ years together.

A long, long time ago in ancient China, emperors, sages, physicians, and aristocrats alike rubbed elbows in secrecy to devise a way to achieve immortality. Other religions speak about immortality like a place some go after they die, or after many lifetimes. But what is unique about Taoism, is that there is no afterlife. The belief is that any sort of immortality to be found is only to be found here on Earth and in this body — no second shot. Because of this core belief, longe

If you've spent any time in the world of sacred sexuality, you've heard the word tantra. It gets thrown around a lot. Mostly incorrectly. In the West, "tantra" has become a catchall for anything that combines sex and spirituality — slow sex, breathwork during lovemaking, maybe some candles and eye-gazing. And while none of that is bad, it's not what the Tantric masters of India were talking about. Not even close.

In the first article in this series, I explored how esoteric Taoism approached sacred sexuality through the conservation and transformation of sexual energy. In the second, I covered how Hindu Tantric Shaivism took it further — insisting that the body, the senses, and desire are not obstacles to the divine but gateways to it. Now we arrive at the third major influence on Western sacred sexuality: Tantric Buddhism.

In the first three articles of this series, I covered the Eastern traditions that have shaped Western sacred sexuality — Taoist Sexual Kung Fu, Hindu Tantric Shaivism, and Tantric Buddhism. Those traditions are ancient, rooted in centuries of lineage and scripture, and each addresses a fundamental problem of human existence — whether it's the draining of vital force, the cycle of samsara, or the suffering of dukkha.

How Freud, Jung, and Wilhelm Reich gave Western sacred sexuality the language of the unconscious, the body, and desire. The fifth and final influence explained.