Arousal while meditating, indulging and fasting stops long term progress

https://www.reddit.com/r/theravada/comments/1d6kxn1/arousal_while_meditating/

Arousal while meditating

Hey gang, I feel embarrassed talking about this, but after 9yrs with no solutions I'm feeling a little lost:

While meditating, after I start to get the mind to settle down, I'll get to feeling really happy and peaceful, which is nice. A short time later I'll develop pleasant physical sensations which are a relief from pains and tiredness. However at some point all those pleasant physical sensations migrate to my groin and I end up very "excited" and getting super pleasant sensations in some very unhelpful ways. I find this whole situation mildly distressing. It completely wrecks my focus, destroys any samadhi, and keeps me from Jahna. It's not even the lust that's the problem, I can sit through all being hot and bothered. It's the sensations themselves that just ruin everything. Ive tried focusing on the gross parts of the body at these times, I've tried ignoring whats going on, I've tried leaning into it but keeping the mind seperate. Nothing seems to work. The only real solution is masturbating before hand and that is definitely not a good solution.

Any thoughts?

frankk response:

It sounds like you know how to relax the whole body properly (passaddhi / pacification awakening factor), which produces the sukha pleasurable pleasant sensations that saturate the entire body eventually in first two jhānas.

The problem, probably, is that when you feel pleasant sensations, you start to associate that with memories, thoughts, and perceptions of lust, sexual fantasies, etc.

Otherwise you wouldn't feel a need to masturbate.

If you don't masturbate and don't give attention to lustful perceptions and thoughts, eventually the pleasant sensations in the groin area will fade out.

If you masturbate and indulge in lustful perceptions, thoughts, memories, fantasies, it drains your jhana battery and jhanic force, and you won't get far in jhana practice.

Most worldlings are always stuck in a cycle of binging and purging, indulging then fasting, and never advance in the long term.

Suttas and things to add to your tool kit: (link)

kāma 💘💃‍: sensuality, lust, passion.