Jan Day - Living Tantra: A Journey into Sex, Spirit and Relationship

Theres no one like Jan Day teaching tantra today in the West. She is completely unique in terms of her wisdom, experience and compassion for humanity. This book brings us her lifes work, thoughts, guidance as well as her own personal experiences in the field of conscious sexuality. This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to know more about sex and sexuality. Its written with the hindsight of over thirty years of work in this field, both as participant and teacher, lover and woman. I cant think of another tantra teacher who embodies body, heart and mind in her life and work the way Jan does. Not only has she come from a background of her own journey of personal growth, but she has read so much too, all the great the contemporary spiritual writers, and this shows up in her writing. Jan Day is a weave of knowledge, activism and intellect, mind, spirit and love. Jan Day is tantra itself.

Monique Roffey
Winner of the Costa Book of the Year, 2020, for
The Mermaid of Black Conch.

Is tantra a spiritual path, a Tibetan Buddhist tradition, a sexual awakening, an ancient wisdom, a philosophy of life or all of these and more? In this rich and profound book Jan Day explores the complexity and depths of tantra. She explains its mysterious wisdom and how to use its living understandings to help us navigate the challenges and demands of modern life. She also gives clear and practical exercises to help us experience directly its power to transform our lives. I am delighted to recommend Living Tantra, it is a wonderful book on many levels.

Anne Geraghty
Author of Death, the Last God.

Jan Day is a rarity in the tantra world, shes a safe pair of hands in the vulnerable arena that is sexuality and spirituality. Thank goodness, she has written a book which is full of practical tantra tools. I still use many of the exercises that I picked up in her workshops in my own intimate relationship.

Rose Rouse, writer, editor.

A practical guide with many real-life examples and exercises that integrate Eastern traditions with modern insights to encompass our whole humanness, including sexuality. A must-read for all singles and couples who want to co-create deep intimacy and healthy fulfilling love relationships.

Martin Ucik
Integral Relationship author and facilitator

Jan Days teachings have been life-changing for me. So many times in her workshops Ive found myself thinking: Why arent we taught this in school? Why arent we taught how to listen and to speak our truth? Why arent we taught how to have boundaries and handle conflict? Why arent we taught that sexuality is a beautiful thing that needs to be tended to with love and tenderness, not shame? In this book Jan distills her teachings in a wise, gentle and accessible way. It will help anyone to have a better understanding of their sexuality and their relationships, but Jan teaches us that tantra is more than the study of sexuality. It is a way of life that seeks the divine in everything which seems to be something we need right now.

Marianne Power,
Author of the international bestseller, Help Me!

Jan Day is a powerful force in the healing of sexuality. In this book she creates a visceral understanding of Living Tantra and takes the reader on a journey to befriending their sexuality and overcoming guilt and shame. A terrific contribution to the field.

Malcolm Stern
Co-founder of Alternatives, psychotherapist and author of
Slay Your Dragons with Compassion.

Living Tantra

Jan Day

First published in the UK and USA in 2021 by

Watkins, an imprint of Watkins Media Limited

Unit 11, Shepperton House, 8393 Shepperton Road

London N1 3DF

Design and typography copyright Watkins Media Limited 2021

Text copyright Jan Day 2021

I Had To Seek the Physician, from the Penguin publication Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West by Daniel Ladinsky, copyright 2002. Used with permission.

It Happens All the Time in Heaven, from the Penguin publication A Year With Hafiz: Daily Contemplations by Daniel Ladinsky, copyright 1999. Used with permission.

The right of Jan Day to be identified as the Author of this text has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-78678-542-8 (Paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-78678-603-6 (eBook)

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ Books Ltd.

Typeset by Lapiz

www.watkinspublishing.com

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

Tantra has accumulated a spectrum of meanings so broad that adherents at one end generally want little or nothing to do with those at the opposite end. Classical tantra is a path of spiritual awakening in which sex does not play a primary or even essential role. Indeed, among its most purist devotees, sex may be regarded as sinful. For neo-tantra, at the other end of the spectrum, sex is the path. What holds neo-tantra to the same line as classical tantra is the spiritual connection, and as though to perfect the spectrums symmetry, the purists abstinence is matched at the other end by Dionysian offshoots of neo-tantra extolling sexual excitement, performance and expertise that may or may not be embellished with a sheen of spirituality. For a real understanding of tantra, rather than trying to assess the spirituality of the many colourful varieties spread across its rainbow path, it is more informative to look at the words literal meaning a weaving together. Tantra is indeed a kind of magic carpet; it signifies the weaving together of all that is. And as the term applies uniquely to us to human beings it aims to offer each of us a way to weave together all that we are into a single, integrated whole being.

Just look at what this means. It calls us to live in an ongoing, wide-awake awareness that is informed and guided by everything that goes on in our breathing-moving-sensing body; in the instinctual, male-female-et al. fusion of energies that shapes our sexuality; in our feeling and emotional life; in our psyche with all its talents, desires, fears, longings, strengths and vulnerabilities; in our open-hearted capacity to love and be loved; in the astonishing kaleidoscope of our mind with its ability to conjure everything from genius to absurdity, from beauty to ugliness, from wisdom to folly, from enlightenment to megalomania, and on and on; in our intuitive soul connection with mysteries beyond our personal existence that bring the spiritual element into our life. And all of this woven together into a single, integrated whole being here now! Yes, it is when we are fully present awake in all our capacities that we are one and whole: thus, the carpet is woven. If you have ever, even if only for a few moments, been wide awake in all that you are and at one with all that is, you know what amazing grace it is to be in this state! Tantra, remember, is not the attainment of this wondrous