My name is Rahul and I want to share with you a disturbing thing that happened to me last year. I joined a Zen Buddhist meditation group in the city I had recently moved to. I don't want to mention where it was. I am a specialist software engineer (computer programmer) and I move around the country depending on where the latest project is. I became interested in mindfulness and meditation after a course my company sent me to.
All the people in the group were very friendly and cool. I had many private interviews with the head teacher and she helped me very much in many ways. I did happen to tell her that I am gay but I never really came out to the group. Coming out as gay is something that really annoys me. I move to different projects every three to six months and I used to feel like I had to come out every time I was in a new team. Straight men don't have to come out as straight so why should I?
So I stopped doing it. I wear a ring with rainbow bands that a friend bought for me and if people ask me I tell them I'm gay, however I don't feel that I have to make the big announcement anymore. I came out to my family a long time ago which was hard. My father was born in India but my mother was born here but of Irish descent. I came out to my sister first. She told my brother and my mother and then my mother told my father. Everyone was cool except my father, possibly because of his upbringing in India. He told me that he wouldn't let me back into the house until I stopped being gay.
Luckily I'd already moved out by then. My mother eventually talked him around but for a long time my mother and father argued about it and it seemed to have damaged their relationship. That hurt my brother and sister who are still in their teens. Consequently, the whole idea of having to come out makes me angry.
Also, the IT consultancy company I work for is based in India. Nearly all its employees here have come from Bangalore or Hyderabad. I was recruited by the local manager when I was running a course. My previous job out of Uni was as a trainer. I guess he thought I was Indian because I have an Indian name and I look a bit Indian. I am mixed race I suppose. I'm not really sure that Indians are a different race to Europeans? Anyway, a lot of the employees from India are a bit homophobic so that adds to the stress of revealing my sexuality.
I've never had a boyfriend though I've had a few fuck buddies. Actually I know a few Indian guys from my company who are secretly gay but I always try to steer clear of colleagues for sex. I'm twenty-six and my mixed race makes me look more hispanic than anything else. I'm pretty good looking they say. A lot of people say I look exactly like a young Enrique Iglesias and to tell the truth I am a big fan of his and I do try to cultivate that look. I don't have any trouble taking my pick of guys on G****r for sex.
Getting back to what I wanted to talk about. The Zen group met every week in the city Zendo. They also had a women's group and a men's group that met every month at member's homes to meditate and then have a discussion about some topic. I wasn't really interested in going to the men's group but it was mentioned to me so many times that after being with the group for about four months, eventually I decided to go to one.
When I got there, only three other men had turned up even though there were more than a dozen men at the usual weekly meeting of the whole Zen group. Not only that, they were all much older than me and were married and had kids. I had nothing in common with them.
We meditated for forty minutes and then had some coffee and biscuits. After that, we sat around for the discussion. I felt like it was time to get up and walk out when Barry, the oldest of them and one of the trainee teachers at the Zendo, said that the discussion topic would be "dealing with separation from your partner during Sesshin". I didn't have a partner and I've never been on a Sesshin!
A Sesshin is a long meditation retreat that the group holds at a countryside retreat centre twice a year. Participants have to follow monastic vows for the length of the Sesshin. This includes obviously not having sex but also not even masturbating. Not only that, participants should not even speak to the other participants except for the teachers. This includes married couples.
We sat in a circle and we were going to go around the circle and each person would share their experiences. I felt my anger grow. It looked like I would be forced to come out yet again. I didn't have a partner. I had regular hookups with guys for sex using a dating app. I sometimes went to gay saunas. I even sometimes went to gay beats at night and had sex with guys in the bushes. I'm not ashamed of any of that but it probably doesn't sit well with anyone's idea of a Zen Buddhist.
Everyone was wearing loose black track pants and a black tee-shirt. That was the expected clothing for Zen meetings. There was also a rule that nothing be written on your clothes. Barry and another guy there called William had been wearing a kind of bib made of a patchwork of black cloth for the meditation but they took them off for the discussion. That was a thing that you wore after going through a special ceremony called Jukai. We sat on Barry's living room floor on our zabutons. That is a thick Japanese style meditation mat.
It was supposed to be a circle but there were only four of us and I noticed the other guys seemed to be sitting facing me. Barry gave a short talk about the topic and the etiquette of sharing. You weren't allowed to repeat what anyone said outside the meeting and you weren't allowed to engage in commentary, judgement or criticism of anything anyone said. He then asked William if he would like to start. William is married to Wendy who is also a member of the group. They had two young children and they took it in turns to come to the weekly meeting so that there was someone at home to mind the kids.
"Well Wendy and I talked about this a long time ago. We agreed to follow the rules to the letter on Sesshin. We actually both think the break away from each other for a few weeks is good for our relationship. Wendy's mother minds the kids too so it is a break from them. Honestly I don't feel any stronger sexual desire on Sesshin even towards the end of the third week, though it hits me as soon as I get home or even in the car on the way. Wendy usually feels just as horny but we have to wait a few days because my mother-in-law sleeps in the guest room and you can hear everything from there. We have to wait until she goes home."
Already far too much detail for me but he had more.
"One time something really weird happened though. It was that really cold winter and there wasn't enough time to heat the water in that camp shower, so I was having short showers and I mustn't have been rinsing the soap off properly down below. So you know, I got a fungal rash in my groin but luckily only two days before the end. It was so itchy and it feels so good to scratch it but that makes it worse."
"Anyway, the first thing I did when we got home was to put all our clothes in the washing machine on high heat and then I got in the shower. I used the hand shower to blast my groin, scrotum and that bit between my balls and my arse hole with hot water. It felt better than scratching it. I was in ecstasy but then the washing machine must have stopped filling or something. It took me a few seconds to realise it but the water in the shower suddenly got a lot hotter. You won't believe this but I had an orgasm and blasted my cum out!"
Again I looked at the door. Could I get up and make a run for it? These were straight guys I had known for a while but most of the time in the weekly meeting is spent in meditation. I'd hardly spoken to them. I didn't want to hear this. The other guys, Peter and Barry, just laughed and made jokes about Wendy having missed out on it. I smiled and pretended to laugh.
Then I noticed something shocking. Both Pete and Barry pretty obviously had hard-ons and all three of them were looking at me all the time. Pete started to talk and I braced myself.
"I had a weird experience like that too. Remember I had that bicycle crash about a year ago?"
William nodded. Barry said, "Yeah, what happened?"
"Well I went on the city to the sea ride with a big group of guys from my club. When I got there, the weather was so good that I took my jersey off and my helmet off and rode slowly along the seaside bike track they have down there."
Pete was in his mid-forties but looked very fit. His bicycle riding explained that. Willian was about the same age but a bit on the chubby side. Barry was in his late fifties I guess, was greying but still very fit for his age. He had gone through lay ordination and so people sometimes called him Sensei. The next level up is a Zen Master called Roshi. Only the head teacher was a Roshi.
"Well this little girl was riding towards me on the bike track on a bicycle with training wheels. I was riding very slowly but just as I was about to pass her, she lost control and swerved right in front of me. I swerved off the bike track so that I wouldn't run into her, my shoes were clipped into the pedals and my front wheel got caught in a groove at the edge of the path. I went arse over tit and landed on my face. I ended up with grazes on my face, chin, right shoulder, elbow and my chest, including my right nipple."
"Ouch," said William and I made some nondescript noise in sympathy.
"Anyway, no bones broken and no muscle or tendon damage so a week later I was back on the bike. The grazes however were at the itchy stage and as I rode, my jersey was somehow catching on the scabs on my right nipple. That was giving me a weird kind of sexual stimulation. Somehow as well, it gave me an erection and moving my thighs up and down as I peddled the bike was rubbing on that too. So as you can imagine, it didn't take long before I creamed myself in my lycra shorts."
"Oh shit," said Barry laughing. William laughed too and I pretended to while regretting ever having moved to this city.
"I had to stop riding to catch my breath and wait till my heart stopped beating like crazy. I looked down and a big dark stain was spreading in the crotch of my cycling shorts. I had planned to stop in the park for coffee but I had to ride straight home."
"What did Gillian say?" Asked William.
"Nothing. I washed them out before she saw it."
Again they were all looking at me to see what my reaction would be. I couldn't help noticing again that Pete and Barry had erections. Then I saw William reach down and squeeze his cock through his track pants so I knew he did too though it wasn't showing so obviously as the others. Whats worse, even though nothing they had said I had found particularly arousing, somehow I was getting a hard-on too and without boasting, there was no hiding it. Then I noticed Barry stare at my burgeoning bulge then look me in the eyes and smile. He turned back to Pete and said:
