In ancient Buddhist philosophy, as taught by luminaries like Eihei Dogen and interpreted by many others, intimacy transcends the usual. Imagine it as synonymous with wisdom itself. Picture being so connected with the moment that your individuality fades, giving way to a deeper state where you’re at one with everything around you.
A buddhist way of expressing it to realize the three fold transparency or three valences of intimacy: becoming intimate with your own heart and mind; being intimate or not separate from things as they are; being transparent to the world – allowing undefended intimacy as the world meets us.
This intimacy isn’t about acquiring new knowledge; it’s about peeling back the layers to reveal a deep connection that’s already pulsating within us. Think of it as getting finer in tuning into our own depths, touching the core of our being, and extending that touch to the world—in every brush of wind or beam of sunlight that meets our skin.
Dogen once said “When you know yourself, you know intimate action. Thus, Buddha ancestors can thoroughly actualize this intimate heart and intimate language. “Intimate” means close and inseparable. There is no gap. Intimacy embraces Buddha ancestors. It embraces you. It embraces the self. It embraces action. It embraces generations. It embraces merit. It embraces intimacy.”
That understanding yourself is the beginning of cultivating an intimate action. This intimacy isn’t confined to close relationships; it’s the essence of life itself. It moves through us and connects us across generations and spaces in ways that are both mysterious and beautiful.
Intimacy, in the Buddhist view, involves the recognition that we are braided with the very streams of life that support us; we are braided with each other; braided with the context of our lived experience; braided with our values and vows. And, as such, the Buddhist practice is both radically embodied and as well de-centered.
Then there’s the misunderstood concept of tantra in Buddhism—it’s not just about physical closeness but a sacred merger of the spiritual and the mundane elements of life. It invites us to see and experience the divine in everything.
Yeshe Tsogyal, a queen who rose to spiritual prominence, embodies this beautifully. She crossed from worldly royalty into the spiritual realms, merging the ordinary and the sacred in her quest for deeper truths, demonstrating a powerful form of intimacy that extends beyond human relationships to include the entire existence.
In tantra, intimacy is seen as this vast interconnectedness, urging us to recognize the sacred in our everyday routines, challenging us to mix the spiritual with the mundane in an endless, intimate dialogue.
From queen to sage, her transformation highlights how true intimacy in the tantric view is about embracing the entirety of life’s experiences, spotting the profound and sacred in each moment and every encounter.
The real essence of intimacy, viewed through the Buddhist lens is more than closeness; it’s about a boundless openness to the connectivity of all life, where no barriers exist, and sacred and mundane distinctions dissolve.
So what if we begin to perceive intimacy as a profound engagement with life itself? Awakening to the divine threaded through our daily lives.
This essence of tantric intimacy is about realizing that we are woven intimately into the fabric of everything that exists. Embracing this, we embrace the universe in its entirety.
And in this intimate connectedness, each second, each breath, each face has the potential to be be a precious portal to the infinite.
A Buddhist scholar made the point that awakening in Zen is irreducibly social—it can never be merely “mine” or “yours,” but is only realized as “ours.”
Intimacy, being one with all things, is is the essence of awakening. Not separate from anything or any being, not separate from this moment. Also not clinging to this moment!
