Taoism and Buddhism have a lot to teach.

The Theravada tradition (the early Buddhists) spoke about getting rid of desire. The Mahayana Buddhists who came after kinda check mated the Theravada with, “But now you desire to not desire.” This meta approach was developed further and called the, “third turning of the dharma (teaching) wheel” and became the Vajrayana Tantra texts. Pepper in a little Taoism and you get Zen.

A mate of mine is an ordained monk at the Manchester Buddhist Centre. He used to be a proper brawler before he started getting serious about it. It’s been really good for him.

I highly recommended the work of Alan Watts, a British philosopher specialising in comparative religion and focussed on interpreting Asian philosophies for a Western audience.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone of Southpark have put together some animation to clips of his talks … http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE5M8743a1s

There are loads of his lectures for free on Google Video.

As far as masturbation goes I suppose it depends on your charge. I’ll crack nuts before I go out on the pull and have no problems. Whatever works for you.