I hope to search on Sutta Central https://suttacentral.net/ on celibacy and related terms (like chaste etc) and make a list of verses which are about restraint of sexual activity. So that reading these verses may serve as a motivating factor for those who are about to relapse. However, keeping in mind that a lot of these discourses were given to monastics at the time of Buddha, we don't have to be ordained to experience the benefits of Buddhist celibacy (Brahmacharya).
Here is Sutta Nipata 4:1 which I really like. Not really focussed on sexuality/chastity but reflects the self-constraining aspect in Buddhism very nicely. If one, longing for sensual pleasure, achieves it, yes, he’s enraptured at heart. The mortal gets what he wants. But if for that person —longing, desiring— the pleasures diminish, he’s afflicted, as if shot with an arrow. Whoever avoids sensual desires —as he would, with his foot, the head of a snake— goes beyond, mindful, this attachment in the world. A man who is greedy for fields, land, gold, cattle, horses, servants, employees, women, relatives, many sensual pleasures, is overpowered with weakness and trampled by trouble, for pain invades him as water, a cracked boat. So one, always mindful, should avoid sensual desires. Letting them go, he’d cross over the flood like one who, having bailed out the boat, has reached the far shore.
Thanks Christoph, Sutta Central is an invaluable resource because you can run searches on a topic of interest and it will give sources from not only the Pali Canon but from other parallel texts which have got English translations. For now, I am running searched with terms like 'celibacy', 'celibate', 'chaste', 'lust', etc and then making a list. I hope to post it here so that all Buddhists in the group can take advantage and become more motivated to fulfill their NoFap goals and go beyond that.
That would be awesome, I'm looking forwards to it, thank you! Also I didn't know about this webside, I always read at dhammatalks.org, so thanks for sharing.
This is something slightly a bit off-topic but I am also reading books on Brahmacharya (celibacy and sensual restraint). Unfortunately, there is no single Buddhist book that I could find which is specifically dedicated to the topic of Brahmacharya. The books and the articles I have encountered are mostly Hindu (the one I am reading at present is by a Jain author). I am making short notes as I go along (copy-pasting important instructions to a word processor document). Then I hope to filter our content which is not compatible with Buddhism (such as theism and self-view/soul theory). Then I hope to combine aspects of Buddhism which are supportive of Brahmacharya and combine these together in a summarised and streamlined manner in a document and hope to share it so it gives a full set of tactics and strategies to combat sexual desire, whiles initiating, maintaining and sustaining Brahmacharya in ways consistent with the Buddhist way. I hope to make this as much as acceptable as possible to all schools of Buddhism where celibacy is valued (which is pretty much all schools of Buddhism which has monastic orders). "Tapo ca brahmacariyañ ca, Ariyasaccāna dassanaṁ, Nibbāna-sacchikiriyā ca, Etaṁ maṅgala-muttamaṁ" "Self-restraint, a holy and celibate/chaste life, the perception of the Noble Truths and the realization of Nibbana — this is the greatest blessing." Khp 5 Mangala Sutta
