Shurangama Sutra · Four Clear Instructions on Purity
If beings in the six paths are not lustful in their minds, they will not follow the cycle of birth and death.
Until lust is removed, you cannot leave the dust. A clear mind finds a wide road.
An anonymous, clean, encouraging place
No email, no phone number. Pick a nickname, press Start, and the counter runs from that moment, counting every clean hour and day with you. Share a few words if you like. Leave whenever you like. Nobody knows who you are.
The top of the ladder of stimulation is empty. The higher you climb, the stronger the dose you need, until only numbness is left. Walk back down, and sweetness returns.
Streak counter
From this moment, count the clean days
One relapse is not failure. Giving up is. The number resets to zero. The merit does not.
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My vow
After logging in you can write your vow here and see it every time you return. For example "From today I will not watch online porn. I will give that time to my family."
Longest streaks
The ten longest current streaks. Seeing that others can walk it tells you that you can too.
Temporarily offline
Three stages
A plan you can actually follow
You do not have to finish everything at once. Tick half of a stage and move on. Ticks are stored only on this device. First cut off, then turn, then purify.
0 of 18 done
Days 1 to 7
Stage one · Cut off
Pull out the pipe that keeps pouring mud in. This week is not about practice. It is about one thing: leaving the thought nowhere to land.
Days 8 to 49
Stage two · Turn
The tap is off. Now change the water. For six weeks fill your days with clean things so body and mind get used to life without the stimulus. This is the hardest stretch. Weeks two to four often feel flat and tasteless. That is your senses recalibrating, not failure.
Day 50 onward
Stage three · Purify
Now you are not only quitting for yourself but for others. Helping one person turn back is the greatest merit and the steadiest guardrail.
Why more stimulation leaves you emptier
Stepping off the ladder of sensation
This section is the key to the whole thing. Many people quit and relapse not for lack of willpower, but because they never understood the mechanism of stimulation. Once you see it, it stops leading you around.
Like a drug, it builds tolerance
Sugar water stops tasting sweet. Salt water makes you thirstier. Porn works the same way, and research describes two layers. The first is habituation: the same clip bores you after a few views, but a new one brings the response back. This is the Coolidge effect, and it is why you keep scrolling. The second is desensitisation: dopamine receptors get blunted by repeated spikes, the way ears get used to noise and need it louder, so the taste keeps getting heavier.
In one survey of porn users, nearly half said their tastes had shifted over time toward material they once found dull or even disgusting. Tolerance is not a moral failing. It is a physical response of the nervous system, exactly as with drugs.
The Buddha said it 2,500 years ago
Chapter 22 of the Sutra of Forty-two Chapters says people cannot let go of wealth and lust, like honey on the edge of a blade: not enough for a meal, yet a child who licks it risks cutting the tongue. Chapter 25 says a person of craving is like someone carrying a torch against the wind. The hand will surely be burned.
The scriptures use another image: a thirsty person drinking salt water grows thirstier with every sip. Sensory pleasure is "pleasant feeling", impermanent by nature. The more you chase it, the emptier it gets. This is not a lecture on morals. It is a description of tolerance.
The top is empty
The ladder of stimulation has no last rung. Each step up makes the next step heavier, until all that is left is numbness and even real people no longer interest you. Many believe they want more intensity. What the body actually wants is to grow its blunted receptors back.
The good news: receptors recover. Research and countless recovery stories agree that after a period without the stimulus, sensitivity returns and ordinary things taste good again.
A sensory reset, thirty to ninety days
One. Do not swap one stimulus for another. Quitting porn while binging short videos, food or alcohol keeps the receptors blunt. Bring everything down.
Two. Do not taper. Stop. "I will just watch milder stuff first" is tolerance talking.
Three. Return to low-stimulus pleasures: walking, sunlight, plain food, listening to the Dharma, sitting quietly. It feels boring at first. Boredom is the signal that receptors are healing.
Four. Weeks two to four are the flattest, and many give up here. Hold on. The sweetness comes back.
Five. Thirty minutes of sensory fasting daily: no phone, no screen, no audio. Just sit or walk.
Six. When an urge comes, label it "this is thirst". Watch it rise and watch it fall. Ninety seconds.
The top of the ladder is empty. Walk back down, and sweetness returns.
Copy any line, or press Make a share card to open the Morning Card Studio, pick a background and turn it into an image for LINE, Instagram or Facebook.
Until lust is removed, you cannot leave the dust. A clear mind finds a wide road.
Lust leads the list of evils. Not because it is the biggest, but because once it stirs, every other bad thought follows.
Desire is muddy water being stirred. Stop stirring, and it clears by itself.
When you want to look, take three slow breaths first. Three seconds is often the difference of a lifetime.
See the other person as your mother, your sister, your daughter, and the thought stops on its own.
One relapse is not failure. Giving up is. Restart today. The number resets, the merit does not.
Online porn is not free. It charges your spirit, your time and your fortune.
Repentance is not humiliation. It settles yesterday's debt so that today can travel light.
Falling into the sex trade is not the end. Lower greed by one degree, and the shore comes one step closer.
One Shurangama Mantra a day is a daily bath for the mind.
Sleep early, move your body, recite, do good. Four small things that guard a lifetime of clarity.
Thoughts count too. The moment the mind moves, the ledger is written. Quit from the thought, not from the act.
The ancients refused once and passed the imperial exam. Refuse once, and you are saving fortune for your future self.
Quitting is not enduring. It is changing the water. Fill your days with clean things and dirty water has nowhere to flow in.
The top of the ladder of stimulation is empty. The higher you climb, the stronger the dose you need, until only numbness is left. Walk back down, and sweetness returns.
Wealth and lust are honey on a blade. A child licks it and risks the tongue.
Why quit
Stories of consequence
Gathered from classic Chinese books of moral exhortation such as the Shou Kang Bao Jian, the De Yu Gu Jian and the Jie Yin Zheng Lu, together with modern confessions and Dharma talks. Each card links to its source. The stories are retold in plain language so they are easy to pass on. These stories are Buddhist teaching and moral literature, meant as encouragement and warning, not medical conclusions.
Classic storiesMing · Shou Kang Bao Jian
Lin Maoxian turns away a neighbour at night, passes the exam the next year
Lin Maoxian of Xinzhou was gifted but poor, studying at home. A wealthy neighbour's wife admired him in secret and came to him one night. He refused her sternly, saying he would never step outside propriety, and reminded her that spirits were watching. She left in shame. He later passed the provincial and palace examinations, and all three of his sons passed too.
A poor scholar turned away a rich woman at his door. He passed the next year, and his three sons all passed. One refusal, three generations of fortune.
Xie Qian refuses his host's daughter, later tops the exam
As a young tutor, Xie Qian was approached one night by his host's daughter while her parents were away. He refused her gravely, spelled out the shame she would bring on herself, and resigned the next day. He later placed first in the palace examination, rose to chancellor, and his son became a vice minister.
A knock at midnight is often the exam of a lifetime. Xie Qian spoke plainly and left. The top rank and the chancellorship came later.
Chen of Yugan was a skilled physician. After he cured a poor family, they sent a woman to his room at night as thanks. He was tempted, but wrote the words "not allowed" on paper, then wrote them again, and finally left. In later years, when his examination essays were blocked, he heard the words "not allowed" in his ear, which the book calls the echo of his restraint.
The moment his heart moved, he wrote "not allowed". Once was not enough, so he wrote it twice. You can write those two words on your phone screen.
While Lu Gongrong of Taicang was sitting the exams, the flute-playing daughter of his innkeeper slipped into his room at night. He said he was unwell and told her to come another day. She left, leaving a mocking poem. He passed the exam that very year and rose to a senior post.
No confrontation needed. "I am not well today" can close the door. Lu Gongrong passed that same year.
Yao Sanjiu ignores the glances, his descendants pass
Yao Sanjiu tutored in the Huai household, where the daughter kept watching him. He never responded. When she hid a love letter in his shoe, he found an excuse and resigned. The host praised his depth of virtue, and his sons and grandsons all passed the imperial examinations.
No reply is the cleanest reply. A letter in his shoe, and he chose to walk away in different shoes.
The twins of Yuzhang: the brother who deceived a widow
Twin brothers in Yuzhang looked identical. The younger seduced a neighbouring widow, promised to marry her, and took her money. When she learned the truth she died of grief. Soon after, his beloved son died young, he went blind in both eyes, and then he died.
Cheating in love and cheating in money are two debts. After the widow died of grief, he lost his son, then his eyes.
Zhou Boshun loses his fortune with prostitutes, repents, and rises higher
Zhou Boshun, a scholar of Shandong, passed the prefectural exam and was recommended for the provincial one. After celebrating with friends, he stayed behind with prostitutes. His father dreamed that a deity said Zhou had lost the official career he was due to have, because he had broken the precept against lust. Zhou denied it until his father told the dream. Then he wept, repented, and vowed to abstain and do good. Three years later he passed the highest examination and was appointed to a senior post.
A fall is not the danger. Not turning back is. Zhou repented sincerely, and three years later his rank was higher than the one he had lost.
Zhang Ning frees an unwilling concubine, gains a son the next year
Zhang Ning had no son in old age. A concubine at his side opened his eyes. He released the women who did not wish to stay and let them go free. The next year a son was born.
Give someone a way out and your own way opens. For descendants and fortune, begin by not possessing others.
Cui Shushen burns his erotic paintings and recovers
Cui Shushen commissioned indecent paintings. He later caught malaria and, in his fever, saw himself being punished. He woke, burned the paintings, and the illness lifted.
The folder on your phone is today's stack of paintings. Delete it, and body and mind will give you the answer.
Zhao Yanshi nearly dies of indulgence, quits, prints books, gains six sons
Zhao Yanshi indulged in lust as a youth until his body was so weak he nearly died. After reading a book against lust he reformed completely and paid to print the book for others. His vitality returned and he went on to have six sons.
A man near death came back by quitting lust, and had six sons. A body can be repaired, once the leak is sealed.
Zhang Wei and his companion: one went upstairs, one walked away
Zhang Wei and another candidate travelled to Nanjing for the exams, and the daughter of the house where they stayed tempted them. Zhang Wei came to his senses and left. The other went upstairs. When the results were posted Zhang Wei had placed first in the province. The other later died in poverty and depression.
Same night, same staircase. One turned and left, one climbed. Years later, one topped the province, one died poor and sick.
In the Jiajing era a scholar was lured by a neighbouring woman to climb a wall for a secret meeting. Twice he reached the wall, twice he hesitated and turned back. He later placed first in the palace examination, and was told that the two times he stopped were the source of that fortune.
Stopping once does not count. Stopping twice does. The temptation returns, and you can stop again, every time.
According to the account, Xu Zhaoxin raped a young nun. He later went mad for no apparent reason and died by biting through his own tongue. The article classes this as the immediate retribution for grave misconduct.
Harm a practitioner or someone who cannot resist, and the offence is gravest and the return fastest.
Huang Tingjian writes erotic verse, a Chan master warns him
The Song poet Huang Tingjian wrote many erotic lyrics. A Chan master urged him to stop, saying they would stir lust in countless readers. The account records that he suffered illness and family misfortune in old age, which the author attributes to inciting lust through words.
Stirring lust in others with words, pictures or video counts as karma even if the author never acts. Today's creators and forwarders should hear the master's words.
Classic storiesFolk legend · Compiled by Qingxiu Jushi
The legend of the author of Jin Ping Mei
The article repeats a widely told story that three generations of the descendants of the novel's author were born mute, and that the line died out after five. It is legend from exhortation literature, unverifiable, but long used to warn those who profit from obscene works.
Make money by stirring other people's desire, and the old saying is that the debt is left to the grandchildren.
A Ming scholar travelling to the capital for the exams could not control his lust. A wise friend asked him to imagine that behind the bed curtain sat his own mother or sister. The thought went out at once. The talk also notes the old belief that candidates who break the precept are struck from the register by the god of literature.
If your mother or your sister sat behind that curtain, could the thought still rise? The trick works just as well when you open your phone.
Modern confessionsModern · first-person confession
Ten years of hostessing: the confession of Miaolian
Miaolian, from Shanghai, confessed publicly at a temple. From eighteen she worked in nightclubs for about ten years, had many sexual partners and was a mistress. She chased money and pleasure by any means, then developed chronic pelvic disease that would not heal, was robbed, threatened with a knife, and lost a boyfriend of many years to a third party. She had also pulled a seventeen-year-old girl into the trade and felt she had ruined her. Only after studying Buddhism did she understand cause and effect, confess openly, and tell her parents the truth.
She said the root was not money but delusion: blinded by lust, blinded by money, greedy for pleasure. See the delusion and you see the way back.
After dozens of lovers: the woman in the Sage Education film
A woman in the film series on traditional moral education told of having dozens of lovers and repeated misconduct, then dying in great pain of cervical cancer. Miaolian said after watching that her own offences were no lighter, and that to be alive and able to repent was already a mercy.
What people say about themselves weighs more than anything written about them. They lay their pain open so that you will not have to walk the same road.
Four Clear Instructions on Purity, the first is to cut off lust
Ananda asked the Buddha how to establish a place of practice, keep away from demonic affairs and keep the bodhi mind from retreating. The Buddha answered with four clear instructions on purity: no lust, no killing, no stealing, no lying. The sutra says that if beings in the six paths are not lustful in mind they do not follow the cycle of birth and death, and that until lust is removed one cannot leave the dust; practising samadhi without removing lust is like cooking sand and expecting rice. The commentary adds that lust is not only sexual desire: clinging to "self" and to experiences is lust extended. Precepts gather the mind, a gathered mind gives rise to samadhi, and samadhi gives rise to wisdom.
To leave the three realms, the first gate is lust. "Until lust is removed, you cannot leave the dust" is not a threat. It is the order of practice.
Chapter 22 says people cannot let go of wealth and lust, like honey on the edge of a blade: not enough for a meal, yet a child who licks it risks cutting the tongue. Chapter 25 says a person of craving is like someone carrying a torch into the wind, certain to burn the hand. Both images say the same thing: desire gives little sweetness and great injury, and the more you chase it the more it wounds.
Honey on a blade, not enough for a meal, yet it can cut the tongue. A torch against the wind burns the hand that holds it before it touches anyone else.
Sutras and talksTreatise on Response and Retribution
Great faults cost twelve years, small ones a hundred days
The Treatise on Response and Retribution says that when a person does evil, heaven and earth reduce the lifespan in proportion, and with a shortened life come poverty, hardship and constant worry. A great evil costs twelve years, a small fault a hundred days. The text says the hearth spirit and the spirits of the north record everything, and nothing done in secret stays hidden.
Lifespan is a ledger. One act of misconduct is one entry. One refusal is another. The ledger never runs out of pages.
Sexual misconduct is the root of broken families and disordered society
Master Chin Kung taught that sexual misconduct is among the gravest of evils. Affairs breed suspicion, jealousy and quarrels, and the children are hurt most, carrying the effect for life. If lustful thoughts are not cut off one cannot transcend the cycle of rebirth, and even reciting the Buddha's name for rebirth in the Pure Land becomes hard. He urged cutting it off in both thought and action: read the sutras to tell good from evil, keep body, speech and mind away from the ten evils, repent sincerely, and dedicate the merit.
Stopping the act is only the first step. If the thought continues, you have not moved.
Sutras and talksBhikshuni Heng Gui on the lay Bodhisattva precepts
Three contemplations, practised every day
Explaining the precept against sexual misconduct, Bhikshuni Heng Gui gave three contemplations. The first: see older women as mothers, peers as sisters, younger ones as daughters. The second: see beauty as an enemy and a poison, more dangerous than tigers or snakes, because it causes suffering for aeons. The third: see that beauty is only thin skin over flesh, blood, pus and filth. She stressed that these must be practised in ordinary times, not when the situation is already upon you, when it is too late.
Contemplation is not a last-minute prayer. Practise it until it is familiar, and when the moment comes the thought turns by itself.
Exhortation texts, drawing on the scriptures, list the sufferings that come to habitual offenders: constant fear of being killed, discord between husband and wife, a widowed spouse, wealth draining away day by day, slander from relatives and friends, many enemies, an unfaithful spouse, and after death a fall into the lower realms. The article quotes the old saying: do not borrow the debt of romance, for what is borrowed fast is repaid fast.
The debt of romance is borrowed fast and repaid fast. Every one of these ten sufferings is in today's news.
The six levels of contemplation in Turning Back from the Sea of Desire
The layman Zhou Anshi wrote one book against lust and one against killing, holding that these two make up most of the karma of beings. His contemplations go from shallow to deep in six levels: the suffering of entering the womb, the impurity of the body, the filth of male and female bodies, the decay of a corpse into bones, the arising and ceasing of all things as taught in the Lotus Sutra, and finally seeing oneself in a lotus in the Pure Land before Amitabha, vowing to leave the pit of lust forever.
From seeing the body's impurity all the way to seeing the Buddha in a lotus. The book does not ask you to endure. It asks you to change the eyes you see with.
Online pornHello Yishi · reviewed by a psychiatrist
Eight signs of porn addiction
An article reviewed by a psychiatrist lists eight warning signs. Feeling guilty after watching. Being unable to have sex without it. Watching for longer and longer. Continuing although it is harming your life. Spending hours searching, forgetting duties and even sleep. Pressuring a partner to watch or re-enact scenes. Needing it to regulate mood. Scenes replaying in the mind when not watching. If it has seriously affected your life, the article advises counselling, behavioural therapy or medication.
Three or more of these, and it is no longer "just occasionally". Admitting the addiction is the first step out.
Research describes porn escalation in two layers. Habituation: the same clip bores you after a few views, a new one restores the response, so you keep scrolling. Desensitisation: dopamine receptors are blunted by repeated spikes and need stronger input for the same feeling. In one survey nearly half of users said their tastes had moved toward material they once found dull or disgusting. This is drug tolerance, happening in front of a screen.
You did not become worse. Your receptors got blunted. Stop, and they grow back. Ordinary things taste good again.
Online porn looks free, but it keeps charging. It charges time, one evening after another. It charges spirit: no drive in the daytime, scattered attention, no interest in real people. It charges relationships: a partner can feel that your heart is elsewhere. It charges fortune: the ancients said misconduct costs rank and career. In today's terms, you are pouring the energy meant for your work and family into a screen.
Free things cost the most. It does not take your money. It takes your spirit, your time and your fortune.
The first price is legal. In Taiwan, under the Social Order Maintenance Act, both parties to a commercial sex act can be penalised, and one arrest follows you. The second is health and family: infections, debt, suspicion and broken trust, none of which a "quick fix" can offset. The third is fortune. In the Jie Yin Zheng Lu, Zhou Boshun lost his future official career with prostitutes; in the Shou Kang Bao Jian, Lin Maoxian refused a neighbour's wife at night and passed the exam the next year. The ancients spoke of rank; today think of career, marriage and children.
Every purchase pushes another person one step deeper into the mud, and pours your own fortune out the door.
Miaolian hostessed for ten years and said afterward that the root was delusion, not money. Turning back does not happen overnight. It begins with lowering greed by one degree: separating need from want, dropping venues and circles one at a time, saving an exit fund, and talking to someone through an anonymous channel. In Taiwan the Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation runs an anonymous hotline and has gathered employment, training, legal, counselling and housing resources for every county. Repentance is not humiliation. It settles yesterday's debt.
Falling into the trade is not the end. Lower greed by one degree, and the shore comes one step closer.
Desire is a bucket of muddy water being stirred. Stop stirring and it clears on its own. The six directions below are "stop stirring" plus "change the water". You do not need all of them. Pick two or three to start.
1. Cut off: turn off the tap first
Water stays muddy because someone keeps pouring mud in. Pull out that pipe and the water has a chance to clear.
Clear every collection. Delete the videos, bookmarks and accounts on your phone and computer. Leave the groups that pass explicit content. Keep one, and you have kept a road back.
Have someone install a filter and keep the password. Install a content filter on phone and computer. Let a family member or friend hold the password. It only works if you do not know it.
No phone in the bedroom. Charge it in the living room an hour before bed. Lying in bed scrolling late at night is the peak hour for relapse.
Find a partner who will not go easy on you. Ask a friend who will truly hold you to it, and text them daily. Quitting alone is hard. Two is far easier.
Write down your triggers. Which people, times, places and moods bring the thought out. Write them down, then avoid them one by one.
Decide in advance what you do when the urge comes. Go out and walk, splash cold water on your face, do twenty push-ups, make a phone call. Do it the moment the thought arrives.
Desire is a thought, not a command. When it comes, you can leave it alone. It fades on its own within ninety seconds.
Three breaths before deciding. The instant you want to look or go, stop and take three slow breaths. Three seconds is often the difference of a lifetime.
Three contemplations. Older as mother, peers as sisters, younger as daughters. See beauty as enemy and poison. See the flesh, blood and pus beneath the skin. Practise daily, and when the moment comes the thought turns by itself.
Six levels from Turning Back from the Sea of Desire. Contemplate the suffering of the womb, the impurity of the body, the filth of bodies, the decay of a corpse into bones, the arising and ceasing of all things, and finally yourself in a lotus before Amitabha, vowing to leave the pit of lust forever.
Write the consequences as a list. What misconduct destroys: health, career, marriage, children, credit, fortune. Put the list on your phone's home screen. Read it when the urge comes.
Remember that thoughts count. The Shurangama Sutra says "not lustful in mind", not "not lustful in body". The moment the mind moves, the entry is written. Quit from the thought, not from the act.
Dirty water has to be changed. A fixed daily recitation is a fresh change of water every day.
The Shurangama Mantra. The Shurangama Sutra says that until lust is removed you cannot leave the dust, and this mantra is the remedy. Recite once each morning. If you have not memorised it, listen and follow along. The heart of the mantra alone is fine.
A Buddha's name. Amitabha, Guanyin Bodhisattva or the Medicine Buddha. Choose one. The moment desire stirs, recite until the thought scatters. Those with heavy desire should recite Guanyin's name and the six-syllable mantra daily.
Read the Four Clear Instructions on Purity. Read the passage once a day, until "until lust is removed, you cannot leave the dust" sounds in your own voice.
Confession and dedication. Each night, confess openly, name your faults, hide nothing. Bow to the Buddha, do the Eighty-eight Buddhas repentance, or recite the Heart Sutra or the Diamond Sutra. Then dedicate the merit to your own success in quitting, and to those you have hurt.
Heart of the Shurangama Mantra
Om anale visade vira vajra-dhare
bandha bandhani vajra-pani phat
hum trum phat svaha
Energy is like water. If it does not flow into the field, it flows into the ditch. Spend it on the body, and there is none left for the ditch.
Thirty minutes of exercise a day. Running, squats, push-ups, swimming, anything that spends the energy. A body after exercise rarely stirs with lust.
One hundred and eight prostrations. Exercise and repentance at once. Sweat through and the mind settles too.
In bed before eleven. Staying up late is the peak hour for relapse. One hour earlier is one chance fewer.
Plain food. Less spice, less alcohol, less meat. Alcohol is the kindling of lust; both the Shou Kang Bao Jian and the lay precepts stress plain, clean eating.
Cold water, standing practice, walks. When a thought comes, wash your face in cold water or take a cold shower. Day to day, do standing meditation, qigong or walks to settle the blood and breath.
Fortune that has leaked away is refilled by good deeds. Zhao Yanshi in the Shou Kang Bao Jian quit lust, paid to print books for others, and had six sons.
Share articles on quitting. Share this site or its articles with someone who needs them, or print and give away good books. Helping one person turn back is the greatest merit.
Honour your parents. Your body came from them. Do the chores, make the call, share a meal. When filial feeling rises, lust weakens.
Give and help. Donate blood, donate money, volunteer, help a stranger. Be careful with releasing animals, so that seeking merit does not fuel their capture.
Dedicate the merit. After a good deed, dedicate it to your own success in quitting and to the people you have hurt.
Holding on alone is exhausting. Walking with others, the road does not feel long.
Look at the counter every day. Watching the number grow is the cheapest motivation there is.
Write your experience down. Even "I made it through today". The sentence you write will be the reason someone else makes it.
Read what others wrote. Know that others are quitting like you, falling like you, and getting up like you.
Talk to someone. If you are in Taiwan, the 1925 line is free, 24 hours, every day. If the addiction is already harming your life, see a psychiatrist or counsellor. There is no shame in it.
Write what you have been through, or share one method that worked for you. It does not have to be long. "I made it through today" can give someone else faith.
To post, pick a nickname above and create an account. It is fully anonymous.
For those in the sex trade, and for those who keep paying for it
No judgement here, only the way to shore. It does not happen overnight. It starts with lowering greed by one degree and walking back one step at a time.
Start by lowering greed: five steps back
See first, blame laterWrite down the money you truly need each month and the money you want. Many discover that what keeps them from leaving is not need but greed. Once you see it, you have a choice.
Cut the greed smallerDo not rush to change jobs. First drop one expense, one venue, one group of friends. Greed is muddy water; stir it a little less and it clears a little more.
Give yourself an exit timetableThree months or six. Save an exit fund and start learning one skill that can feed you. With a timetable, the heart stops panicking.
Talk through an anonymous channelThe organisations below take anonymous enquiries and will not ask who you are. They have already gathered the employment, training, financial, legal, counselling, housing and childcare resources.
Repentance is not humiliation, it is settlementZhou Boshun in the Jie Yin Zheng Lu fell, repented sincerely, and three years later rose higher than before. Repentance settles yesterday's debt so today can travel light. Saying "I am willing to turn back" to yourself each day has more power than anything.
Where to ask for help anonymously
Taiwan: resources for leaving sex workRun by the Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation. Anonymous enquiries, transition counselling, referrals, and county-by-county resources for work, money, law, counselling, housing and childcare. English, Vietnamese and Thai pages available.
Someone to talk toIf you are in crisis, call your local crisis line. In Taiwan the 1925 line is free and open 24 hours. If the addiction is already harming your life, see a psychiatrist or counsellor. There is no shame in it.
For those who keep paying for it
Every purchase pushes another person one step deeper into the mud and pours your own fortune out the door. Quitting does not start with grand principles. It starts with not walking down that street, not joining that group, not saving that number. In many places, including Taiwan, both parties can be penalised, and the price in health and family is higher still. In the Shou Kang Bao Jian, Lin Maoxian turned away a neighbour's wife at his door, passed the exam the next year, and saw his three sons pass as well. Refuse once, and fortune returns by one degree.
Do not shame someone onto the shore. Give them a concrete road. Send them this page and sit with them while they make one phone call. It does more than a hundred "how could you".
Further reading
Other sites you can trust
If you want to go further after this site, these are the ones we have vetted: mainstream Buddhist, medical and peer-support resources only. Each language has its own list. Switch languages to see another.
The content here is compiled from public Buddhist scriptures, moral exhortation literature, Dharma talks and media reports. The stories of consequence come mostly from exhortation texts and first-person confessions and cannot be verified historically; read them in the spirit in which they were written. Nothing here is medical or legal advice. If porn addiction, sexual issues or emotional distress are affecting your life, please seek a psychiatrist, counsellor or lawyer. Posts on the wall are made anonymously by members, who are responsible for them. Posts reported five times are hidden automatically.