Dealing with Lust

Actually if your conditioning is tough then its better off that you make some kind of clearance before you silently meditate because your mind is not silent it has a lot of noise.I recommend dynamic meditation prioritized by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in the 70's where you move your whole body releasing all the bent up tension while staying as a watcher in the process.

here are links:

https://www.oshorajneesh.com/osho-meditation-music-download.htm http://www.oshodynamic.com/five-stages.html

I know Buddhism posits that lust depends on the sense organs, and contact with an object ... I find myself experience lust seemingly detached from contact ... It is my imaginations that flare

Buddhism posits six sense organs: like the eye contacts visual objects, the mind contacts mental objects (ideas).

So I think that's consistent with your saying it's triggered by "imaginations".

Or, rather, would abstinence decrease lust more effectively.

My experience is that any habit (or intentional action) is difficult to stop once started. If I have a cigarette, I want another later. If I have an alcoholic drink one evening, then I want another the next evening (because a thought occurs, like, "Suppose I have another drink, now, like I did previously?").

Conversely the longer it has been since stopping, the easier it is to stay stopped -- even if the thought reoccurs, when you have learned to stop, you can be aware of the thought if it arises but let it go again without its entraining more intentional action (i.e. without deciding to act on it, with deciding not to act).

I feel in this second case the libidinal drive might simply increase

I think that Buddhism teaches that (at least for monks and nuns) sexual intercourse (even when alone) is to be cut off completely ... which I think says something about (everyone's) human physiology.

It's not like hunger: you need "food" and if you don't get it, then... But "lust" isn't in that same category.

Maybe there are some components of sexual intercourse that can be wholesome: social intercourse, physical exercise.

I hesitate to say so because a monk may teach that social intercourse and physical exercise are for the birds, but, whatever.

My point was that if you feel you need something, maybe what you need is something wholesome (like, I don't know, social intercourse; or physical exercise). So if you do view lust (or libido) as a need, maybe identify/disentangle wholesome (or less harmful) components/activities to practice.

I know Buddhism posits that lust depends on the sense organs, and contact with an object. Thus, I've read it promotes decreasing this contact and guarding the senses.

No. Lust depends on ignorance. Guarding the senses does not mean decreasing sense contact. It means having wisdom at sense contact.

It is my imaginations that flare and cause me to experience lust, but only at certain key moments.

This is due to ignorance or a lack of wisdom.

I wonder whether natural masturbation without erotic material is bad. Could it potentially reduce these types of surfacing lust?

Masturbation will not reduce lust.

Or, rather, would abstinence decrease lust more effectively.

Wisdom & metta decrease lust.

I feel in this second case the libidinal drive might simply increase, whereas in the first libido is kept even. But perhaps I am wrong.

Ideas about 'libido' are materialism. Lust arises from wrong view. For example, if right view knows the most beautiful sex object in the world has a sexual transmitted disease, lust would not arise in relation to that object. This shows how view determines lust.

Is there any Buddhist information on interior causes for such lust?

Buddhism explains lust arises from the sign or theme (nimitta) of 'beautiful' or sexual objectification. The mind views or thinks about a sense object only in terms of sensual pleasure. The mind does not view or think about the drawbacks, unsatisfactory &/or suffering aspect of the object. The mind does not have metta-karuna (loving-kindness & compassion) towards the object; therefore lust arises.

The Bharadvaja Sutta offers three methods for reducing or ending lust:

1. Loving-kindness (viewing women as mothers, sisters & daughters).

2. Meditation upon the non-beautiful

3. Guarding the senses, by not grasping at any themes, such as the theme of 'beautiful'.

I doubt the last two methods can work well without mastering the 1st method.