Health is wealth. You should be eating way more than just a cup cake if you have it. It will help you sleep and feel less anxious. Being on the computer also doesn't help. Take care of yourself, redsquirrel.

Point taken. I am going to go eat a sandwich. I probably should get some sleep before I start hearing voices. I'm still going for that cupcake, though.

My wife from my perspective, just mine shes my wife need i say lol, but she makes bomb, desirable cupcakes! enjoy after that sandwitch my friend.
and no problem were here to lean on eachother!

redsquirrel -

I think that it would make you feel better all the way around if you found a way to not worry about people misrepresenting Buddhism.

If the students are sincere, and worthy, then they will understand eventually what Buddha is teaching them, and follow that path, rather than the collective path of the church or teacher.

This should be true for any person in any religion who is sincere, and worthy.

Hidden in the texts of all religions are messages to look within - even if the institutions today don't want you to know that.

How ironic is it that the message of all religions, imo, is that one needs no religion?

I think a more interesting part of this conversation emerging is meditation techniques and experiences. I know there was some fuzziness on your opinions with the term experience in regards to meditation.

I agree that one should not go into meditation with any expectation of an experience. But experiences are had every time.

Like I said, I'm a complete newb with meditation. I came across the truth of it about 45 days ago and it has literally changed my life. I meditate 3x daily now. I know that there are hundreds of different styles of meditation.

Sometimes I wonder, should I find complete silence? It's what helps me let go easiest. But sometimes I think about the noises of the world and I think about how it would be good practice for me to hear them and learn to stay unattached as you mentioned.

In an analogy to weightlifting, it's like lifting a max weight vs repping for endurance. To me they are both useful. And when I say 'both' I realize there are many more undiscovered purposes lying in wait for me.

But guess what?!

I only saw the truth of meditation this time (I had tried meditation a few other times in my life, not understanding, and not following through at all), because of a questionable 'teacher'.

This guy started saying some amazing things, and I was like wow! The things he was saying were SO amazing, and I was experiencing them, that I had to take an objective step back. I asked myself who this guy really was? I researched him and it turns out there is definitely some questionable and shady things there. Since then, I have gradually eased off of my amazement for HIM, and eased onto my amazement for what he actually led me to.

In this past month, my interpretation of the past decade of psychedelic journeys has changed dramatically.

This has been a very exciting past month for me. I have grown spiritually 10 fold.

Yup been here for abouta week and doing my thing (extracting) on and off the comp. and my exp. have helped me huge! Its like i had my third eye ripped open for the veryfirst time, even tho before i considered to have it open when i really didnt. Also, group discussins on these topics are a huge gain in wisdom peace and clarity as well like i said in a previouse post i had "Were all here to lean on oneanother"
Guys can always lean on me and when its tough for me, ill lean on you!

Hello all, just registered and came across this very interesting discussion. Meditation sounds very interesting to me, and I will explore my mind through that route before trying psychedelics. I have also heard how meditation can be very helpful while tripping.


Is this also true according to the teachings of buddhism?

Insomnia really sucks by the way. Good luck with that


The best teacher is he who can make himself superfluous. Not that ironic after all, if you ask me

Not to my knowlage so im not gonna sell lies, but I do know that I have discovered this on my own while i was meditating, between this life an the other, its like juggling a bagillian chainsaws, thats not gonna happen. Start out with one or two, then when you leave, you can juggle them all an all day long!lol

Patence, The answers will come, if you want, and allow them to. Peace my fellow cosmonaught!

I'm really not here to defend Buddhism or any other tradition...

Perhaps I was trying to lay down too many ideas at once, and things got a bit muddled. I am really interested in communicating how I view psychedelics in terms of my own spiritual path, and to invite others to share their own perspectives.

As a Buddhist, the concept of enlightenment is at the heart of my belief and practice. Looking within, and meditation, are the key components on the path to enlightenment. What I am trying to explore here, is how psychedelics fit into this picture. Many people equate the psychedelic experience with a sort of enlightenment. Tripping has also been compared to meditation. So in this view, the psychedelic experience can actually be both the fruit (enlightenment) and the path (meditation) of Buddhism.

Getting back to experiences. The goal of meditation is to be able to have any sort of experience- it could be profound, intense, subtle, ect and to be completely integrated in that experience without being conditioned by it. Some people think that meditation should lead to an amazing visionary experience, some people think that mediation should be an experience of complete vacuity, a state with no thoughts or vision at all.

I believe that the training should lead to a state where all experiences arise as a single taste. It doesn't matter what sort of experience one has, because you have trained yourself to be integrated with it. Even if you have full blown visions or are in the middle of a parade, you are in a state of openness because the experience cannot affect you. You have integrated everything... there is no question of subject and object, good and bad, ect... When you are at the bottom of the ocean, it doesn't matter how turbulent the waves are on the surface, they do no touch the stillness of the depths. It is in this state that we can recognize our enlightened nature.

In contrast to this scenario, where no value or judgment is placed on our experience, with psychedelics we put great value onto the experience itself. We have good or bad trips, and we look into the content of the experience itself for meaning. So there is a difference here, one where we gain wisdom by going beyond the experience, and one where we gain wisdom from the actual experience.

The magic of psychs happens when our conceptual models begin to crumble. We see that the world out there, is little more than projections made by our mind. Our fixed sense of self dissipates, and we are given a chance to look behind the curtain.

Very few people question the nature of the world that we assume to be real, and fewer still are able or willing to actually have a look for themselves. Obviously psychedelics can offer us something significant, no doubt. What I doubt, is if they are able to be a true path to enlightenment.

When we peek behind the curtain, we can gain insights into the nature of our mind and reality, but do we really know if we aren't just experiencing more delusion, just on a more subtle level? Without training, we can easily grasp on to what we experience in the psychedelic realm, and thus just trap us further into the prison of duality.

In my opinion, true awakening doesn't occur until we have completely dissolved our dualistic habits and clinging, at all times in all situations, and I don't think that you can expect psychedelics to lead you to this state.

Anyway, that's all I got... Goodnight!

If we're lucky, this conversation has reduced. And hopefully, the above is what you've been trying to say.

You're totally correct in that assertion. Psychedelics, imo, cannot be a true path to enlightenment. But that's not to say they don't have an important role.

Here's an analogy for the way I see it:

Let's say your "Spiritual Knowledge" grows by 1, every time you meditate. Let's say as a newbie, I have a Spiritual Knowledge of 90, and you as a lifelong Buddhist has a Spiritual Knowledge of 6000. One day, I smoked some DMT, and for one lucid moment I experienced the level of Spiritual Knowledge 100,000.

Now, that moment of Spiritual Knowledge of 100,000 doesn't have the same effect once the psych. has worn off. Because I'm at 90. I can't reconcile how or what I experienced, I'm only sure that I experienced it, and that it was profound, much more profound than my current Spiritual Knowledge can properly interpret.

Now, as I meditate, and I go up, and up, I will have some mild understanding of what Spiritual Knowledge of 100,000 is like. Even if it's just a distant memory, I will still have that experience. And from that I can estimate what 90k, 80k, 70k, etc., are.

I'll have many psych journeys. A mushroom experience may give me insight of Spiritual Knowledge 52,331. A hit of acid, 26,039!

And while I don't retain the Spiritual Knowledge of these levels, I know that they are there, and I have some fleeting understanding of them.

As my Spiritual Knowledge grows due to meditation, I will pass these 'landmarks'. I will connect dots, I will come upon familiar ground. This, for an explorer, is huge! It will allow me to see the bigger picture, sooner.

--

I know that's a silly analogy, but hopefully it gives you an idea of psychedelics' role in my own spiritual path.

I haven't read Zig Zag Zen: Buddhism and Psychedelics all the way through but I would like to hear your take on this book.


And I realise this is a lot of reading for you to do but I thought you might also be interested in this article: Spiritual Use of MDMA in Traditional Religion I think it echos somethings that have been stated in here already



Later on in the article:


I don't follow Buddhism, but I am really interested in learning from it. I think with the field I've chosen to go in to there is no way for me to follow Buddhism. I don't know what I believe, I think I am trying to craft that for myself through reading everything I can about every philosophy, science, and using psychedelics. I don't want to say that using psychedelics by themselves won't work, but I really do think you have to do a lot of reading and integrating to even understand what the experience was. Reading This is It by Allan Watts and his chapter on Zen made a lot of things click for me during a MDMA/DMT session that took me some more reading of other books (The Psychedelic Future of the Mind) to fully understand the elements of the experience, and then relate them to what Allan Watts was saying about Zen.

Of course later on in that book an essay called "The New Alchemy" talks about the relationship of Psychedelics to mystical states and zen philosophy. Pretty interesting read. I know we had a great discussion about this for a little bit in chat the other day, I just thought I'd share it again

"Traditionally, eastern teachings are strongly anti-drug."

Sorry to interject with just this atm..but that^ is just not correct. This is a myth that needs to die..eastern teachings are riddled with drug references, even if certain schools of thought do not always utilize them, or only ever use that for certain secret innitiations etc.

This is a start..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnxYcsLYcrU

I thought that Buddhism was all about reaching our inner selves/ living with awareness, and that meditation was crucial for getting to this awareness/enlightenment. But i also know that to do so, someone must protect themselves from getting distracted by earthly junk. This IMO is why monasteries are built in tranquil places. Meditation requires a safe space, peace, and also a lot of practice. It's purpose is to peel away the layers of 'junk' to return to ones true diamond essence. Do you agree?

Well, what i'm saying is that i believe that any psychoactive plant that has the ability to deconstruct the ego would have proven useful to calming down the 'material mind' in preparation for Meditation, etc. I remember on one website seeing a blue lotus smoking paste being sold 'as used by Tibetan Monks'. And i have also seen lotus flowers on many Buddha images, as well as heavy incenses. Are these saying that Entheogens are tools that have an important role in Buddhism, awareness and Enlightenment?

And why not, are the plants not natural and part of this natural world we are born unto. Are they not there for a reason? For someone to say that such plants have no place in Buddhism or that the effects they produce is of no comparison to the Buddha state is IMO a very narrow point of view. I believe that they do have their place as part and parcel of the Journey and are there to help with the preparation for meditation. I believe that incense, a tranquil calm serene environment is also very important, but know that these environments must have needed preparation to be safe, and probably required hard work to construct and maintain. To achieve Buddahood is possible for many people in fleeting moments, but to maintain it is certainly a skill, and i believe that many factors come into play. Remember that Buddha shocked fellow Aesthetics when he drank milk from a cow!



Good point, and i think this highlights what i've said. I really do believe that these things alone are limited in their lasting effects, and that it is shortsighted to say that they alone are the answer. No, i believe that they are a useful tool that are meant to be used alongside with meditation, and that this has always been the case untill meditation alone is developed to a powerful degree.

I just want to add one thing. The last thing I would ever want to do would be to dissuade somebody with even the slightest interest in Buddhism from exploring it because I gave the impression that it was "anit-drug." I consider myself a fairly serious practitioner and I do all sorts of drugs from time to time (Of course I don't think that I would be chosen as the ideal representative for Buddhism, but hey...)

Unless you deliberately take certain vows, no teacher or tradition should discourae you from using drugs. Thanks for the video, Jamie, I will check it out today and tell you what I think. I know that the Shaivites in India are ravenous hash smokers, the believe that Shiva was the primordial pot-head and incorporate it into their spiritual practice. I don't know if they consider hash a vehicle for enlightenment, though.

Adjhart: I am going to tweak your analogy a bit according to my understanding, and this may make my position clear to greens and Muskogee.

I said before that enlightenment is part of our nature, it is always present, either dormant or fully manifest as in the case of a Buddha. An example of this would be the sun in the sky. On a cloudy day the sun is still in the sky, it is only temporarily obscured by the clouds. These clouds represent our dualistic, conceptual mind, which causes grasping on to self and other, which in turn causes emotions, which in turn causes actions based on those emotions, and karma, ect. And the wheel of illusion goes round and round.

So the path to enlightenment isn't about logging miles. It is not that linear. It is almost deceptively simple. All that needs to be done is to cut through our conceptual thinking and find the sun that is always there. This is what I was talking about when I mentioned going beyond our experiences. You eventually learn how to do this in all times and in every situation.

So in every moment of our lives the sun is always there, ready to be discovered. It is not some far off mountain peek that we can judge our distance from by looking on a map. The problem is, is that throughout all of our countless past lives, and all through our current one, we have this strong habitual force that causes us to remain in our conceptual clinging to duality. You could almost say that the path is more about reducing the negative than accumulating the positive.

Our conceptual clinging can be very subtle, and the force of our habits strong. I am not sure that I can imagine what it would be like to live in a state of complete non-duality 24/7, but I am sure that it must be a lot different from how we experience day to day reality. It is this subtle conceptual clinging that I don't think can be penetrated by psychedelics, at least not in a stable way.

I think that if you are going to follow a spiritual path, it is useful to be clear about what you are doing and why, and what your final goal is. I have heard countless people say, and not just here, that psychedelics are their spiritual path and that they use them for meditation, but nobody has ever explained to me what they actually mean by that. I am really asking about this out of curiosity, not defiance, I am truly interested what people have to say about this matter.

I think teachers and traditions are important. It is good to have somebody who embodies the realization that you are aiming for, and can confirm if you have achieved it or even glimpsed it. Like I said, conceptual clinging is very subtle.

I had this fantasy this morning, where we were living in a different world, and psychedelics were embraced by mainstream society and actually were part of an accepted spiritual path. I wonder if there would be lineages of LSD gurus, and complete maps through the psychedelic journey. I know that psychedelics kind of call for a certain do it yourself individualism, but I think teachers are important. I think at some point most of us has had the experience of having a very intense and insightful trip, and then left asking "OK, so no what?"

Yea, red, I agree with your analogy. That seems like a better way to describe it, to me. However, I still feel an attachment to my 'spiritual knowledge' analogy. Perhaps I can amend it in this way:

Instead of thinking of the #'s as miles logged, think of them as accrued moments of clarity. When you achieve that moment where you've pushed all the clouds away, and you are there with your true self, and things start being revealed to you, up goes your spiritual knowledge.

Your analogy makes sense because it defines how, for example, if I sat down right now and just spent 30 minutes of undisciplined, unfocused, all-over-the-place meditation, that this would not raise my Spiritual Knowledge at all. This makes sense to me, as I've come to realize that effective meditation takes an incredible amount of discipline.

Cool!

We need to replace the habit of conceptual clinging (which is a habit we have been engaged in for a long, long, long time, you could say we are all addicts in this sense), with the habit of cutting through the clinging.

Its not a linear process. Often it involves taking two steps forward, three steps back, a side track here and there...

So it is a constant process of give and take. Those miles you logged have merit, of course, but it doesn't mean that you can say "now I am this much closer to my goal." It reminds me of experience points in Dungeons and Dragons. Once you get the points, you will be that much closer to becoming, say a level two fighter (I think we are all wizards on here, actually).

Every effort counts, though. The key is to just keep working at it. Its a process of becoming familiar with this non-conceptual awareness, and integrating that into all of your experiences.

Yes, i agree.

Thing is meditation alone may not actually be capable of going as deep as a meditator may like to go, unless they have years up their sleeve to dedicate to such a discipline. Is that natural i ask, or stupidity? Think for one minute if you think you can escape any mind altering substances. I think you will realise that its almost impossible. All foods have an effect on the mind, and vegetation may have certain psychoative effects no matter how small. A tea contains caffeine, Carbohydrates may contain seratonin, etc.

Venture into nature, and you'll be inhaling pollen and spores without even realising it. You'd have to practice a life of almost 'perfectionism' to escape from the mind manifesting ability of nature.

There is a difference between escaping something so as not to be affected by it, and being so integrated in the experience that it does not affect you, because you have reached this non-dual state, where all of your experiences arise as the play of illusions.

For example, you could train for years in order to cultivate a sense of mental detachment. If somebody insults you, you have no reaction. If somebody punches you, you say "thank you, may I have another."

This is still using your conceptual mind, though. It does not go as deep as the integration that I am speaking of. Actually, it is probably harder to reach this level of mental detachment, because the habitual tendencies of our mind are so strong.

Another example would be to take a vow. This is the difference, say, of the Buddhist monk, who needs to uphold the 200 plus vows of the Vinaya, and that of the yogi, who takes no vows and learns to mingle his realization with everything he or she experiences.

I think it comes down to how much conceptual clinging you have. Obviously, this is a very advanced state of being, one in which we can only speculate about and look to the examples of the masters.

Trungpa Rinpoche, who I mentioned earlier, used to drink with his students. He also took LSD and other drugs on occasion. He certainly experienced the effects of these substances, but he was so stable in his realization that he was not overcome by the experience. The yogis talk about this state as seeing everything as the play of illusion. At this point, anything you experience just deepens your realization.

I think the best thing that we can do, is try to mingle our meditation with daily life. If you are serious about meditating, don't just think about it as something you do 20 minutes a day. Try to maintain a continuity of awareness in everything you will do, and your conceptual grasping will slowly release on its own, naturally.

So start small, be kind to yourself, and keep at it. Don't go jumping off a building because you think that everything is an illusion so nothing can hurt you (Not that anyone would be that stupid, but I think you know what I'm trying to say.)

Oh.... and maybe find a teacher at some point. I may have some relative knowledge about this because I have been immersed in it for a long while, but I am certainly not a shining example embodying the fruits of meditation. Maybe if you want to know what not to do...

Every morning when I sit down on that holy porcelain throne
I attain enlightenment.

Wise words. I'm not practicing meditation at the moment, but I feel like it should indeed lead to a better state of mind throughout the entire day (and night..). I think it is what they call mindfulness. Obviously, besides meditation there are other things that can lead to mindfulness. Someone once gave me a list of pointers, little exercises to keep in mind throughout the day to change your awareness. I don't remember much of it, unfortunately.