As i & I know (or wee as it is known) rastafarian means kingman, females are queens. PAH!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/rastafari/beliefs/women.shtml
Somebody has been at the weed if they think that will cause anything but a smoke scream!
Most people think,
Great God will come from the skies,
Take away everything
And make everybody feel high.
But if you know what life is worth,
You will look for yours on earth:
And now you see the light,
You stand up for your rights. Jah!
Roberta ('Bob') Marley
… and now back to the pacifier …
lobster
Just be super careful. Here in the US, Psychosis is becoming a problem due to THC levels being way too high in the legal stuff and the street stuff laced with fentanyl. The young folks are also consuming too much in small time frames. The Ven mentions this by saying “Don’t end up in the emergency room”
If you can (legally and logistically), grow your own.
Not to mention….old rule of…don’t smoke anything you didn’t see rolled.
And for shits sake, stay away from all those new forms. It’s only adding more health complications.
Vastmind
There's is a song from Isan -East Thailand- which I like about a father being caught smoking weed by his children and he sings to them...
"Gancha nanbenya seh pit" Weed is a forbidden medicine.
Haha
If someone can speak Thai / Isan dialect, I would really appreciate them translating the entire song because the person I was with at that time -Thai speaker- said it was a bit hard to completely understand..
Title: Sangwan Lokum* Songlao Mao Ganja (Ganja Better Than Booze)
Definitely better than booze or cigarettes for sure. Just take a tour of your local hospital and compare who is there because of tobacco, who is there because of booze and who is there because of cannabis. Not even close.
@lobster said:
not use to having to wear a swim suit though...
wether covered in a suit, sea, skin, shell or aged body
… we are just a bag of bones, eventually just grains of sand/dustWhich always makes me laugh …
I feel a song coming on...
"We are stardust we are golden, we are billion year old carbon"
Shoshin1
There's an amount of Wisdom in admitting that you're ignorant.
There's an awful lot of ignorance in claiming to be Wise.
(Me.)
federica
I think it says something that this is coming from Lama Yeshe. He was a member of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, possibly the most scholarly and philosophical school of Buddhism around.
Considering that and the fact that he taught largely to westerners I think it points to the way us westerners tend to over intellectualize.
I spent the first part of my Buddhist life in that tradition and while the intellectualness of it is pronounced, there is an important aspect that I don't think us westerners tend to get about their approach to learning the teachings. Its that while acquiring a proper view of the teachings through learning, the goal isn't to keep them at that level. Its very important to allow that learning to seep into your being. I think in the west they call it procedural knowledge, or maybe experiential, I don't know the term. Basically its the difference between knowing you're going to die one day intellectually and the knowing you're going to die one day that someone who has had a life threatening accident or illness has.
The goal of study and practice is to bring the intellectual down to the experiential. For example, there is a large emphasis on the philosophy of emptiness and gaining a sound understanding of that concept. But then in practice through contemplation and meditation to gain a direct experience of emptiness.
So considering where he's coming from I don't think he's saying don't conceptualize Buddhism. I think more he's saying don't leave it there, that's not what Buddhism is really about.
person
Thanks for sharing @Vastmind . It's nice to see more public approaches that aren't so do-or-die. Growing up in a world of illegality to a world of legality, it can be tough to shift old internalized beliefs from what perceptions used to be to how they are now. Years of being trained to sneak around, remain hidden and undetected, to feel shame about self exploration all with no real education or communication doesn't just go away when a law changes from illegal to legal. And from personal experience, the stigma, albeit changing, makes addressing it much more difficult.
I'm not sure if most chronic smokers have much if any social circle to even lose these days. Post-covid appears to have dampened or destroyed a lot of in-person connections. At least in Cali it would seem the shift to work from home, have your food and drinks/drugs delivered, live in your PJs, and never leave the house has become a trend.
I agree with Ven Tri Dao that weed is a coping mechanism and it can create a very poor state of mind.
The social circle it creates is also a vicious circle. The drug becomes like the joining piece that sticks your character and theirs to reality. It is very sad how when you quit, those friendships tend to evaporate very fast, while leaving habits that take time to heal...
My view on taking drugs is, if you can be really present, and take what it can offer you and not become chained to it. Then good. It is an experience, like any other. However, if you are going to lie yourself and just become a chain smoker and lose mental health... also I've read that problems with cannabis dependency and other mental illnesses is increasing not only in the US but also in Europe. This shows that most current people can't handle drugs very well... and we shouldn't be commercialising it and selling it just like alcohol and ciggies back in the 50s and 60s. It isn't cool, there is nothing "extraordinary".
So yes... I like his advice... "Smoke less, meditate more" 
The link to his YT video is this one: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IJlWtzlIwlw
Thank you for sharing.
Kotishka
One of the fixes is useful/updated dharma teachings
For example here is a way of understanding types of persona, either within us or others:
The six realms …
https://zenstudiespodcast.com/understanding-peoples-actions/
lobster