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The problem with a deluded person coming to the conclusion that there are no negative effects, is the fact that their mind is in delusion while they are making that conclusion. A deluded mind coming to conclusions often comes to the wrong conclusions. And everyone who has yet to get enlightenment is deluded. One of the negative effects is that it prevents your mind from entering a "wholesome state". However, if a persons mind has never been is this "wholesome state", they can easily come to the conclusion that what they do has no negative effects, because they don't even know that this other state of mind exists to begin with and are simply not aware of the fact that what they are doing is one thing that is preventing them from discovering this other wholesome state. So in essence, just because a person can not see or identify any negative effects, does not necessarily mean there aren't any. Does that make sense? It does apply equally to recreational drugs.
Yes it does make a great deal of sense however, I don't believe all drugs are equal and I think the term 'recreational' is somewhat arbitrary. Marijuana has been part of human life for centuries but has only been illegal (hence recreational) for a relatively short time.
While I agree with all of the above posts regarding the need for a pure uncluttered mind when it comes to practice I think pot does serve a purpose in some cases. As a musician, I used it to help eliminate distractions and allow more focus on the music. As a practicing Buddhist I find it in itself to be a distraction and I no longer use it at all.
What I am trying to say is that for the racing monkey brain it does help calm things down - a distraction from the distractions so to speak. As one gains more control over one's mind and the distractions become less profound, the use of pot becomes counter productive because it distracts from the more developed focus.
I don't think the effects of marijuana can be compared to those of alcohol in any way other than to consider them to be opposites.
You might find it interesting to know the expression "old chestnut" meaning an often repeated joke or phrase, is an example of a meme catching on before the internet, television, or even movies. It comes from back in 1816, from a now forgotten play by William Dimond called "The Broken Sword".
It is interesting because I think trying to justify pot as not breaking the precept a joke.
Not subtle I know but the horse is beyond dead on this subject, how long are people going to flog it?
You might find it interesting to know the expression "old chestnut" meaning an often repeated joke or phrase, is an example of a meme catching on before the internet, television, or even movies. It comes from back in 1816, from a now forgotten play by William Dimond called "The Broken Sword".
It is interesting because I think trying to justify pot as not breaking the precept a joke.
Not subtle I know but the horse is beyond dead on this subject, how long are people going to flog it?
As long as people struggle with conflicting desires.
This might be an old chestnut horse being flogged for you, but it's new to the people asking the question. Stop and think, should nobody be allowed to ask a common question anymore, because you've already answered it a few times for other people? Not really fair, is it?
Weed helps me focus on meditating. It also doesn't alter reality and weed clears my mind of all negative emotions.
I have tried a lot of drugs and while I feel most drugs are not beneficial for becoming enlightened I completly disagree when it comes to weed. I feel it allows you to have a more loving compassionate soul.
Weed does became a problem if you become emotionally attached to it. Enjoying a smoke every now in then is not a bad thing. And for all you out there who are saying that weed just a mind altering drug , you can't knock it until you have tried it.
We live in illusion and the appearance of things. There is a reality. We are that reality. When you understand this, you see that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything. That is all. - The Buddha
"it should be made clear that Buddhist precepts aren't equivalent to commandments in that they're training rules which are voluntarily undertaken rather than edicts or commands dictated by a higher power and/or authority."
So Buddhist may choose not to kill, for instance, because it's a voluntary training rule and not because it comes from some kind of authority?
"The precepts are mainly undertaken to protect ourselves, as well as others, from the results of unwholesome actions, and to make the practice more fruitful."
They may have the added benefit of keeping you out of jail! lol
This is an argument that will never have a clear answer. I smoke occasionally. I used to smoke much more. I didn't stop because of Buddhist practice. I stopped because I developed anxiety problems that were made worse by pot.
I will still argue that alcohol is much more harmful and intoxicating than weed, and many Buddhists I know still drink.
Would it be right for me to say, not being an engineer: "that bridge over there can be sustained without the need of structural reinforcement in the base, it only adds weight, it looks ugly, they should remove it" ?.
No. why not?, Because im not an engineer. I am no expert, im only walking throw it, i dont know how it really works. It will collapse if they do as i say.
In the same way, how could a person, not being an expert in meditation, not even being a serious practitioner, affirm: "marihuana is of no harm to the meditation, of no harm to the practice" ?.
It would have no ground. Its simply a question out of range.
As long as people struggle with conflicting desires.
This might be an old chestnut horse being flogged for you, but it's new to the people asking the question. Stop and think, should nobody be allowed to ask a common question anymore, because you've already answered it a few times for other people? Not really fair, is it?
It's not even a matter of fair, it's a matter of looking to see what threads are already around in regards to this question. When people have rehashed other topics, they've been told to check if there are existing threads. Are drugs the exception due to either popularity or political correctness?
Don't worry, I've figured out where I fit in here so it's all good.
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federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
...The old bit of advice "if you don't like it, then don't post" seems to be appropriate here....
federicaSeeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubtModerator
You're right of course. This has been discussed countless times. But sometimes, regardless of how many different threads exist on the same subject - whichever subject that might be - we still need to ask our own questions and get answers to them. I agree - especially as a moderator - it can be utterly tedious. But life can be!
The precepts are not rules or restrictions.. They are wise advise. If you are ready to end suffering they are a very basic list of things to not do as they will make it more difficult. They have more relevance to beginners who are not yet far enough along to see the benefits of practicing the 8 fold path.
As far as pot and the 5th precept goes, I don't think it applies. It is a stretch to say marijuana is an intoxicant. Alcohol, opiates, speed, are intoxicants.
However, just because it is not a precept does not mean smoking pot does not have consequences that may be harmful.
You have to pay attention to your motivations for why you what to do something. Where is the desire to feel better or different coming from? Better or different than what? Is there attachment? When does curiosity become escape? That is the place to explore and to let go.
Pot simply alters your perception in very subtle ways. In moderation that may have some benefit in helping to see and release yet another manifestation of self delusion which is our attachment to the thinking, know it all, mind. We live in a world of illusion and the appearance of things.
So Buddhist may choose not to kill, for instance, because it's a voluntary training rule and not because it comes from some kind of authority?
I think it is best not to kill because we know it is wrong and not because it comes from some kind of authority. We ourselves would not want to be killed so I would think that should be reason enough not to kill another. It is unfortunate that we, as a society, must make rules that carry the threat of punishment in order to get people to be kind to each other but, for now at least, that seems to be the way it has to be.
@Zayl I agree. I too have had experiences and I was giving my opinion. Would I do it again? Probably not. Was it fun and did I enjoy it? Hell yeah. I just wouldn't do it again. I get your point though and I completely agree, it CAN be helpful, which is probably why it's legal as a prescription drug in places. I find it a little strange that all these open minded Buddhists seem to be closed minded on there opinions toward your contributions. Maybe I read it wrong, I thought it was a DISCUSSION, not an argument of fight of opinions or ideals. I agree with you though, and I think you deserve your own opinion no one can take away from you. Sorry if I came off close minded.
Some great masters said that the passage of time is more valuable than all the gold and jade in the world... that precious time could perhaps be more useful sober
I admit to smoking pot once in a while and that Karma comes in the form of heartburn...only when smoking pot will I eat pizza late in the evening. I am enjoying this thread because I had also wondered what significance pot would play while on this new path. I certainly am not careless while engaging in it....sure I may laugh at a show on television I may otherwise not find as witty, but hey...
Used to smoke pot - hash - hash oil - grew my own - baked with pot - used a vaporizer.
But I quit. Wasn't easy. Last pot I smoked was with my son as he was dying at 21 from hepato-splenic t-cell lymphoma to help his appetite and relax him.
I will never touch another drug - I was already alcohol abstinent for thirty years.
That's just me, though. Everyone makes their own choice and I don't judge anyone. Can't - I was there at one time. I just suggest being safe and/or being holy and abstinent.
That doesn't mean you aren't holy if you partake - or you are holier if you don't - the abstinence just sort of fits with Buddhist practice and feels holy.
We are here to dwell in equanimity in acceptable and unacceptable circumstances if we can and training the mind and body is what is required.
But, hey, 420 is coming so afterwards come on back to practice.
I wrote this elsewhere about LSD, but the same goes for pot or other mind altering recreational drugs...
An acid trip is fascinating because it is psychically expansive and non-ordinary, but that non-ordinariness is no closer to "suchness" than ordinariness. A blissful experience of Godhead is no more "Holy" than an uninspired experience of the subway on a Monday morning, no closer to anything. "It's not about having an experience, but whatever experience is present as such". So in that sense drugs are truly useless. But, I'd propose that they are not merely useless, but handicapping, and point to my own health as an example. There have been physiological consequences. Acid (for instance) is punishing, stressful on the whole system, and this is even if it isn't cut with crap, which it usually is. Physically all those trips set me back by frying this nervous system. Mentally it set me back by creating a massive expansion of samsaric space, abstracting psychic worlds within psychic worlds. Someone once described an acid trip as "super-samsara". That about sums it up IMO.
Our Job is to get into the mind and sort it out, Drugs take you the opposite way.
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personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
Once upon a time I smoked pot regularly. IMO mind altering drugs can have a positive effect in that they allow us to step outside our normal mind to see that other possibilities exist. I'm not saying that drug induced states are positive states just that one can now understand stepping away from their current framework. That insight into the flexibility of the mind, once obtained, can be helpful in Buddhist practice.
Drugs don't lead to insight or understanding they cloud the mind so I'm in full support of the precept. I just see a silver lining in past use.
Insight feels like a drug to me sometimes. I have a letting go or whatever your tradition calls it and I get a good feeling. Then the paradox is that I grasp at that feeling and then suffering comes.
I think drugs can form habit for that mind pattern and even after you give them up.
I have smoked pot on occasion and I do find that it affects my mind. Would you take a final exam high? If the answer is yes than I suppose it is meant to be for you. :nyah:
I took my final exam in my college sociology class high and got a 96% :thumbsup:
So Buddhist may choose not to kill, for instance, because it's a voluntary training rule and not because it comes from some kind of authority?
If you believe smoking pot is comparable to killing, than that's a testament to your personal integrity resulting from your viewing everything an authority figure says on an equal plane, and nothing else. "Buddha said don't do drugs. Buddha said don't kill. Therefore, smoking weed is comparable to killing" is the essential logic here.
I have smoked pot on occasion and I do find that it affects my mind. Would you take a final exam high? If the answer is yes than I suppose it is meant to be for you. :nyah:
I took my final exam in my college sociology class high and got a 96% :thumbsup:
Yeah but you're probably not high all the time. My friend drank every day a lot and she had to overcome the habit. For the longest time she couldn't take a test unless she had a buzz.
You must be one smart guy or gal to have gotten such a high score. I'm looking forward to more descriptions of the higher consciousness.
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zombiegirlbeating the drum of the lifelessin a dry wastelandVeteran
edited February 2012
I was at the gas station the other day and there was a decently sized bag of pot (probably) laying on the ground in the car port next to me. I had no idea what to do... Should I tell the attendant? Take it and give it to a friend?
In the end I just left it and thought how funny it would be to fill a bag full of cat nip or some herb and drop it randomly at a gas station. Hehe. I preferred not to have anything to do with it and think that it could possibly be someone playing a prank, but if not, it probably made someone's day.
Should a liberated being be smoking pot? Should a monk? No.
But out in the real world things are more hectic. I've worked myself into a manic state at the end of some of my more stressful days to the point where meditation just simply was not an option. Sometimes my relaxation response needs to be chemically kick started. It's that or deal with it, which may take until 3, sometimes 5, in the morning before exhaustion trumps the minds voraciously manic appetite for stimulation. With responsibilities comes a schedule that needs to be kept and there are chemical tools that are useful, in some cases necessary, to maintain this unnaturally fast-paced 21st century life.
Also, some people aren't seeking total liberation, but use the tools of the path to develop their own algorithm for what they perceive to be an optimal life.
Should a liberated being be smoking pot? Should a monk? No.
But out in the real world things are more hectic. I've worked myself into a manic state at the end of some of my more stressful days to the point where meditation just simply was not an option. Sometimes my relaxation response needs to be chemically kick started. It's that or deal with it, which may take until 3, sometimes 5, in the morning before exhaustion trumps the minds voraciously manic appetite for stimulation. With responsibilities comes a schedule that needs to be kept and there are chemical tools that are useful, in some cases necessary, to maintain this unnaturally fast-paced 21st century life.
Also, some people aren't seeking total liberation, but use the tools of the path to develop their own algorithm for what they perceive to be an optimal life.
Hi Gemini. For what it's worth I don't judge your pot use. The justification is another story... Many here probably live stressful, hectic, lives. I'm a classic sandwich-generation case, caught between raising a tween and taking on more care of some very old people. I'm not a kid anymore, yet have to work harder all the time to make ends meet, and have faltered at that in the past year, and on top of that there has been the shadow of cancer in my marriage recently. My point in saying this is not to gripe, but just say this is Samsara, it's like this. We are all "hard cases". That is what the Dharma is about, working with things as they are, skillfully.
So , no judgement about the pot thing, but if you just say you choose to smoke pot, with no justification or explanation, it would sound firmer....... because the justification looks shaky IMHO.
@RichardH It depends on how you play the game. I'm a casual practitioner that doesn't believe in reincarnation. Total liberation sounds nice, but I'm going to be dead and gone in the next 50 years, if I'm lucky to make it that long. I definitely find great mental benefits to renunciation and sense seclusion, but real life devours that peace. I have to take amphetamines for ADHD to function in the real world. I hate them. They are ruining my heart. They last way too long and at night, long after I should've been exhausted, they cause my mind to voraciously fiend after stimulation. I'm talking about a complete loss of control. Now I can either wait for complete exhaustion to settle in at around 3 to 5 am or I can counter this mind-state with a sedative.
Medication aside the Buddhist path of practice has to make it's own intrinsic argument against our tacitly hedonistic approach to life. For some people it does completely, for others only partly, and for others it doesn't at all. Follow your own sense of reason. Right now, eliminating intoxicants doesn't makes sense. It's not worth it. Possibly, later on, when my practice develops a stronger positive feedback loop I make seek the life of homelessness. I've contemplated it in the past.
Hi Gemini. Sometimes I'm more casual than I should be.. for someone who fancies himself a diligent practitioner. You mentioned total Liberation, renunciation, and reincarnation . Rebirth is an (endless) thread of talk, but I can say simply that renunciation and liberation can mean different things in different tradition.... it's an amazing thing.
Whatever gets you through the day ... it's not for me to say..
"All of you, smokers and non-smokers, listen to what this man has to say and make an impartial judgement. Put aside your distaste for drugs and your attachments to marijuana and consider it on an open level. Nevermind society or morality. Does rejecting marijuana close avenues of the mind, or open more? Are you really reaching further states of enlightenment, or just getting high? I am seeing knee jerk reactions from both sides, the 'long time smokers' in particular. Be honest with yourself."
I was at the gas station the other day and there was a decently sized bag of pot (probably) laying on the ground in the car port next to me. I had no idea what to do... Should I tell the attendant? Take it and give it to a friend?
FFS stop posting that shit randomly without a warning - and in this case, without a reason! I'm not even out of bed yet - really not how I wanted to start the day. I know you're trying to make a point, but enough already.
I am not goin to say much, I smoked weed for 9 long years, did I learn more in those 9 years than in the last 3-4 months spiritually? No I did not. I also took LSD, DMT, Ketamine, MDMA, you name it, whatever you need to find peace, realization and enlightenment already exists when you are born as a functioning human being.
I think it is possible to use pot,and follow Zen. Meditation however is best substance free.If you use pot right after ,then you will need less,if you focus on the change in feeling. Pot does help with certain things but most people who use it ,use it excessively. If you meditate twice a day then you need a period of being clean within the day. Small infractions with precepts are natural,they are things to avoid. Zen practice should be fine tuned to the individual since it is not magic.Ikkyu pointed to imperfect practice.His poetry alluded to what some might consider excess sex and alcohol,but perhaps he did this to make a point.
Was Bob Marley not on the path to enlightenment? Listen to his message in his music.
Several old cultures use various drugs for spiritual development/communing/insight
In saying that beyond the rare occassion i dont think it is suited to buddhist practice.....for me anyway but we cannot judge others
Bob also died due to intoxication and in his own vomit if I am not wrong... Mushrooms have been used for thousands of years, shaman brews have been used way before the Buddha, does that make them right? I do think the drug classing system is flawed in a big way, but if you are dedicated Buddhist, you will see past the use of external things to liberation.
Bob Marley died of cancer. You must be thinking of Jim Morrison or someone.
Wait, did he die of lung cancer? Sorry I just woke up and confused him with Jimmy Hendrix for some reason. Anyway if Bob did die from lung cancer, isn't that a reason to not smoke weed?....
I think our pure untainted and unbiased awareness is restricted - out of necessity - by our physical being. We never really experience the world - all we ever encounter is our own nervous system. Just as other living beings do, we perceive things to be in a way that supports our existence and we do so by by viewing everything through filters.
I believe that some mind altering drugs can reduce the effect of these filters and actually give us a greater and clearer view of reality. To lump the effect of all drugs together and say they are the same is wrong.
That being said, I also believe there are better and healthier ways to see through the filters and these methods such as Buddhist Meditation Practice have been tried and proven over thousands of years.
I think we can learn a lot from the ancients about philosophy and psychoactives.
Wait, did he die of lung cancer? if Bob did die from lung cancer, isn't that a reason to not smoke weed?....
Bob did not die of lung cancer - the cause of his symptoms was a highly aggressive cancer growing on a skin graft on his toe
Thanks for the info. I don't see why weed users don't make cakes rather than smoke. It gets you way more high, it lasts longer, there is no issues with smoke and you have the pleasure of eating a cake
Comments
While I agree with all of the above posts regarding the need for a pure uncluttered mind when it comes to practice I think pot does serve a purpose in some cases. As a musician, I used it to help eliminate distractions and allow more focus on the music. As a practicing Buddhist I find it in itself to be a distraction and I no longer use it at all.
What I am trying to say is that for the racing monkey brain it does help calm things down - a distraction from the distractions so to speak. As one gains more control over one's mind and the distractions become less profound, the use of pot becomes counter productive because it distracts from the more developed focus.
I don't think the effects of marijuana can be compared to those of alcohol in any way other than to consider them to be opposites.
Not subtle I know but the horse is beyond dead on this subject, how long are people going to flog it?
This might be an old chestnut horse being flogged for you, but it's new to the people asking the question. Stop and think, should nobody be allowed to ask a common question anymore, because you've already answered it a few times for other people? Not really fair, is it?
I have tried a lot of drugs and while I feel most drugs are not beneficial for becoming enlightened I completly disagree when it comes to weed. I feel it allows you to have a more loving compassionate soul.
Weed does became a problem if you become emotionally attached to it. Enjoying a smoke every now in then is not a bad thing. And for all you out there who are saying that weed just a mind altering drug , you can't knock it until you have tried it.
We live in illusion and the appearance of things. There is a reality. We are that reality. When you understand this, you see that you are nothing, and being nothing, you are everything. That is all. - The Buddha
So Buddhist may choose not to kill, for instance, because it's a voluntary training rule and not because it comes from some kind of authority?
They may have the added benefit of keeping you out of jail! lol
I will still argue that alcohol is much more harmful and intoxicating than weed, and many Buddhists I know still drink.
Gassho,
Amelia
Would it be right for me to say, not being an engineer: "that bridge over there can be sustained without the need of structural reinforcement in the base, it only adds weight, it looks ugly, they should remove it" ?.
No. why not?, Because im not an engineer. I am no expert, im only walking throw it, i dont know how it really works. It will collapse if they do as i say.
In the same way, how could a person, not being an expert in meditation, not even being a serious practitioner, affirm: "marihuana is of no harm to the meditation, of no harm to the practice" ?.
It would have no ground. Its simply a question out of range.
With metta.
Don't worry, I've figured out where I fit in here so it's all good.
Take care all.
I agree - especially as a moderator - it can be utterly tedious.
But life can be!
As far as pot and the 5th precept goes, I don't think it applies. It is a stretch to say marijuana is an intoxicant. Alcohol, opiates, speed, are intoxicants.
However, just because it is not a precept does not mean smoking pot does not have consequences that may be harmful.
You have to pay attention to your motivations for why you what to do something. Where is the desire to feel better or different coming from? Better or different than what? Is there attachment? When does curiosity become escape? That is the place to explore and to let go.
Pot simply alters your perception in very subtle ways. In moderation that may have some benefit in helping to see and release yet another manifestation of self delusion which is our attachment to the thinking, know it all, mind. We live in a world of illusion and the appearance of things.
Best Wishes
I am enjoying this thread because I had also wondered what significance pot would play while on this new path. I certainly am not careless while engaging in it....sure I may laugh at a show on television I may otherwise not find as witty, but hey...
http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/infofacts/marijuana
Used to smoke pot - hash - hash oil - grew my own - baked with pot - used a vaporizer.
But I quit. Wasn't easy. Last pot I smoked was with my son as he was dying at 21 from hepato-splenic t-cell lymphoma to help his appetite and relax him.
I will never touch another drug - I was already alcohol abstinent for thirty years.
That's just me, though. Everyone makes their own choice and I don't judge anyone. Can't - I was there at one time. I just suggest being safe and/or being holy and abstinent.
That doesn't mean you aren't holy if you partake - or you are holier if you don't - the abstinence just sort of fits with Buddhist practice and feels holy.
We are here to dwell in equanimity in acceptable and unacceptable circumstances if we can and training the mind and body is what is required.
But, hey, 420 is coming so afterwards come on back to practice.
An acid trip is fascinating because it is psychically expansive and non-ordinary, but that non-ordinariness is no closer to "suchness" than ordinariness. A blissful experience of Godhead is no more "Holy" than an uninspired experience of the subway on a Monday morning, no closer to anything. "It's not about having an experience, but whatever experience is present as such".
So in that sense drugs are truly useless. But, I'd propose that they are not merely useless, but handicapping, and point to my own health as an example. There have been physiological consequences. Acid (for instance) is punishing, stressful on the whole system, and this is even if it isn't cut with crap, which it usually is. Physically all those trips set me back by frying this nervous system. Mentally it set me back by creating a massive expansion of samsaric space, abstracting psychic worlds within psychic worlds. Someone once described an acid trip as "super-samsara". That about sums it up IMO.
Drugs don't lead to insight or understanding they cloud the mind so I'm in full support of the precept. I just see a silver lining in past use.
I think drugs can form habit for that mind pattern and even after you give them up.
You must be one smart guy or gal to have gotten such a high score. I'm looking forward to more descriptions of the higher consciousness.
In the end I just left it and thought how funny it would be to fill a bag full of cat nip or some herb and drop it randomly at a gas station. Hehe. I preferred not to have anything to do with it and think that it could possibly be someone playing a prank, but if not, it probably made someone's day.
But out in the real world things are more hectic. I've worked myself into a manic state at the end of some of my more stressful days to the point where meditation just simply was not an option. Sometimes my relaxation response needs to be chemically kick started. It's that or deal with it, which may take until 3, sometimes 5, in the morning before exhaustion trumps the minds voraciously manic appetite for stimulation. With responsibilities comes a schedule that needs to be kept and there are chemical tools that are useful, in some cases necessary, to maintain this unnaturally fast-paced 21st century life.
Also, some people aren't seeking total liberation, but use the tools of the path to develop their own algorithm for what they perceive to be an optimal life.
So , no judgement about the pot thing, but if you just say you choose to smoke pot, with no justification or explanation, it would sound firmer....... because the justification looks shaky IMHO.
Medication aside the Buddhist path of practice has to make it's own intrinsic argument against our tacitly hedonistic approach to life. For some people it does completely, for others only partly, and for others it doesn't at all. Follow your own sense of reason. Right now, eliminating intoxicants doesn't makes sense. It's not worth it. Possibly, later on, when my practice develops a stronger positive feedback loop I make seek the life of homelessness. I've contemplated it in the past.
Not just me, but everyone I know.
So take it seriously when I say I have, and still am considering a monastic life.
Whatever gets you through the day ... it's not for me to say..
"All of you, smokers and non-smokers, listen to what this man has to say and make an impartial judgement. Put aside your distaste for drugs and your attachments to marijuana and consider it on an open level. Nevermind society or morality. Does rejecting marijuana close avenues of the mind, or open more? Are you really reaching further states of enlightenment, or just getting high? I am seeing knee jerk reactions from both sides, the 'long time smokers' in particular. Be honest with yourself."
Was Bob Marley not on the path to enlightenment? Listen to his message in his music.
Several old cultures use various drugs for spiritual development/communing/insight
In saying that beyond the rare occassion i dont think it is suited to buddhist practice.....for me anyway but we cannot judge others
I believe that some mind altering drugs can reduce the effect of these filters and actually give us a greater and clearer view of reality. To lump the effect of all drugs together and say they are the same is wrong.
That being said, I also believe there are better and healthier ways to see through the filters and these methods such as Buddhist Meditation Practice have been tried and proven over thousands of years.
I think we can learn a lot from the ancients about philosophy and psychoactives.