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What is the typical Buddhist view on smoking cigarettes?
Hi everyone! I was just wondering, what is the typical Buddhist view on smoking cigarettes? I, being a Mahayana Buddhist, I am particularly looking for the Mahayana view on smoking cigarettes if there is a difference between the Mahayana view and others. I know that Buddhists tend to frown upon alcohol and illegal drug use because of the way that it alters the mind, but what about tobacco use?
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Smoking is one "giving-in" after another. I know. I smoked for 25 years before I quit.
And, for me, smoking was also an activity that could both disarm and distract me from an underlying inner tension that was separate from my addiction to smoking itself. I didn't even know it was there until I had gotten over quitting.
My teacher, a Tibetan monk, said that we should not smoke, but never says why. Other people have said things like "holes in your aura" and what have you, but I don't see auras so I can't confirm or deny that. At any rate, I don't think you will find anyone, Buddhist or otherwise, who will say that smoking is good for you.
Hmmm, okay. I think your teacher has wise advice.
Ah yes. I never thought of it that way. It was still early in my day when I posted this and I wasn't thinking very clearly.
Ah yeah. I can see why smoking would be something we should avoid. I am a current smoker but I will begin trying to quit smoking soon. I quit once for like 4 months so I know I can do it again and be successful at it.
Welcome!!
...unless you happen not to like your body very much. Then it's pretty bad regardless.
Mtns
In parallel my therapist has said that sometimes not drinking involves drinking. Its an easing up of listening to those voices and not having to believe them. So some times that means not believing that voice that says "I am a bad buddhist if I have a cig", that is the time when not smoking involves smoking or you could say a compassionate smoke.
Edit: in other words align with love and wisdom takes precedents over align with 5th precept
It robs your body of a few cells each time, but you go 'ah, just 1 more, it's only going to cost me a little bit of health'. well, 30 years later, is it going to be just one more then?
edit: I've only got one or two good memories of smoking, yesterdays memory and two others from 15 years ago, and that makes up about what 2 minutes of experience. Compared to thousands of cigs.... the tradeoff is ridiculous.
When I started smoking, it was once every few weeks and provided this 'happiness' that worked quite nicely with the music I was listening to. Now little did I know it was not essential for happiness at all. I have begun discovering inner happiness through practicing Buddhism which relieves any stress / anxiety much more powerfully than such a temporary illusion of easing the stress through a cigarette.
Further stating that if yoy meditate and take this substance in tobacco say bye bye to birth in heaven or real spiritaul attainment. If you are completely advanced like the Fully Enlightened Karmapa who once inhaled and blew the smoke out of his ring finger or are authorized by a authentic Lama to overpower the tobacco then it might have a small chance of not destroying yours and others future. Some advanced people can smoke but not inhale to avert those that do. Some are advanced enough to,play with it. If you are not and try Bye Bye. Trust me. It causes irregular seasons and demonic venom to enter your body speach and mind.
Be mindful.
cigarettes cannot be the cause for cancer or harm.
if cigarettes were the cause then it would have to cause cancer or harm 100% of the time.
because there are people who smoke all their lives and have no negativity signs, we can conclude that cigarettes cannot be the direct cause of cancer or negative health problems.
but there are many people who get cancer and negative health problems because they smoke. sure, but we never factored in karma =].
the karmic cause of good health is focusing on the health and well being of others.
those who harmed others will find that through the vehicle of smoking the causes/conditions will manifest cancer or disease.
sounds farfetched right?
but really think about it. causation is not linear and simple. people who don't smoke get lung cancer. people who do smoke get lung cancer. people who do smoke do not get lung cancer. people also don't get lung cancer.
the cigarettes become the karmic vehicle for certain manifestations.
i still wouldn't smoke, but thats because my lungs cannot take it. but i have met many old people who do smoke and they are in perfect health. but the opposite is more true than ever.
something to ponder. lama marut gave this outline of karma. i probably butchered it but it really stuck with me.
just thoughts.
2. And I thought Buddhism was claimed to be more scientific. I don't see any science here.
3. The vast majority of the people who get lung cancer, the cause can be attributed to smoking or industrial pollutants in the work place, or other such specific causes.
4. I thought karma was more in the mind. Not according to you.
Buddhism has nothing to do with science, those are just connections minds make.
The karmic cause of suffering is always harm done to others.
And yes it is the mind that records.
Later in life you will see people you know falling down to smoking. It won't be a mental exercise but a fact. Sure it's karma. Smoke cigarettes and create the cause of misery later in life.
I am not disregarding the fact that cigarettes can cause harm. But it isn't black and white, if you smoke you'll get sick.
As a buddhist one should factor karma.
Frankly, in my personal view, Taiyaki is being irresponsible here. Others may have a different view, of course.
Bad Karma right there, IMO.
All i said was that there are more factors involved in why smoking can be the karmic vehicle for harm and some people do not have such negative effects from smoking.
Its a gamble.
I've heard of stories of people who work out and are exemplar in their physical body and they die early of heart attacks. How does that happen?
From a buddhist standpoint there is no randomness. Everything is based on causes and conditions. Not to place judgement, but we can learn how karma operates at least on a superficial level.
Negative deeds produce negative karma.
Positive deeds produce positive karma.
OP should decide based on all the given knowledge. Whether or not to take the risk to smoke.
Samsara always has an element of harming others.
Just another thought.
It does seem random as to who gets hit by symptoms from smoking, but I'm not ready to chalk it up to karma entirely, either.
Sorry to learn of your addiction. :-(
It really has little to do with karma. But even you want to connect it with karma, it's pretty simple...you commit a bad action (smoking) and there is very likely to be a bad reaction (disease).
Within the last year I have read stories of 2 different American construction workers who accidentally got a nail gun shot into their heads and not only lived, but completely recovered. By your logic...wanna try it? After all, you said, "if cigarettes were the cause then it would have to cause cancer or harm 100% of the time".
Further, your understanding of heart disease is clearly superficial at best. Trust me, I know. The most typical type of heart attack may be from plaque in the blood stream and arteries or in the aorta. But there are a myriad of other heart conditions that can cause a heart attack -- tachycardia (which I have), congestive heart failure (which my mother had), an artery spasm, an aneurism, certain types of arrhythmias, ventricular fibrillation, ischaemic heart disease, inflammatory heart disease, a defective heart valve, damage to the heart done from childhood diseases such as rheumatic fever, and the list goes on. Frankly, you simply don't know what you're talking about when it comes to heart attacks.
Sure you can posit that it harms the environment.
But then what doesn't harm the environment? Again samsara always has an element of harm.
I agree. But Op wanted a buddhist point of view. Science answers how. Buddhism answers why. I am not in disagreement with you.
But you seem to not see the potential for cigarettes to not always cause harm.
There is nothing that is black and white. A lot grey even though all evidence and everything is pointing to the fact that cigarettes are terrible.
having sex cannot be the cause pregnancy. if having sex was the cause then it would have to cause pregnancy 100% of the time. because there are people who have sex all their lives and have no sign of pregnancy, we can conclude that having sex cannot be the direct cause of pregnancy.
sunlight cannot be the cause for skin cancer. if sunlight was the cause then it would have to cause skin cancer 100% of the time. because there are people who expose themselves to sunlight all their lives and have no sign of skin cancer, we can conclude that sunlight cannot be the direct cause of skin cancer.
thats not only flawed logic it borders to dangerous thinking... i wonder what buddhism answer is to children having cancer.
Causality = multiple variables
"i'll give you a not so typical response to your question.
cigarettes cannot be the cause for cancer or harm.
if cigarettes were the cause then it would have to cause cancer or harm 100% of the time.
because there are people who smoke all their lives and have no negativity signs, we can conclude that cigarettes cannot be the direct cause of cancer or negative health problems."
the causality pointed to has multiple variables, hence it just isn't cigarettes = cancer.
cigarettes (along with various causes/conditions) = cancer.
that is the point i wanted to get across, but failed to.
& about your second question. if you take in to account the world view of causality and possible rebirth, then one can see how various causes/conditions coming together can manifest as a child having cancer.
this strikes hard at the hard moral problems that most other religions have to deal with. why do bad people get good things? why do good people get bad things?
it is because karma has a gap and everything is being recorded. thus karma in that sense is beyond the three times, but manifests in the three times. if certain conditions are met, then the karma will ripen.
just some more thoughts.
like in a ball throwing game, not every throw hits the target, but the throwing is the cause that the target gets hit. the "karma" that causes lung cancer in a smoker is the action of smoking. for the rest where there is no known main cause its just random events where the cause is untraceable. sometimes it hits sometimes not.
"yes, and that other variables beside smoking, which is definitly the main cause, are probably nutrition and randomness.
like in a ball throwing game, not every throw hits the target, but the throwing is the cause that the target gets hit"
causality cannot be fit with randomness. randomness is a whole different world view.
"the "karma" that causes lung cancer in a smoker is the action of smoking. for the rest where there is no known main cause its just random events where the cause is untraceable. sometimes it hits sometimes not."
i think its important to know that the world view that things randomly happen cannot co exist with causality.
when does randomness apply and when does causality apply? what determines that?
either the world is total randomness or the world is based on causes/conditions.
this is something that is black and white in buddhism (from my understanding).
if things are random at all, then there is absolutely no hope and buddhism is basically meaningless. because everything is based on causes and conditions there is meaning in practice and study.
just a thought.
This randomness decides if the smoke causes cancer in the lung. The cause that the smoke got in to the lung was the smoking. In this sense you could differentiate between known causality and unknown causality which equals to randomness, atleast to us.
(everything without taking into account quantum mechanics, which really introduce random events) If everything is only based on causes and conditions then there would def. no hope, because we would be just the playballs of these causes without free will. Maybe it is like that.
ah I see where you are coming from. that makes sense.
thanks for the reply.
Btw, now there are "e-cigarettes", which are basically little fog machines which mix a touch of flavoring and nicotine into the water vapor it emits. Supposedly there are no carcinogens. Certainly there are vastly fewer carcinogens. I've seen some doctors speak highly of these things as alternatives to normal cigarettes.
Of course, nicotine is still addictive, but the (physically) harmful effects to self and others are vastly reduced or eliminated.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/16/electronic-cigarette-explode_n_1281707.html
:wtf:
It's also unfortunate the brand of e-cig wasn't revealed in the story, as that means the entire industry, including reputable producers bear the burden.
We should also keep in mind that tobacco companies are hard at work trying to restrict e-cigarette sales.
For those interested, the "510" model is industry standard and I recommend it.
You can also get more info on e-cigs at:
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/
Spiny