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Smoking
I smoke, and my guess is that this is an attachment, yes?
I've smoked for many years, and every time I've quit, even for months, I've been unable to control my emotions. It was as if terrible stuff was coming to the surface, stuff that my smoking kept stuffed.
It's only been a short time that I've been practicing controlling minor emotional downs by remember in that they are ephemeral, by viewing that dispassionately and by using mindfulness.
Now that I've had a little practice, I thinking of trying to quit again and employing what I've learned. Any advice?
I've smoked for many years, and every time I've quit, even for months, I've been unable to control my emotions. It was as if terrible stuff was coming to the surface, stuff that my smoking kept stuffed.
It's only been a short time that I've been practicing controlling minor emotional downs by remember in that they are ephemeral, by viewing that dispassionately and by using mindfulness.
Now that I've had a little practice, I thinking of trying to quit again and employing what I've learned. Any advice?
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Comments
Whittle down how much you smoke, week by week. Say you smoke half a pack a day... Each week you would take one or two cigarettes out of the equation.
Coupled with meditation and mindful practice, you should quit just fine
Know that I'm rooting for you!
You could work on limiting the amount you smoke.
I smoke. I quit several times. I enjoy it. It's not going anywhere. There's a beauty to it. So I work on my dicipline. Not too much make me appreciate it more. Like a fine piece of chocolate. You don't eat chocolate as a meal... you just take a bite here and there.
I know Buddhist teachers who smoke and drink. It's your life.
I have a few attachments.
Eating, sleeping and breathing - to name but three.
The point with renunciation is, 'What is it you are renouncing'?
It's great that you have been gaining skills in the practice of mindfulness and now intend to give up smoking. Good for you:)
When we are attached our mind exaggerates the benefits and diminishes the disadvantages. Perhaps through mindfulness you could investigate the benefits and disadvantages of smoking and see the habit more clearly. In particular does this habit stop you from being present with people? Can you listen and empathise with someone if your addiction is calling? How does it affect your meditation practice? Do you enjoy every cigarette as much as you anticipate? Do you sometimes have one too soon after the other before you body has been able to restock the chemicals for you to get another hit? Do you sometimes finish a cigarette and not remember it? If you enjoy it how long does the enjoyment last how do you feel after that?
How do people who dont smoke deal with their emotions? Do all people that dont smoke have less trouble with emotions. Is it better to keep emotions stuffed down or do they squish out the sides now and then anyway?
It may be good to look into combining lovingkindness meditation to try and combat the minds tendency to be very harshly judge ourselves when we become more mindful of what we are doing.
When trying to withdraw pay mindful attention to the problems, be a curious observer. Then when someone is going through it you will be able to have true compassion for them.
And if I can't accept those feelings, I'll smoke, which is what I do!
At present, throughout the day I'll - when I remember - I'll practise some mindfulness and investigate how I feel and then try to get comfortable and just accept the way I feel. I'm a little anxious right now, for example, so I'm putting my focus into where that anxious feeling is in my guts.
I feel a little less anxious now!
I think the trick is not to try and distract yourself from these feelings, but to embrace them.
I'll practise this for a few weeks and then try stopping smoking again; and I'm hoping when those withdrawal pangs kick in (about ten minutes after my last smoke), I'll be to accept them for what they are, and not smoke again.
I'll let you know how I get on!
Remember the Preciousness of this human life and that creating the causes for it to end quicker will do you a huge disservice.
I tend to be impulsive some times. I'm very new to Buddhism and all excited about it. I feel as if I've found a treasure. I think I need to wait to quit if I want to use Buddhist methods. I'm afraid that if I can't get them to work due to inexperience, I'll get discouraged about Buddhism too.
I'm new to Buddhism too! Please don't think I'm anything other than someone whose dabbled in it for a little over a year; and since my method hasn't worked for me yet, it's opinion, rather than experience.
As a former smoker, I am here to advocate for cold turkey rather than the "cut down till you quit approach". Nicotine is a drug that is addictive because of it's withdrawal effects. It is short lived in your brain and you need to smoke again shortly after your last one to relieve the withdrawal effects. When addicted, smoking is less about having another drag because it makes you feel so good than it is about having another drag so you don't feel crummy. It takes 10 days for nicotine to completely leave your system. Until it is all out of your system your brain is going to want to return to optimal levels. Cutting down simply increases the amount of time that you are going to feel crummy as your brain wants more nicotine than you are giving. By just bucking up and getting through withdrawal as quickly as possible seems to be the most effective in the long run. Mindfulness helps greatly. First three days are tough, but it gets better after that.
- Went on a 3-day drive with a friend ... took no cigs. That took care of the hardest part of quitting ... the first few days.
- Drank water every time I wanted a cigarette ... used a pop-top bottle so I could suck the water ... a good substitute plus it helped clear out the toxins
- Every time I wanted a cigarette, I'd firmly state "I don't do that anymore"
- And I remembered Pema Chodron's teachings that just because you are feeling an uncomfortable emotion, doesn't mean you have to "fix it".
And I remembered a story a friend had told me. He'd been addicted to heroin, and every time he'd tried to quit the withdrawal symptoms had been so bad he'd had to go out and get a fix. So he had a friend drop him off several hours north into the Canadian bush, in May, with 3 months of supplies and instructions to come get him in 3 months. Talk about cold turkey. Anyway, he didn't have a single withdrawal symptom.
...... it is quite possible that our emotional withdrawal symptoms are attempts to "blackmail" ourselves into getting a cigarette. Although I had tried to quit several times before, and had always found the emotional withdrawal quite awful, this time I didn't have a single emotional withdrawal symptom. However, I did discover that there was an underlying residue of anger that my smoking had covered over ... this just sort of took care of itself with a little time. Don't mean to gloss over it, but it was very low-key, and I just observed it without doing anything about it and it died out on it's own in a month or so.
Anyway, good luck to you. I hope something I said will be useful to you.
Then it seems the answers lies in your hands.
The esoteric Buddhist traditions teach that smoking and the use of other narcotics are harmful not only to the physical body but to the spiritual body as well. In fact, the use of such substances will block the opening of the central channel causing one to be reborn in the lowest realms.
I wish perseverance to anyone trying to free themselves from tobacco, one of the world's most addictive substances. Once you achieve this freedom, may you more fully appreciate the wondrous scents and tastes in your daily life.
Smoking is harmful and it will cause the smoker to accrue bad karma and reap retribution and if it is serious it might even cause the smoker to go to hell.
It is better to face the side-effects of quitting smoking then to suffer a shorter life or retribution( which is much worse).
If quiting is hard why not try some nicotine strips which helps
I once read a meditation book saying smoking is one way to practise your breathing routine in meditation.
When you smoke, smoke. When you don't wanna smoke, don't smoke.
I think it's important to be mindful of the pattern that prevents you from sticking to non-smoking. For me, I noticed that it was always a social gathering of some sort where I also drank more than usual and it triggered the want for a cigarette.
I currently do smoke, but I'm hoping next time I do quit it will be forever. I second going "cold turkey" btw. The self-righteousness of it is quite empowering.
Nicotine an intoxicant? WRONG! By this categorization caffeine and any anti-depressant drug would also be thus, not to mention comfort foods, ice on a hot day or a warm bath on a freezing one.
Therefore the idea that by itself smoking will accrue bad karma is wrong. Everything we do relates to everything else and is therefore karma.
Smoking now causing Retribution or going to Hell? Wrong-minded again. Better to smoke now than hereafter, as the saying goes. The consequences to the smooth muscles of our blood vessels and our cardio-pulmonary systems are not retribution, just consequences.
The trick is (as a reformed smoker, I know this!) if you are being pressured from the outside to quit, it will not work. Simply stated, the forces work against any possible real progress, because someone or something will upset you, and off you go!. You have to have the earnest desire within yourself.
Over a period of years, I found I had lost the taste for smoking (Did I ever truly enjoy more than a couple hundred puffs in my life anyway?) and just laid them down, to make a long story short. Nowadays, I can pick up a cigarette and smoke, but the filters nauseate me. No way I could ever finish a whole filtered cigarette again. I know better than to try a plain-end in troublous times, plus they're harder to find.
The post I quoted above really troubles me. It is thinking like this that leads people to despair. All are headed to salvation eventually.
For me at least knowing that something is bad for me (and others) is the best inspiration to stop doing/using it.
I mean, otherwise even green tea could be considered an intoxicant. Anything we eat really - every single thing as an effect on how we behave and on what goes inside our body and brains.
Buddhist or not, attachment or not, precepts or not, smoking is THE single worst thing you can legally do to your body. If we banned tobacco tomorrow, the health care crisis in the US would be all but over (well, we'd still have to work on obesity). But it would be greatly reduced anyway.
Please stop for the sake of your body. It's awful stuff. But... on the bright side, it's job security for me!
If you think precepts aren't broken when you smoke it's ok. But ultimately smoking will cause your health to deteoriate and shorten your life span.
Retribution is tied with Karma and Karma is the Universal Law of Cause and Effect.
What you're saying seems to contradict but I may be wrong.
Taking smoking as an example:
Cause --> Smoking
Effect/Consequences/Retribution --> Economic, Social, Karmically, Health.
Economic: To be blunt, smoking to a non-smoker seems like trying to pay money just to get yourself killed faster and shortening your lifespan.
Socially: You will find yourself in contact with bad friends or false friends and not kalyannamittas.
Health: It's obvious.
Karmically: It is an complicated issue. Even if an Arahant tells us that Heaven, Hell, and Karma exist we will only at best believe 99% of what he said. Our doubts will truly be allayed when we get to see them ourselves.
The Law of Karma applies to everyone regardless of what they think of them.
I'll ask you a question in turn. What is the purpose of human life ? And why are we born ?
Are we born to smoke and waste our life away ?
Are we born, suffering from birth, illness, old age and death just to smoke and enjoy life ?
We're born for a higher purpose but some might not be the case. (I will not elaborate here).
We're born to eradicate worries, defilement and the three poisons (greed,ignorance and hatred) that are deeply rooted in our mind.
We're born to cultivate merit making our life easier in the persuit of perfections.
We're born to cultivate and pursue parami which characterizes our speech, actions and thoughts until they're fulfilled as according to the quota of parami needed for enlightenment.
We're born also to eradicate bad habits and negate the demerits by creating more merits.
I'll ask those questions I've typed above to myself whenever I'm doing something I think it is wrong and I'll act accordingly.
It seems that my previous post was somewhat offensive to readers of this forum. I hereby apologize to those who have been affected. I still hope you've read my words above
Good day to all
Acupuncture.
Worked like a charm for me.
Why people start smoking has little or nothing to do with the taking in of intoxicants, and is more psychologically based in most cultures today. I can remember spending a couple dollars a pack more for nicely packaged Canadian or French cigarettes in my day. It was all image and glamour and all that. Then the time you spend in happy moments of camaraderie smoking becomes an institution in your life, and suddenly smoking itself becomes your most intimate friend.
Why should we not have compassion for someone in this predicament? To speak of hellfire seems so incongruous and just plain wrong.
The best way I know out of this is for others to leave you alone and let you yourself fill yourself with the (TRUE) propaganda that the smell of cigarette smoke on you is offensive to others, etc., etc.
Another thing that always helped me quit was cold weather (I quit several times before I hung cigarettes up for good.). Stepping outside and sucking in cold, fresh air through pursed lips is a big improvement over the cigarette. Ooh, so nice, and such a superior sensation —and a rather healthy experience, too.
But even if you never succeed at quitting, it's better to burn (cigarettes) now than burn hereafter. There is a time for everything. When it's time for you to quit my prayer for you, dear lover of nature, is that conditions in your life will be very auspicious.
In my initial response to something directed my way, I'll just address what I take to be the fundamental question you raised above:
Why are we here, to what purpose and what end?
But your words were:
I'll ask you a question in turn. What is the purpose of human life ? And why are we born?
Are we born to smoke and waste our life away?
Are we born, suffering from birth, illness, old age and death just to smoke and enjoy life?
We're born for a higher purpose but some might not be the case.We're born to eradicate worries, defilement and the three poisons of greed, ignorance and hatred...
We're born to cultivate merit making our life easier in the pursuit of perfections.
We're born to cultivate and pursue parami which characterizes our speech, actions and thoughts until they're fulfilled...
We're born also to eradicate bad habits and negate the demerits by creating more merits.
To begin, dear Exonesion, I must say I largely agree with you, except that I'm not so much into the idea of an individual immortal soul to which merits and demerits accrue (with whatever balances or cancellations they make of each other). Nor do I believe that the Lord Buddha ever taught that we should much attention pay to Metaphysics (Quite the contrary, in fact!). However, I must say that your earnestness leaves me quite in awe of you. Instintively I just love you. Especially when you say:
I believe that the human purpose is to bring joy to other people. If you always keep your focus on that you won't go far wrong, is my view. Sure there are times when competing loyalties tug at us from a few opposing directions, but if we act with our consciences as our watchman and trusted core values as our rudder we can't go far adrift.
Sorry for the three posts in a row. Don't think I've ever done even two in a row before. Oops!
I started smoking at age 13 - out of curiosity and to be part of a gang - and now at age 40 I feel trapped by the addiction. I believe 'intent' has a lot to do with karma; I didn't intend to condemn myself to a hell realm; it just seemed like a fun thing to do when I was 13; I have tried to stop smoking many times and I do actually intend to stop (just not today :crazy:).
I'm sure it's possible to both smoke and have a higher purpose. I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and my primary purpose is to stay sober (following a spiritual path, which for me seems to include Buddhism) and to help other suffering alcoholics.
I spend a lot of my time helping other alcoholics to get and stay sober; and if you've ever known an alkie, they're not easy people to work with sometimes; but it's hugely gratifying also; being a part of another man's recovery; to watch someone who was once a wreck turn into a productive and happy member of society.
I'm taught that my own experience of alcoholism and recovery places me in a great position to help other alcoholics recover; and that's my higher purpose.
And I still smoke!
That resonates with me!
I can breathe again, I don't cough, I can smell things again.
It still delivers the nicotene and feel 80% like you're taking a real toke.
You can cut down the nicotene gradually until you quit.
I rather enjoy the buzz though so I won't be quitting nicotene anytime soon.
Since your not getting any of the tar and carninogens I feel much relieved.
Do some research before getting your ECig. The ECig forums have tons of information you can read.
Also, esteemed Exonesion, you surely would not thereby be advocating that people can justify enjoying life with no other purpose, would you? I'm really still very interested in that side of your argument, believe it or not.
Be well!
My aunt was a smoker. She started getting pains in her chest and was dead within 6 weeks of the diagnosis of smoking-related lung cancer.
I used to smoke myself, then cut down to one cigarette after meals then cut those out. It was really easy - I chewed chewing gum for a while afterwards if I ever felt like having a cigarette and then stopped that too.
Take a look at some photos of how lungs look after smoking related cancer if you're still not able to quit.
Kind wishes,
Dazzle
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It boils down to willpower, if you don't really want to give up then you won't. If you want to give up then you will. Good luck.
Sounds like you have an addictive personality, or at least a lack of willpower, it's not uncommon. My best friend has an addictive personality and it ends up destroying most of his relationships, be they with people or other things (food, cigarettes, alcohol). If you can't resolve issues like these on your own, I would suggest getting professional help (which my friend has and it seems to be working.)
You still might have time. Once you're hooked on these things your brain will always crave it no matter if it's 10 years later after you've tried to quit 10 times.
Exonesion, Kind Sir!
By the words another plane of existence, which I emphasized above, do you mean literally "one other" ("an other")? I mean, in effect, the next plane of existence and only the next? If so, I don't see how doing something evil* for just one lifetime could possibly set one back forever. It would be more like your uninsured house burning down in this life and simply having to borrow a lot from future earnings to pay for a new one, whether better or worse. Still, the lessons learned in your house burning down may very well give you more and more prosperity as further time unfolds. *Note, please, that I am not talking about smoking here, as smoking is not evil —merely unsafe, inconvenient, and often (for the very poor) unhygienic.
But back to the Buddhist idea of being eventually set loose from the bonds of continual rebirth (samsara), which you touched on: Of course a classic Buddhist cannot believe in an eternal individual soul! Nonetheless, in my view, overattention to the idea of karma over more than one lifetime leaves more or less the same footprints in the sand, as it were. It's the karma we do in this life that matters most. The most uncouth criminal can, by grace, turn round and make a prince of himself.
There does seem inherent in the Buddhist cosmologies some strong notion of transmigration of powers or attributes across time and across lifespans.
However, classical Indian thought of Buddha's time, as I am given to understand, was caught up in the idea of samsara being the ground of being upon which even gods fell down to vermin-levels of being over time. Samsara was a great recycling engine that encompassed all and the highest order of enterprise or Being was simply to escape this hellish merry-go-round once and for all.
Of course, as the Lord Buddha eschewed metaphysics, he may very well have seen most of this as nonsense. However, I think it has generally been shown that most Religious Innovators were also at least in part products of the thinking patterns of their times.
I'm glad that you thought more about the importance of earnestly discovering things for ourselves rather than just being dismissively dogmatic about the failings of others in which we don't happen to share.
May you always be happy and lucky! And Free!
It is great to be able to reply to you again
By the words "another plane of existence" it means the person who passed away could be reborn into a totally different plane of existence such as the heavenly realms, animal realm, petas realm(hungry ghost realms) or the hell realm.
There are many levels of heavens and hells just like the ranks we had in our world( the human realm). Whatever rank or power we held in other plane of existence would completely depend on our karma or more specifically, merits.
For instance If we are to be born into a the Tavatisma Heaven the abode we have in that plane of existence would be connected to our amount of merits. The more merits we have the shinier our palace would be and vice versa. Those celestial beings who command more merits would have bigger and larger palaces and those beings who have lesser merits could become servants of that celestial being with more merits. That is an simple outlook to the classification of devas in the heavenly realm.
The person's next destination in Samsara would again depend on his karma.
If a person did many wrong deeds while he was alive he would surely fall into the realms of suffering. However this is just a brief overview of the effects of karma.
There are several factors which also play a huge role in deciding his next destination.
The factors are :
1. The condition of his karmic fruits (Whether are they ripe for fruition)
2. The state of his mind before he leaves his physical body.
3. The amount of merits he had inside him ( This can also play a huge role)
4. The innate karmic fruits inside the person accumulated for uncountable lifetimes and aeons.
It is unlikely that committing wrong deeds in one life time would set one back forever because when the retribution have given and effected it's load that person will be reborn somewhere else according to his karma again.
However for those who committed extremely severe crimes such as patricide/matricide or arahantcide or hurting a fully-enlightened Buddha their demerits are so vast and enormous so much so that it will seemingly take forever for their demerits to be exhausted in hell.
I largely agree with you that it is the karma we do in this life that matters most. Because the past is already the past, the future is the future. What we have is only the present. Even the most uncouth criminal can turn over a new life. However it seems that that isn't an easy thing to do. Their retribution and karma will lead to commit even more demerits and chances of them repenting is slim. If this is easy, everyone in Samsara would be liberated by now. Nevertheless the person who is suffering must make wishes and resolutions to improve his current state. And he must do his best to accept the retribution and search for the best. Otherwise he will be trapped in Samsara until the moment he decides he had enough of suffering.
Parami and karma are some of the many things which can be inherited and passed down time. Mundane merits can be exhausted if they're not replenished but Parami is something which cannot be exhausted.
An extract about the consequences of smoking in a Sunday Dhamma talk.
Once again I thank you for your replies and I wish you the best of luck in your pursuit of knowledge and enlightenment.
As this thread's topic is smoking and you are not able to establish that tobacco is an intoxicating drug, please start a new thread on the evils of intoxicants if you wish to continue your interesting discussion, or we'll both get into some trifle of a difficulty. I have been called on the carpet, as it were, about overrunning a thread with an extraneous topic that might have caused the originator of the thread to feel we were making light of his or her dilemma or question asked in all earnestness.
As far as tobacco goes and the evils it can wreak on the body, I personally feel that this matter is each individual's choice. Trying to persuade people that each choice they make is either good or evil (roughly speaking) will only work on people who deep down inside don't like the freedom and excitement of being alive. Those who say that any sane person looking at the lung tissues of a heavy smoker could never contemplate taking another puff are overstating, in my opinion. Driving on the highway is much more dangerous; so, by that kind of logic, no sane person would ever risk a 50-mile trip more than twice a year or so...