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Evils Of Intoxicants. (Smoking)
Greetings to all readers 
I have decided to move the discussion about smoking from another thread here.
First, to begin this discussion I would like to start off about explaining why smoking is an intoxicant which violates the fifth precept of no consumption of intoxicants.
The meanings of an intoxicant:
1) An agent that intoxicates, especially an alcoholic beverage.
The adjective intoxicant has one meaning:
Meaning #1: able to intoxicate
Synonym: intoxicating
Intoxicating: Producing or stimulating physical, mental, or emotional vigor. Extremely exciting as if by alcohol or a narcotic
Meaning of Narcotic: An addictive drug, such as opium, that reduces pain, alters mood and behavior, and usually induces sleep or stupor.
Present in the sticks of cigarette are many things.
Some of these 'things' are :
1.carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, and other toxic irritants such as acrolein and formaldehyde
2. 43 distinct cancer-causing chemicals.
3. Nicotine: is a powerful drug that acts on neurotransmittersin the brain and is physically addictive.
Because Nicotine( an addictive substance) is present, smoking is actually fit to be labeled an intoxicant. (in my opinion)
However the interpretation of an intoxicant is varied and it still depends on the individual.:)
Source: http://www.ehealthmd.com/library/smoking/SMO_whatis.html
Meanings of words: WWW.Answers.com
Influence of Intoxicants:
Adopted from:http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma2/5precepts.html
It is apparent that the main cause of heedlessness and loss of awareness is the consumption of alcoholic drinks.
In my opinion, Smoking is a violation of the fifth precept as some of the sources above convinced me so. However everyone is entitled to their opinions and I will respect them
Some replies to posts from another thread:
I'm not being sarcastic. The health hazards of smoking are many times more than that of eating french fries.
And another part I disliked about smoking is becoming a victim of passive smoking.
What are your thoughts ?
I have decided to move the discussion about smoking from another thread here.
First, to begin this discussion I would like to start off about explaining why smoking is an intoxicant which violates the fifth precept of no consumption of intoxicants.
The meanings of an intoxicant:
1) An agent that intoxicates, especially an alcoholic beverage.
The adjective intoxicant has one meaning:
Meaning #1: able to intoxicate
Synonym: intoxicating
Intoxicating: Producing or stimulating physical, mental, or emotional vigor. Extremely exciting as if by alcohol or a narcotic
Meaning of Narcotic: An addictive drug, such as opium, that reduces pain, alters mood and behavior, and usually induces sleep or stupor.
Present in the sticks of cigarette are many things.
Some of these 'things' are :
1.carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, and other toxic irritants such as acrolein and formaldehyde
2. 43 distinct cancer-causing chemicals.
3. Nicotine: is a powerful drug that acts on neurotransmittersin the brain and is physically addictive.
Because Nicotine( an addictive substance) is present, smoking is actually fit to be labeled an intoxicant. (in my opinion)
However the interpretation of an intoxicant is varied and it still depends on the individual.:)
Source: http://www.ehealthmd.com/library/smoking/SMO_whatis.html
Meanings of words: WWW.Answers.com
Influence of Intoxicants:
Adopted from:http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma2/5precepts.html
[FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]
[/FONT][FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]The fifth precept covers all intoxicants, including narcotics, that alter the state of consciousness and are physiologically addictive. The danger and negative effects of narcotics, such as cocaine and heroin, are too well known to need any further elaboration. Today they represent a serious health and social problem around the world. [/FONT]
[FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]
The most obvious danger of intoxicants is the fact that they tend to distort the sensibilities and deprive people of their self-control and powers of judgment. Under alcoholic influences, a person is likely to act rashly and without due consideration or forethought. Otherwise decent people may even commit murder or rape under the influence of alcohol, or cause all kinds of damage (such as fire, accident, and vandalism) to people or property. The Buddha described addiction to intoxicants as one of the six causes of ruin. It brings about six main disadvantages: loss of wealth, quarrels and strife, a poor state of health (liability to diseases), a source of disgrace, shameless and indecent behavior, and weakened intelligence and mental faculties. [/FONT]
It is apparent that the main cause of heedlessness and loss of awareness is the consumption of alcoholic drinks.
In my opinion, Smoking is a violation of the fifth precept as some of the sources above convinced me so. However everyone is entitled to their opinions and I will respect them
Some replies to posts from another thread:
Wah ... you are only being sacarstic right? So eating french fries is also forbidden, given its potential health hazards? :rolleyes:
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'm not being sarcastic. The health hazards of smoking are many times more than that of eating french fries.
And another part I disliked about smoking is becoming a victim of passive smoking.
andAn extract from the earlier website explains my disgust:
The amount of nicotine absorbed by a nonsmoking child whose father smokes is equivalent to the child himself smoking about 30 cigarettes a year; 50 cigarettes a year from a mother who smokes, and 80 cigarettes a year if both parents smoke.
Secondhand smoke is known to cause cancer and is responsible for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths in nonsmokers each year.
What are your thoughts ?
0
Comments
I'm the kind of person who would never knowingly take a psychedelic drug after having heard some horror stories about LSD and peyote, etc. And although I don't include marijuana among these dangerous drugs, I do think it can cause people to do reckless and thoughtless things. The things you quoted on your recent post on the other thread about drug users being headed to the hell realms are things I've never seen before.
Surely, admirable exonesion, if you think tobacco is an intoxicant, you must be triply against marijuana and other things like that.
Yet, curiously, there's a lot of pretty-well documented material out there showing that ingestion of drugs such as marijuana and soma, an amphetamine with hallucinogenic potential, were widely used by the wandering sages who inspired the wisdom literature of the holy books of yore.
Dear TheJourney, please do not be mistaken about my posts and see them in a negative light.
I'm not preaching about hell fires or any hell realm for that matter. I personally dislike people using hellfires as an argument( even more so for me). The one reason I avoided Christianity is because they used hellfires to 'scare' people into converting if they do not belief in 'god'.
I'm only giving my views and opinions on why smoking is harmful.
I'm not trying to preach anything about hell-fires or hell realms.
I came accross that particular Dhamma talk and it seemed interesting so I thought I share
Note: I didn't include that hell-fire part which I had posted previously and I had confessed the mistake upon my part as I had stated previously in another post.
Source: http://www.dhammacenter.org/resource/media/E-Books/Sunday%20Dhamma%20Talks%201/Sunday%20Dhamma%20Talks%20Vol.%201.pdf
I must agree with you on this one
Smoking have good and bad effects but their negative outweighs the positive.
Regardless of whether smoking violates the 5th precept smoking is still harmful.:D
Dear Nirvana,
Personally I do not encourage the use of any drugs to induce any forms of wisdom or knowledge.
There are many ways people could obtain knowledge of some kind about the past, present or future.
Some of the methods are:
1) Use of drugs (As you had mentioned) [I'm not sure about this one]
2) Hypnosis [Only the past is known] + [undependable]
3) Random events [undependable] +[Brings up the forgotten memories just like a flashback]
4) Meditation*
The first three ways/methods are used by many but they are generally unreliable.
First, it is unreliable to use drugs to induce anything because what knowledge obtain [if they are knowledge at all] are mostly undependable.
As you have mentioned, drugs sometimes have hallucinogenic potential which causes the person to hallucinate and thus whatever knowledge that comes from being drugged isn't necessarily true.
Second, the act of hypnosis is also unreliable and undependable. All the memories recollected while being hypnotized is highly undependable however there are occasions when real memories from the past are known.
Third, by random events I meant events that are strong and powerful enough to stimulate the remembrance of past events. However as I've stated above they're undependable.
*Meditation provides a special avenue to the past, present, future and the wisdom of reality. It is special because the mediator has complete control over himself and he could utilize the tamed mind to do his bidding.
Whereas for the first 3 ways the person is being influenced by drugs or external events. He doesn't have any control over what is happening.
Therefore the first three ways are unreliable.
An extract from an E-doc helps to accentuate the fourth method: The bold sentence in the quote means that If the mind isn't still now true dependable knowledge will be available that is why meditation is much more superior than the first three methods in terms of gathering accurate information about profound matters such as the past.
Good day to you Nirvana
And sorry for double posting.
And it all seems so harmless. And society at large says it is. That's not to say it's not "harmless" per se, but it's such a distraction to the path. Attachment attachment attachment. Must put an end to attachment. Must stop discriminating based on the senses.
http://www.google.com/images?q=smoking%20monk&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rlz=1R1GGGL_en___ID350&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=896&bih=602
People who are caught selling drugs are hung till death (capital punishment).
Yes which is why you should always check up on the govt expectations before you travel
The consequences are clear to me, and I know I gather a lot of bad karma doing it.
I just live with it
Like said in the discussion about copying - we do a lot of tricks to fit the precepts to our cravings instead of just admitting that we break them. The same applies to this, I think
I think any little intoxicant you may imbibe or inhale along the way is probably not such a bad thing. People living a couple thousand years ago lived in completely different conditions and any use of intoxicants severely limited the lifestyles and choices of the users, among other things.
I myself strongly object to any legalistic-minded following of "Thou-Shalt-Nots." I believe that the Source of Being is not so mean-spirited as to punish creatures for choices they make that are not laden with bad intentions. In other words, I believe in Love —and love sets free and does not wish to make others follow rigid, narrow paths that shut out experimenting with tastes, games, alliances, etc.
Count me among the damned if you like, but I'll still live my life under the influence of Love. If that is a mistake, so be it! Self-justification and a sense of personal purity can never be my rudders, for avatars such as Buddha and Jesus have shown a higher way.
Way back in Buddhas days, people did not know that smoking nicotine was an intoxicant - it didn't mud their mind as alcohol, opium, cannabis and other known drugs. Today we know that it does a lot of other bad stuff to your body and that nicotine is in fact as much an intoxicant as the other drugs.
We like to liberate ourselves when modern knowledge and opportunities opposes Buddhism (we readily visit doctors, who are no longer frauds f.ex.) - it would be hypocrisy not to limit ourselves upon new knowledge of things.
The choice is ultimately still one's own - we just don't gain anything by denying the obvious.
Why all the comparing of Jesus and Buddha? They were quite different in both self-view, mission, view on humans, view on God, view on society and view on rules of conduct..
What if you gain sudden realization / wisdom while smoking...
In this case... is smoking bad?
If you're anti-drug, you would probably consider me pro drug, but I wouldn't say so. I think drugs can be very beneficial for people that aren't very far along the path. Weed and psychedelic drugs lend themselves to very real realizations. That doesn't mean that you can't have them without the drugs. And once you have the realization(s), the need for the drugs goes away. If you're going to use them, don't become dependent on them for spiritual insight. Understanding that weed is much less of an intoxicant than psychedelics.
You would have gained an even deeper sudden realization, if you weren't smoking at that moment...
In this case... is smoking bad?
*bell sound*
Ficus, esteemed sir, I assume you are referring to my post above?
I was contrasting (in the Christian case) what's termed Jesus's politics of Compassion versus the Judaic politics of Personal Holiness and Purity Codes. Simply said, the Lord Jesus and his followers taught, in the words of St. Paul, all our righteousness is as filthy rags compared to the love and forgiveness that we might carry in our hearts.
Now the Lord Buddha summed up his Teaching in Four Noble Truths which pointed to the Eightfold Path as the Way to achieve liberation. However, at no point did the Buddha truly teach that the idea of personal purity would guarantee anything. Indeed, his teaching and his life pointed out the way for people to turn around and be saved.
Now, the various followers of Jesus and Buddha have always had their own pet emphases. However, it is what Buddha and Jesus taught that have more weight by far to me. Actually I can imagine a situation in which over the course of several generations —each generation emphasizing different aspects— that the things being stressed as being most important could really work against the original Teaching. Indeed, I'd argue that much of what some so-called Christians profess and teach today is so removed from the words of the Red Letter edition of the New Testament as to constitute a complete hijacking and entombment of the Message.
The teachings of buddha and jesus are very compatible. You just need to see it.