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@Jeffry I will give you a bit of background. Since I was a little child, I have always been strong in science and mathematics. I have always been one to question why something is the way it is and to want proof. And while I haven't exactly been closed off to the spiritual aspects of life, I just never encountered anything that gave me a basis to understand what spirituality was. I wanted to see ghosts, I wanted to feel "god", etc. As I grew up and put aside those desires, I submitted to the fact that I might just not be a very spiritual person (still leaving myself as open as possible) and just focused on being a good person.
It seems I have always had a nagging missing piece. I would try and fill this by eating, masturbating, travel, work... all the normal stuff in life. Nothing satisfied this nagging void. The first time I did mushrooms, this nagging went away (the first time in my life). I realized that there were things that I could experience that didn't translate into mental understanding, this was my first understanding of spirituality. As I explored further on later trips, I had an overwhelming familiar sense that everything was OK. Fear was silly. Anger was silly. Love (not sex, lust or co-dependence) was more than I ever imagined it was. All people mattered, no matter what my judgement was. While on mushrooms, I realized the limitations of using a drug to fill that void in my life (I knew instantly that while this may have been the personal proof I was looking for, that I would have to achieve it through means other than drugs). I also made physical and mental notes about my experiences. I told myself to not forget how real/true it felt. I told myself to remember the experience itself. I told myself to not waste this "proof" and to move forward on my spiritual path. I told myself to not get stuck on this feeling, that there may be more beyond this experience.
This is the point where I started to read volumes about drugs, consciousness, spirituality, etc. At that point some DMT was acquired by my bf and stored for an appropriate time. After reading and studying "The Spirit Molecule", the Tibetan book of the death, and other books, I was able to take the DMT and experience something beyond my previous experiences. I left that experience with the most peaceful, loving feeling I have ever experienced. My thoughts on death shifted. I gained an understanding of how others can view a situation so differently and not be wrong. Compassion, a topic which I often failed to grasp, was making sense.
All these experiences pointed me back to buddhism. Which ultimately led me to REALLY investigate buddhism from a spiritual sense (as before it was more a philosophical interest). So, I guess the simple answer to your question, is it helped me to recognize my spiritual nature and come to terms with the fact that some evidence can only be experienced and is non-transferable.
@seeker242 it absolutely does have to do with Buddhism: see above.
First of all, we are people before we are Buddhists. To say something isn't Buddhist simply means that it isn't something taught by Buddhism. So, by definition, using drugs for any purpose is not Buddhism.
That said, you can still be a Buddhist, or at least consider yourself one, and take drugs. You can still have insights that bolster your understanding of reality and lead you further towards the Buddhadharma. In a society consumed with materialism and the mundane, many people's spiritual paths begin or involve the use of drugs, as they open up new dimensions of experience not discussed in polite society. This has led countless people to genuine spiritual paths. It did for me, it did for friends of mine. I've read many testimonials from Buddhists who have done these things and have moved to real practice because they wanted to see further into reality and needed to do so with out any aids or crutches.
In my own experience, drug use led me out of many of my neuroses and towards Buddhism. I've also had lasting breakthroughs into the meaning of koans that led to further insights into my day to day life. The main difficulty I've had with using substances is that it tends to replace practice and that I begin to become psychologically dependent on those substances, even if not in a debilitating sense.
The thing is though, that when I have used, I wasn't on the path anyway, so to speak. But it seems that the usage has invariably revived my practice and study of the Dharma. So when I hear people making absolutist statements about things doing more damage than good, I will have to respectfully disagree. And it's also possible to learn from negative experiences of delusions followed in the course of doing them. It is also possible to learn from even subtle forms of psychological dependency. If you feel the need to use substances, chances are there's something behind that 'need'. Something deeper that needs to be explored and addressed and realized. Problems come in when you aggrandize the experience beyond a mere experience. They also come if you don't test and apply your insights and new understandings in the 'cold light of day'. I've had many an insight that has given me a greater depth of understanding of myself, my experience and even the Buddhadharma. So, discount if you wish, that's up to you.
On the other hand, there are very real dangers and I was fortunate enough to not have any propensities towards schizophrenia or other illnesses that activated under the experiences I've had. But many others are less fortunate and truly damage themselves, sometimes beyond repair. This is why I don't advocate usage, even though i've found value from it in my own life. At this point, I know that I'm not really going to gain much from doing things anymore and i'd simply be trying to recreate experiences that I've already had. In other words, I wouldn't be helping myself.
Also, in regard to what Aura was saying, there are substances that DO contribute to the things they are talkng about, but psilocybin, LSD and marijuana are not those things. Well, mexian grown marijuana does cause a lot of carnage, so if that's what you're getting, that's what you're causing.
tmottes, those do sound like great experiences. I had some similar realizations through mental breakdown, not a pleasant expereince but I got a sense of the value of love and the spaciousness of people in a very direct mindblowing way (not trite).
Sheeeet, no wonder this place is such a mess! Most of u homeboys are still druggies!!!
Actually, it seems like most of the people who've spoken up 'in defense' of drug use are people who experimented widely with drugs and gradually left them behind. For my part, the only substance I ever abuse these days is caffeine.
drugs are like the high school sweetheart that we thought was the "one". ironically it was lsd that broke my addictive patterns for women and external satisfaction.
maybe one day we'll live in a society where they clean up these drugs by engineering them to be perfect and also give education and adequate environment for people to explore their minds.
until then i'm going to advocate not taking drugs. honestly it was the start, but not the means towards spirituality.
watching your immediate experience and seeing the three marks is much more helpful than creating conditions towards your seeing. what you see right now is what there is. if you keep looking outwards, you're going to be disappointed.
@seeker242 it absolutely does have to do with Buddhism: see above.
I'm sorry friend but this is Buddhism: "I vow to abstain from intoxicants."
There is definitely something spiritual about tryptamine based hallucinogens (and possibly all of them); but, like you said, they must be used with the right mindset and setting. These substances should be approached with respect and openness, just like a teacher.
Ok. But do people see that if you say "Hallucinogens can be beneficial" you are saying just the opposite of what Buddhism teaches? You are saying just the opposite of what all the wise teachers say? If people are seriously interested in Buddhism, it's important to understand this.
@seeker242 I don't think any of the people who are 'in defense' of hallucinogens have advocated that people take them, especially if one is serious about practicing buddhism. It sounds more like it was part of their path to becoming serious about buddhism. For some, like me, it was a very important and effective part of discovering buddhism. The buddha himself tried various methods to find the truth, including extreme asceticism. Some people just need to feel the plate, even though they were just warned it is hot.
However, it's absolutely absurd for you to class the growing and selling of marijuana and psilocybin in the same category.
I made no such comment at any time. Your accusation is evidence of delusion.
Further, you really need to tone down the personal attacks and hyperbole.
I have personally attacked no one. Your accusation is evidence of delusion.
And how dare you assume anything about the class background, psychological or intellectual status of anyone based solely on the fact of their consumption of "drugs". You're blinded by your emotional hysteria. Seriously, cut out the self-righteous aggression.
I have stated nothing about the motivations, experiences, class background, psychological or intellectual stature of anyone who uses drugs whatsoever. Your accusation is evidence of delusion.
Frankly, I'm infuriated by this: "If you haven't had the spiritual experience of cleaning up the feces, vomit, and broken and dead bodies, minds, hearts, and lives left behind by people on hallucinogens, you haven't experienced anything more than your own deluded imagination." I've experienced both sides of the coin.
If you have cleaned up the feces, vomit, and broken and dead bodies, minds, hearts, and lives left behind by people on hallucinogens and appreciate that aspect of the phenomenon of hallucinogenic use within society, then why does a statement that does not even apply to you "infuriate" you?
Are these hallucinogens? I had thought that hallucinogen drugs were less damaging than say crack or meth or heroin. Would hallucinogens cause those problems? It just sounded funny that tripping would make feces, vomit, and dead bodies.
Why use anything when reality itself is so mind-blowing?
so true..
but if you want a personal experience.. i tripped on lsd .. very bad trip..
led me to social anxiety, panic attacks, psychosis and depression for almost 2 years..
recovering now..
don't mess with drugs.. in my experience the worst part about a mental illness is that you're in it by yourself because no one can fully understand what you go through.. so you have to pull yourself out of it..
i suppose the positive part of it was that i was destroying my life in other ways too, so the experience forced me to mature a lot earlier because of what i went through lol
it does depend on the user, but all it takes is one single thought and shift in mood to set off something you have no control over.
i find reality to be enough, i have more fulfilling things to do with my life now.
do you guys just ever sit back and just laugh at all this? it's such a fun play!
Oh yes. It was really quite amusing the day the kindergartener pulled a loaded handgun on the 3rd grade teacher and she was shocked and appalled to come face to face with the reality of the world that the recreational drug use industry (that she herself had formerly economically supported throughout her high school and college years in the name of "personal development, exploration, and partying") had built for kids.
Everyone is saying "drugs" as a very large blanked statement, but there are differences. I believe there is a very strong line between naturally occurring substances that have existed longer than mankind and the chemically contrived pharmacopeia.
Mankind has and always will use magical mushrooms, ayahuasca, marijuana, and other PLANTS as part of his psycho evolutionary tool for traversing the astral plane and to feed his starving intellect. These substances propel human understanding forward into the far flung reaches of the cosmos by sparking a sense of awe and curiosity that can only by followed by an burning desire to uproot the truth behind the matter.
Tripping on any sort of hallucinogenic substance for me is a extremely spiritual experience. It reminds me that life (and sanity) is precious. I know and have been told by many learned people that hallucinogens can open the door, but meditation is only tool that will take you outside.
Love and light!
p.s.
if you ever do decide to trip for the first time make sure you have a friend babysit you so you dont do anything irrational.
Aura he's talking about the emotions of the posters hehe not the serious problems.
I'm not kidding that I laughed over the handgun incident. I laugh all the time when the karmic wheel goes full circle.
Not trying to push any buttons, but nothing about your response here seems like a healthy attitude towards the situation. We are all knee deep in the mud of samsara here and while I understand your experience with drugs have been traumatic, your own experience does not dictate what others should feel on the subject. In regard to the Dharma, nothing in Buddhism teaches that drugs lead out of suffering. They are largely based on attachment to sensory experience and putting too much value in temporal states of mind. Still, there are some drugs that decidedly lead to the sorts of devastation you talk about, and they are usually not psychoactive ones.
i suppose samsara needs to do more work. suffer more and more and more until you realize that it's okay and then open your loving arms to samsara and give it a nice big ass kiss.
also guys you are not going to convince people that there are different kinds of drugs.
all drugs are evil. all drugs are good. who makes good and evil?
The closest I got to tripping was in mallorca when I was visiting my friend from germany. I had some hash I bought from a guy from holland that I purchased alone in broken german. We went out partying and smoked before the party a round or so 4 of us. Then I didn't drink but got back and everyone was partied out. So me and my crazy friend who had gotten really into drugs after we stopped being friends so much (but now he is a doctor in switzerland). Anyhow the bong of course was a macgyver improvised bong made out of water jug and somehow a bowl embedded made of what I don't remember. Anyhow we mixed the rest of the hash with tobacco and smoked the whole thing between the two of us. I think I took like 30 bong hits. Thats probably why I have schizophrenia so it was surely not a good thing, and it wasn't that fun an experience travelling around in planes and trains all effed up. Trungpa called drugs 'super samsara'.
Aura - it seems like you're being evasive. Whatever. You obviously are intensely invested in your position, and not interested in having an even-handed discussion, so I'm not going to pursue it further except to try to illustrate something very basic:
If the Soma of the ancient Vedic sacrificial fire ritual was a hallucinogenic substance, should we assume that the aftermath of a Vedic fire ritual was a feces smeared orgy of suffering, madness and death? When a huge stash of marijuana is found in the tomb of a 5000 year old Central Asian shaman, does this indicate that the society this individual came from was a Hell of drug-induced criminality? Laughable.
Anyone with any sort of clarity should be able to grasp that social context is incredibly important to the subject of this discussion.
Aura - it seems like you're being evasive. Whatever. You obviously are intensely invested in your position, and not interested in having an even-handed discussion, so I'm not going to pursue it further except to try to illustrate something very basic:
Your failure to provide any evidence to support your previous false accusations, combined with this new false accusation that I, rather than you, must be the one who is being evasive here, quite amusingly provides yet more evidence of your delusion.
If "anyone with any sort of clarity should be able to grasp that social context is incredibly important to the subject of this discussion" it is obvious to you that "rituals" go extinct in society exactly because they failed to build, support, and maintain a functional sustainable community that honored and continued them. Therefore, if some extinct 5000 year old "Vedic sacrificial fire ritual" did not manage to build, support, and maintain a sustainable community that continued its methods and traditions to the present day, that tradition has been demonstrated as not functional or sustainable over time.
Currently in 2011 I see little kids suffering all around as a result of a very large, very powerful, very exploitative recreational drug industry. Drug-induced physical criminality is only the very tip of a very large iceberg of recreational-drug-industry ECONOMICALLY-induced criminality. I also see kids in foster care whose lives have been shattered because their "cottage drug industry" parents are in jail or because their employment prospects are so few from their having been incarcerated. I see Mexico exploding in recreational-drug-industry-market-share-struggle-induced violence, and some guy supposedly psychotic from salvia shot a congresswoman and 19 innocent bystanders. My point is that what people choose to physically, economically, and/or philosophically empower in society as individuals has very real effects on the rest of society, for which there are very real personal karmic consequences.
The only reason why Buddhism survives to the present day is because it has built a functional sustainable community centered on honoring, practicing, and exemplifying for others the Precepts, the Eightfold Path, and continual mindfulness of the karmic consequences of all of one's actions on this earth.
Aura I think you have a good point. Earlier it did sound like hyperbole, but now that you flesh it out there is quite a solid information. At the same time B has a good point that it is context sensitive. We *could* have a different society in which drugs did not cause such problems. But we don't.
In 1991 I visited a place called Bridlington on the north east coast of UK. My friends and I were going to a Rave (this was before industrial buzz music was mainstream media).
When we arrived I took my first ever Ecstacy tablet. Just as soon as I swallowed it I got this bad feeling in the pit of my stomach like: 0-oh! We walked on a long road towards the music party and it wasn't long before the pill started to hit me.
As we neared the party this track was playing (except it was probably a hundred times louder than your average desktop speakers):
This scared the shit out of me. All my former coping mechanisms were absent, and I was suddenly ultra sensitive to anything aggressive. No where to hide from my own brain, OH NO.
I literally ran away towards the sea. As I stood there it felt like a small nuclear explosion had gone off in my head. If my brain cells were all trees, they were all flattened by the fire in my brain. I remember saying to myself, if this gets any stronger I'm going to pass out.
Well I didn't and here's me tripping on my own ego. One of my former friends mentioned I haven't been the same since. No use crying over spilled milk tho I guess.
So that's my story on the 'tripping' thread. *yawn*
If one wishes to remove one's own (or anyone else's) cushy materialistic worldview,one simply removes all of one's cushy materialistic comforts and surroundings. Stoning oneself off one's ass like a big spoiled brat of a nihilistic materialistic whining baby in the middle of one's cushy materialistic surroundings only makes one less of a big spoiled brat of a nihilistic materialistic whining baby in one's own deluded imagination. The Buddha certainly had both the option and the wealth to engage in such behavior as much as he pleased, but neither embraced nor advocated such behavior in the least.
I think it's pretty obvious that the phrase "big spoiled brat of a nihilistic materialistic whining baby in the middle of one's cushy materialistic surroundings" contains a pretty obvious implicit accusation. It's aggressive and contains manipulative language designed to shame and belittle. Are you sure that wasn't your intention when you wrote that sentence?
I have stated nothing about the motivations, experiences, class background, psychological or intellectual stature of anyone who uses drugs whatsoever. Your accusation is evidence of delusion.
See the above language. If you really didn't mean to convey the idea that people who use hallucinogens are displaying behavior indicative of a privileged ("cushy") status and immature emotional state ("spoiled", "whiny"), well.... I apologize for misreading your statement. But certainly you can imagine how someone would read such language?
If "anyone with any sort of clarity should be able to grasp that social context is incredibly important to the subject of this discussion" it is obvious to you that "rituals" go extinct in society exactly because they failed to build, support, and maintain a functional sustainable community that honored and continued them. Therefore, if some extinct 5000 year old "Vedic sacrificial fire ritual" did not manage to build, support, and maintain a sustainable community that continued its methods and traditions to the present day, that tradition has been demonstrated as not functional or sustainable over time....
...The only reason why Buddhism survives to the present day is because it has built a functional sustainable community centered on honoring, practicing, and exemplifying for others the Precepts, the Eightfold Path, and continual mindfulness of the karmic consequences of all of one's actions on this earth.
Buddhist triumphalism. Great. Is it really in keeping with Buddhist perspectives to evaluate a practice or institution based on its ability to endure in the temporal world of Samsara? But that aside, let's examine the logic.
Institutions and practices survive because they "build, support, and maintain a functional sustainable community" and go out of practice because they fail to do this. Is this always the case? Is the prevalence of the institution of human slavery throughout history, surviving all the way up in to modern times (i.e, the drug trade you've referred to), indicative of its ability to "build, support, and maintain a functional sustainable community"? When a practice or institution goes out of practice, does this always indicate that it failed based on its own lack of merit, without the interference of any other circumstances?
An example which should really illustrate the error of your reasoning and ground this in the issue at hand is the ritualized use of Ayahuasca in the Americas. In several locales, this substance was critical to shamanic religious tradition. Did these traditions go out of practice because it tended to destroy the social fabric of peoples who hosted this tradition? No. They existed without interruption for a very long time, and went out of practice when the tribes that participated in them were enslaved by and absorbed into Western colonial civilization, and in particular, when they were converted to Christianity.
Currently in 2011 I see little kids suffering all around as a result of a very large, very powerful, very exploitative recreational drug industry. Drug-induced physical criminality is only the very tip of a very large iceberg of recreational-drug-industry ECONOMICALLY-induced criminality. I also see kids in foster care whose lives have been shattered because their "cottage drug industry" parents are in jail or because their employment prospects are so few from their having been incarcerated. I see Mexico exploding in recreational-drug-industry-market-share-struggle-induced violence, and some guy supposedly psychotic from salvia shot a congresswoman and 19 innocent bystanders. My point is that what people choose to physically, economically, and/or philosophically empower in society as individuals has very real effects on the rest of society, for which there are very real personal karmic consequences.
You keep talking about the "little kids", and the dead bodies and the feces - all as a result of the monolithic abstract of "drugs". It would be totally inexcusable of me not to address the very real, devastating carnage that is a direct result of the narcotics trade. Mexico is practically in a state of civil war right now due to this problem. When people purchase cocaine, Mexican marijuana, and heroin, they are pumping money directly into this problem... or into the parallel problem that exists in the Pacific Northwest which as associated partly with organized crime from Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe (heroin).
But this has very little to do with the world of psychedelics. Speaking from firsthand experience in the distant past of my teens, psilocybin spores are often traded among hallucinogen enthusiasts and grown for individual consumption. Hell, I've seen naturally occurring psilocybin for sale by hippies. You're saying that you've seen lives ruined by this kind of 'cottage-industry', and I presume you're referring to marijuana as that is very easy to grow and quite common. I don't disbelieve your story, but some would argue that it's a better case for legalizing the growth and consumption of marijuana than it is for further demonizing the substance. And regarding the ruined lives you say you've witnessed - how many other factors were involved?
Regarding violence and hallucinogens... I wasn't even aware that people were trying to pin the blame for that attempted killing of that congresswoman on Salvia. That's just ridiculous. Very, very few violent crimes are directly linked to hallucinogens. People don't just take mushrooms or salvia and mutate into a ferocious homicidal psychopath.
This is not to say that psychedelics are not hazardous. These substances are dangerous because they can psychologically traumatize people, and that's why their use needs to be taken SERIOUSLY instead of treated as a fun recreational activity for all people regardless of individual character, age, etc.
Look.... I get that you feel anguish over the Hellish state of our world and that you are disturbed by the apparent indifference demonstrated by people who knowingly are on the purchasing end of the most brutal sectors of the rogue economy. But you cannot allow your distress to lead you into crudely dualistic thinking....
...What's worse is that you seem to be making Buddhism into a sword and shield for your emotional reactivity. You've been spiteful and belittling in this thread. On several occasions you have mentioned feeling "amused" or talked about "laughing" at the Karmic results of bad activity. Are you Yama, that you are in a place to laugh at the Karma of others? Will you be laughing with Yama when the sort of Karma you are generating with your angry, distressed reactivity bears its own fruit?
If one wishes to remove one's own (or anyone else's) cushy materialistic worldview,one simply removes all of one's cushy materialistic comforts and surroundings. Stoning oneself off one's ass like a big spoiled brat of a nihilistic materialistic whining baby in the middle of one's cushy materialistic surroundings only makes one less of a big spoiled brat of a nihilistic materialistic whining baby in one's own deluded imagination. The Buddha certainly had both the option and the wealth to engage in such behavior as much as he pleased, but neither embraced nor advocated such behavior in the least.
I think it's pretty obvious that the phrase "big spoiled brat of a nihilistic materialistic whining baby in the middle of one's cushy materialistic surroundings" contains a pretty obvious implicit accusation.
Against whom exactly is it an accusation? I have accused absolutely no one whatsoever of ever being in such physical circumstances (wealthy, privileged) wishing to remove their materialistic worldview by simply stoning their consciousness out of awareness of their materialism while sitting in the middle of their materialism rather than by making the effort of physically removing their materialism.
3 separate people here have declared that there is an absolute need for a babysitter, a responsible adult, a mommie, a tripsitter, to watch over and care for anyone engaging in the process of "tripping" (stoning oneself off one's ass) as it can reduce an adult to the vulnerable infant status of very much needing one.
If you really didn't mean to convey the idea that people who use hallucinogens are displaying behavior indicative of a privileged ("cushy") status and immature emotional state ("spoiled", "whiny"), well.... I apologize for misreading your statement. But certainly you can imagine how someone would read such language?
No, frankly I can't imagine how anyone ends up interpreting a hypothetical statement about a hypothetical individual with a Prince Shakyamuni degree of wealth and privilege as some sort of personal accusation of anything. I also can't imagine how anyone ends up interpreting "stoning oneself off one's ass" as referring to any particular substance when people get stoned on anything and everything imaginable from airplane glue and angel dust to salvia and ecstasy and Jack Daniels.
An example which should really illustrate the error of your reasoning and ground this in the issue at hand is the ritualized use of Ayahuasca in the Americas. In several locales, this substance was critical to shamanic religious tradition.
Shamanism is not a religion that is at all native to the Americas. Shamanism is a native religion of Asia. The Native American communities I have contact with endlessly complain about "university druggie white wannabes" and Native sellouts dressing up in more or less traditional native garb and marketing false American "shamanism" in the name of Native America. They regard it as economically-driven cultural and religious abuse and exploitation of the Native American community of the worst sort.
It would be totally inexcusable of me not to address the very real, devastating carnage that is a direct result of the narcotics trade...But this has very little to do with the world of psychedelics.
It's obvious you never had to deal with somebody having LSD flashbacks in the middle of your workplace years after he quit using, and never saw anybody on PCP in your life. Both are psychedelics.
I wasn't even aware that people were trying to pin the blame for that attempted killing of that congresswoman on Salvia. That's just ridiculous. Very, very few violent crimes are directly linked to hallucinogens.
Please present your research that supports your claim. I'd say that it is more than obvious you never saw anybody on PCP in your life. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_4_19/ai_97450984/ As for laughing at karma... karma is karma, and it is always amusing to watch the wheel of karma turn because of the surprise factor in spite of everybody's cognizance of its inevitability. The 3rd grade teacher had been living with a dealer, after all. It's rather like the Monty Python routine about no one ever expecting the Spanish Inquisition when the Spanish Inquisition has already come across the stage 3 times and they're standing in the wings with their robes sticking out and yet somehow "no one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition."
@Aura would you be willing to share your personal experience(s) with drugs?
What do you think I have been sharing with you other than my personal experience with drugs?
I meant an actual recount of the experience(s) you had within a context. Like, are you a nurse or other medical professional? Are you a parent who has struggled with their kids? Did you watch while a friend did some out of control things on PCP?
I lived in 2 different neighborhoods that were each rated "most dangerous" in the United States at the time I lived there, as a child, as a young mother, as a student, and as a teacher. Listing my observations of drugs would fill an encyclopedia. I will share with you the biggest happiest neighborhood party I ever saw in my entire life; you would have thought the neighborhood block had won the Superbowl: It was conducted in the street around the dead body of a 17 year old pusher hideously impaled and mangled after he slammed into the side of a car on a motorcycle going 90 in a 25 zone (according to the police calculations from the skid marks). He was the son of a pusher and the younger brother of 2 older pusher brothers in federal prison. I'd never seen so many people out on the street celebrating together at one time in my life. It was a terrifically bizarre scene among the emergency vehicles and flashing lights, somehow oddly reminiscent of the munchkins singing "ding dong the witch is dead" from the Wizard of Oz. I will share the ugliest sight I ever saw in my entire life: a guy who had tried to kill himself on PCP by shooting himself in the head with a shotgun and who survived to be walking down the street with 6 pieces of lead still in his brain and an incredibly deformed skull. I would not have thought that was at all humanly possible if I had not seen it myself. I will share the saddest sight I ever saw: A young girl who had put a knife through her own hand and pinned it to the family dinner table in the middle of dinner in screaming protest against a father who had sexually abused her all her life as his second most favorite "recreational drug" after "recreational drugs."
I lived in 2 different neighborhoods that were each rated "most dangerous" in the United States at the time I lived there, as a child, as a young mother, as a student, and as a teacher. Listing my observations of drugs would fill an encyclopedia. I will share with you the biggest happiest neighborhood party I ever saw in my entire life; you would have thought the neighborhood block had won the Superbowl: It was conducted in the street around the dead body of a 17 year old pusher hideously impaled and mangled after he slammed into the side of a car on a motorcycle going 90 in a 25 zone (according to the police calculations from the skid marks). He was the son of a pusher and the younger brother of 2 older pusher brothers in federal prison. I'd never seen so many people out on the street celebrating together at one time in my life. It was a terrifically bizarre scene among the emergency vehicles and flashing lights, somehow oddly reminiscent of the munchkins singing "ding dong the witch is dead" from the Wizard of Oz. I will share the ugliest sight I ever saw in my entire life: a guy who had tried to kill himself on PCP by shooting himself in the head with a shotgun and who survived to be walking down the street with 6 pieces of lead still in his brain and an incredibly deformed skull. I would not have thought that was at all humanly possible if I had not seen it myself. I will share the saddest sight I ever saw: A young girl who had put a knife through her own hand and pinned it to the family dinner table in the middle of dinner in screaming protest against a father who had sexually abused her all her life as his second most favorite "recreational drug" after "recreational drugs."
This sounds pretty horrific. I can understand why you have the reaction to drugs that you do. It sounds like you've been affected on a level akin to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I'm wondering if you've talked to anyone about this as it seems you've really taken it to heart.
Now, I do think you are taking your worst case scenario experiences and painting all drugs with that same brush. While the realities of the opium trade and drug cartels are a very harsh reality not to be ignored, it is possible to use certain substances without contributing to those situations at all. Also, it is arguable that our legal approach to drug use is MUCH more at fault than the drug use itself. Just look at what Portugal has done policy-wise. They've improved on every single measurable factor since changing to a rehabilitation approach from a criminal one.
it is possible to use certain substances without contributing to those situations at all.
It is also possible to use certain substances that slowly produce cancer in one's body and live in complete denial until the lab tests come back positive. Best of luck.
@aura thank you for sharing your experiences, those images can't be easy to carry around in your head. I now have a better appreciation for you and can certailyn understand your position on drugs better than before. It does sound like those people have deeper issues and the drugs made it infinitely worse. In what cities were you living when these things happened?
it is possible to use certain substances without contributing to those situations at all.
It is also possible to use certain substances that slowly produce cancer in one's body and live in complete denial until the lab tests come back positive. Best of luck.
It is also shown in clinical studies that some things actually might reduce the incidence of cancer in subjects. My point is that you seem to only accept one side of this debate and reject anything on the other side out of hand. You take your own personal experience as applying to any and all sides of the debate as some sort of a trump card. This is what I am reacting to. You are arguing from a position, not so much the facts. And while you have presented facts and present very real dangers and consequences, it seems that you leave out anything that does not support your position.
So, while I'm sure you have the best of intentions, I am simply going to have to disagree with you on the points that facts disagree with you on. And I will agree with you to on the points that facts agree with you on.
Anyway, I don't want to drag out an endless argument with you as I feel it will be fruitless. I do feel your 'drugs are bad mmkay' approach is overly simplistic, ineffective as a persuasion technique and intellectually dishonest, even though you have several points I do agree with you on.
Comments
It seems I have always had a nagging missing piece. I would try and fill this by eating, masturbating, travel, work... all the normal stuff in life. Nothing satisfied this nagging void. The first time I did mushrooms, this nagging went away (the first time in my life). I realized that there were things that I could experience that didn't translate into mental understanding, this was my first understanding of spirituality. As I explored further on later trips, I had an overwhelming familiar sense that everything was OK. Fear was silly. Anger was silly. Love (not sex, lust or co-dependence) was more than I ever imagined it was. All people mattered, no matter what my judgement was. While on mushrooms, I realized the limitations of using a drug to fill that void in my life (I knew instantly that while this may have been the personal proof I was looking for, that I would have to achieve it through means other than drugs). I also made physical and mental notes about my experiences. I told myself to not forget how real/true it felt. I told myself to remember the experience itself. I told myself to not waste this "proof" and to move forward on my spiritual path. I told myself to not get stuck on this feeling, that there may be more beyond this experience.
This is the point where I started to read volumes about drugs, consciousness, spirituality, etc. At that point some DMT was acquired by my bf and stored for an appropriate time. After reading and studying "The Spirit Molecule", the Tibetan book of the death, and other books, I was able to take the DMT and experience something beyond my previous experiences. I left that experience with the most peaceful, loving feeling I have ever experienced. My thoughts on death shifted. I gained an understanding of how others can view a situation so differently and not be wrong. Compassion, a topic which I often failed to grasp, was making sense.
All these experiences pointed me back to buddhism. Which ultimately led me to REALLY investigate buddhism from a spiritual sense (as before it was more a philosophical interest). So, I guess the simple answer to your question, is it helped me to recognize my spiritual nature and come to terms with the fact that some evidence can only be experienced and is non-transferable.
@seeker242 it absolutely does have to do with Buddhism: see above.
That said, you can still be a Buddhist, or at least consider yourself one, and take drugs. You can still have insights that bolster your understanding of reality and lead you further towards the Buddhadharma. In a society consumed with materialism and the mundane, many people's spiritual paths begin or involve the use of drugs, as they open up new dimensions of experience not discussed in polite society. This has led countless people to genuine spiritual paths. It did for me, it did for friends of mine. I've read many testimonials from Buddhists who have done these things and have moved to real practice because they wanted to see further into reality and needed to do so with out any aids or crutches.
In my own experience, drug use led me out of many of my neuroses and towards Buddhism. I've also had lasting breakthroughs into the meaning of koans that led to further insights into my day to day life. The main difficulty I've had with using substances is that it tends to replace practice and that I begin to become psychologically dependent on those substances, even if not in a debilitating sense.
The thing is though, that when I have used, I wasn't on the path anyway, so to speak. But it seems that the usage has invariably revived my practice and study of the Dharma. So when I hear people making absolutist statements about things doing more damage than good, I will have to respectfully disagree. And it's also possible to learn from negative experiences of delusions followed in the course of doing them. It is also possible to learn from even subtle forms of psychological dependency. If you feel the need to use substances, chances are there's something behind that 'need'. Something deeper that needs to be explored and addressed and realized. Problems come in when you aggrandize the experience beyond a mere experience. They also come if you don't test and apply your insights and new understandings in the 'cold light of day'. I've had many an insight that has given me a greater depth of understanding of myself, my experience and even the Buddhadharma. So, discount if you wish, that's up to you.
On the other hand, there are very real dangers and I was fortunate enough to not have any propensities towards schizophrenia or other illnesses that activated under the experiences I've had. But many others are less fortunate and truly damage themselves, sometimes beyond repair. This is why I don't advocate usage, even though i've found value from it in my own life. At this point, I know that I'm not really going to gain much from doing things anymore and i'd simply be trying to recreate experiences that I've already had. In other words, I wouldn't be helping myself.
Also, in regard to what Aura was saying, there are substances that DO contribute to the things they are talkng about, but psilocybin, LSD and marijuana are not those things. Well, mexian grown marijuana does cause a lot of carnage, so if that's what you're getting, that's what you're causing.
ironically it was lsd that broke my addictive patterns for women and external satisfaction.
maybe one day we'll live in a society where they clean up these drugs by engineering them to be perfect and also give education and adequate environment for people to explore their minds.
until then i'm going to advocate not taking drugs. honestly it was the start, but not the means towards spirituality.
watching your immediate experience and seeing the three marks is much more helpful than creating conditions towards your seeing. what you see right now is what there is. if you keep looking outwards, you're going to be disappointed.
Hallucinogens = Buddhism
or
Hallucinogens -> Buddhism
People are saying:
The life I lead, hallucinogens, other things, other things, Buddhism, relating in the context of a developing life.
it's such a fun play!
but if you want a personal experience..
i tripped on lsd .. very bad trip..
led me to social anxiety, panic attacks, psychosis and depression for almost 2 years..
recovering now..
don't mess with drugs.. in my experience the worst part about a mental illness is that you're in it by yourself because no one can fully understand what you go through.. so you have to pull yourself out of it..
i suppose the positive part of it was that i was destroying my life in other ways too, so the experience forced me to mature a lot earlier because of what i went through lol
it does depend on the user, but all it takes is one single thought and shift in mood to set off something you have no control over.
i find reality to be enough, i have more fulfilling things to do with my life now.
Mankind has and always will use magical mushrooms, ayahuasca, marijuana, and other PLANTS as part of his psycho evolutionary tool for traversing the astral plane and to feed his starving intellect. These substances propel human understanding forward into the far flung reaches of the cosmos by sparking a sense of awe and curiosity that can only by followed by an burning desire to uproot the truth behind the matter.
Tripping on any sort of hallucinogenic substance for me is a extremely spiritual experience. It reminds me that life (and sanity) is precious. I know and have been told by many learned people that hallucinogens can open the door, but meditation is only tool that will take you outside.
Love and light!
p.s.
if you ever do decide to trip for the first time make sure you have a friend babysit you so you dont do anything irrational.
also guys you are not going to convince people that there are different kinds of drugs.
all drugs are evil. all drugs are good. who makes good and evil?
If the Soma of the ancient Vedic sacrificial fire ritual was a hallucinogenic substance, should we assume that the aftermath of a Vedic fire ritual was a feces smeared orgy of suffering, madness and death? When a huge stash of marijuana is found in the tomb of a 5000 year old Central Asian shaman, does this indicate that the society this individual came from was a Hell of drug-induced criminality? Laughable.
Anyone with any sort of clarity should be able to grasp that social context is incredibly important to the subject of this discussion.
If "anyone with any sort of clarity should be able to grasp that social context is incredibly important to the subject of this discussion" it is obvious to you that "rituals" go extinct in society exactly because they failed to build, support, and maintain a functional sustainable community that honored and continued them.
Therefore, if some extinct 5000 year old "Vedic sacrificial fire ritual" did not manage to build, support, and maintain a sustainable community that continued its methods and traditions to the present day, that tradition has been demonstrated as not functional or sustainable over time.
Currently in 2011 I see little kids suffering all around as a result of a very large, very powerful, very exploitative recreational drug industry. Drug-induced physical criminality is only the very tip of a very large iceberg of recreational-drug-industry ECONOMICALLY-induced criminality. I also see kids in foster care whose lives have been shattered because their "cottage drug industry" parents are in jail or because their employment prospects are so few from their having been incarcerated. I see Mexico exploding in recreational-drug-industry-market-share-struggle-induced violence, and some guy supposedly psychotic from salvia shot a congresswoman and 19 innocent bystanders. My point is that what people choose to physically, economically, and/or philosophically empower in society as individuals has very real effects on the rest of society, for which there are very real personal karmic consequences.
The only reason why Buddhism survives to the present day is because it has built a functional sustainable community centered on honoring, practicing, and exemplifying for others the Precepts, the Eightfold Path, and continual mindfulness of the karmic consequences of all of one's actions on this earth.
Life is headpopping enough- as previously stated- but for the terminally uninspired, the same four walls... are no longer the same four walls...
Or you could just redecorate the house
When we arrived I took my first ever Ecstacy tablet. Just as soon as I swallowed it I got this bad feeling in the pit of my stomach like: 0-oh! We walked on a long road towards the music party and it wasn't long before the pill started to hit me.
As we neared the party this track was playing (except it was probably a hundred times louder than your average desktop speakers):
This scared the shit out of me. All my former coping mechanisms were absent, and I was suddenly ultra sensitive to anything aggressive. No where to hide from my own brain, OH NO.
I literally ran away towards the sea. As I stood there it felt like a small nuclear explosion had gone off in my head. If my brain cells were all trees, they were all flattened by the fire in my brain. I remember saying to myself, if this gets any stronger I'm going to pass out.
Well I didn't and here's me tripping on my own ego. One of my former friends mentioned I haven't been the same since. No use crying over spilled milk tho I guess.
So that's my story on the 'tripping' thread. *yawn*
Institutions and practices survive because they "build, support, and maintain a functional sustainable community" and go out of practice because they fail to do this. Is this always the case? Is the prevalence of the institution of human slavery throughout history, surviving all the way up in to modern times (i.e, the drug trade you've referred to), indicative of its ability to "build, support, and maintain a functional sustainable community"? When a practice or institution goes out of practice, does this always indicate that it failed based on its own lack of merit, without the interference of any other circumstances?
An example which should really illustrate the error of your reasoning and ground this in the issue at hand is the ritualized use of Ayahuasca in the Americas. In several locales, this substance was critical to shamanic religious tradition. Did these traditions go out of practice because it tended to destroy the social fabric of peoples who hosted this tradition? No. They existed without interruption for a very long time, and went out of practice when the tribes that participated in them were enslaved by and absorbed into Western colonial civilization, and in particular, when they were converted to Christianity. You keep talking about the "little kids", and the dead bodies and the feces - all as a result of the monolithic abstract of "drugs". It would be totally inexcusable of me not to address the very real, devastating carnage that is a direct result of the narcotics trade. Mexico is practically in a state of civil war right now due to this problem. When people purchase cocaine, Mexican marijuana, and heroin, they are pumping money directly into this problem... or into the parallel problem that exists in the Pacific Northwest which as associated partly with organized crime from Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe (heroin).
But this has very little to do with the world of psychedelics. Speaking from firsthand experience in the distant past of my teens, psilocybin spores are often traded among hallucinogen enthusiasts and grown for individual consumption. Hell, I've seen naturally occurring psilocybin for sale by hippies. You're saying that you've seen lives ruined by this kind of 'cottage-industry', and I presume you're referring to marijuana as that is very easy to grow and quite common. I don't disbelieve your story, but some would argue that it's a better case for legalizing the growth and consumption of marijuana than it is for further demonizing the substance. And regarding the ruined lives you say you've witnessed - how many other factors were involved?
Regarding violence and hallucinogens... I wasn't even aware that people were trying to pin the blame for that attempted killing of that congresswoman on Salvia. That's just ridiculous. Very, very few violent crimes are directly linked to hallucinogens. People don't just take mushrooms or salvia and mutate into a ferocious homicidal psychopath.
This is not to say that psychedelics are not hazardous. These substances are dangerous because they can psychologically traumatize people, and that's why their use needs to be taken SERIOUSLY instead of treated as a fun recreational activity for all people regardless of individual character, age, etc.
Look.... I get that you feel anguish over the Hellish state of our world and that you are disturbed by the apparent indifference demonstrated by people who knowingly are on the purchasing end of the most brutal sectors of the rogue economy. But you cannot allow your distress to lead you into crudely dualistic thinking....
...What's worse is that you seem to be making Buddhism into a sword and shield for your emotional reactivity. You've been spiteful and belittling in this thread. On several occasions you have mentioned feeling "amused" or talked about "laughing" at the Karmic results of bad activity. Are you Yama, that you are in a place to laugh at the Karma of others? Will you be laughing with Yama when the sort of Karma you are generating with your angry, distressed reactivity bears its own fruit?
I have accused absolutely no one whatsoever of ever being in such physical circumstances (wealthy, privileged) wishing to remove their materialistic worldview by simply stoning their consciousness out of awareness of their materialism while sitting in the middle of their materialism rather than by making the effort of physically removing their materialism.
3 separate people here have declared that there is an absolute need for a babysitter, a responsible adult, a mommie, a tripsitter, to watch over and care for anyone engaging in the process of "tripping" (stoning oneself off one's ass)
as it can reduce an adult to the vulnerable infant status of very much needing one. No, frankly I can't imagine how anyone ends up interpreting a hypothetical statement about a hypothetical individual with a Prince Shakyamuni degree of wealth and privilege as some sort of personal accusation of anything.
I also can't imagine how anyone ends up interpreting "stoning oneself off one's ass" as referring to any particular substance when people get stoned on anything and everything imaginable from airplane glue and angel dust to salvia and ecstasy and Jack Daniels. Shamanism is not a religion that is at all native to the Americas. Shamanism is a native religion of Asia. The Native American communities I have contact with endlessly complain about "university druggie white wannabes" and Native sellouts dressing up in more or less traditional native garb and marketing false American "shamanism" in the name of Native America. They regard it as economically-driven cultural and religious abuse and exploitation of the Native American community of the worst sort. It's obvious you never had to deal with somebody having LSD flashbacks in the middle of your workplace years after he quit using, and never saw anybody on PCP in your life. Both are psychedelics. Please present your research that supports your claim. I'd say that it is more than obvious you never saw anybody on PCP in your life.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_4_19/ai_97450984/
As for laughing at karma... karma is karma, and it is always amusing to watch the wheel of karma turn because of the surprise factor in spite of everybody's cognizance of its inevitability. The 3rd grade teacher had been living with a dealer, after all. It's rather like the Monty Python routine about no one ever expecting the Spanish Inquisition when the Spanish Inquisition has already come across the stage 3 times and they're standing in the wings with their robes sticking out and yet somehow "no one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition."
I will share with you the biggest happiest neighborhood party I ever saw in my entire life; you would have thought the neighborhood block had won the Superbowl:
It was conducted in the street around the dead body of a 17 year old pusher hideously impaled and mangled after he slammed into the side of a car on a motorcycle going 90 in a 25 zone (according to the police calculations from the skid marks). He was the son of a pusher and the younger brother of 2 older pusher brothers in federal prison. I'd never seen so many people out on the street celebrating together at one time in my life. It was a terrifically bizarre scene among the emergency vehicles and flashing lights, somehow oddly reminiscent of the munchkins singing "ding dong the witch is dead" from the Wizard of Oz.
I will share the ugliest sight I ever saw in my entire life:
a guy who had tried to kill himself on PCP by shooting himself in the head with a shotgun and who survived to be walking down the street with 6 pieces of lead still in his brain and an incredibly deformed skull. I would not have thought that was at all humanly possible if I had not seen it myself.
I will share the saddest sight I ever saw:
A young girl who had put a knife through her own hand and pinned it to the family dinner table in the middle of dinner in screaming protest against a father who had sexually abused her all her life as his second most favorite "recreational drug" after "recreational drugs."
Now, I do think you are taking your worst case scenario experiences and painting all drugs with that same brush. While the realities of the opium trade and drug cartels are a very harsh reality not to be ignored, it is possible to use certain substances without contributing to those situations at all. Also, it is arguable that our legal approach to drug use is MUCH more at fault than the drug use itself. Just look at what Portugal has done policy-wise. They've improved on every single measurable factor since changing to a rehabilitation approach from a criminal one.
So, while I'm sure you have the best of intentions, I am simply going to have to disagree with you on the points that facts disagree with you on. And I will agree with you to on the points that facts agree with you on.
Anyway, I don't want to drag out an endless argument with you as I feel it will be fruitless. I do feel your 'drugs are bad mmkay' approach is overly simplistic, ineffective as a persuasion technique and intellectually dishonest, even though you have several points I do agree with you on.