Buddha and Drugs

interesting...

The Fifth Precept: 'I undertake the rule of training to refrain from distillled and fermented intoxicants producing heedlessness'. (1)

... All the [first] four precepts depend for their purity, upon constant vigilance and if the mind is overcome by intoxicants, then what harm may not result?

(footnote 1) It is significant that all substances producing a distortion of normal human experience find a place under the Fifth Precept. In India, both ancient and modern, the use of drugs to stimulate 'religious' experiences including visual and auditory hallucinations, has been and is very well known and quite widely practised. The 'insights' claimed by some who in the present day take mescalin, etc, should be tested against the difference which these experiences make to the forces of greed, aversion and delusion in their hearts and conduct. Particulartly if it is claimed that these drugs offer a kind of shortcut to Enlightenment, whether called vipassana or satori, then it must be stressed that no real shortcut of this sort is possible and such experience cannot replace effort spread over years or even over lives.

from Buddhism Explained by Bhikkhu Khantipalo (Buddha Educational Foundation, Singapore, circa 1973)


listening to Kate Bush : The man with the child in his eyes

Is there a Buddhist 'Meaning of Life'?

What would Buddha answer to 'What is the Meaning of Life?'. The Dalai Llama has a book, which i intend to get hold of, but does anyone else have suggestions on where to look for a Buddhist perspective on this specific question?

Unrelated: Jewish ethical perspective on using technology and medicine. It's a bit introductory, but not bad.


moved this to today, 'cos I'm still interested in hearing others' viewpoints on this

listening to Coldcut | Journeys By DJ

Is Spirituality Like Us?

Matt pointed me to a section from a Tibetan buddhist text the other day. See Matt’s blog – which also contains a selection of his music . Matt and I have discussed a mutual interest in buddhism, and its interaction with its Tibetan ‘buddhist’ offshoot.

The text in question, while being far from the extreme of this genre, talks of a monk’s mystical experiences of a sacred mountain, and of the so-called Dalai Llama’s assertion that 60 "superbliss deities" live there. It reads, to my jaundiced eye, like so much mumbo jumbo. And is, in my opinion, fairly removed from what little we know of the original teaching of Gautama. But that is by the by. The point is this text, like so much religion, is just weird.

And this got me to thinking: Is spirituality like us?

Is meeting the true Spirit, getting in touch with g0d, receiving enlightenment a weird, alien and uncomfortable experience? (This is a particular trap for those who think psychedelic drugs lead to real and true spiritual experiences.) Or, is the source of life LIKE us, so that meeting it/him/her is like bringing us home to a familiar but long-forgotten place?

Well, you’ve already guessed I plump for the latter. Yes, I acknowledge the great spiritual explorers have experienced some pretty weird things. One only has to read Juliana of Norwich or the prophet Ezekiel to see that. And yet, I think the core spirituality – that which leads us to the true centre rather than distracts us with little games - the true spirituality is MORE human rather than less. More comforting than disconcerting. More sane, than unsane. More mundane than fantastic.

Perhaps the next time some enthusiast assails us with cultic religiosity that would make a shaman’s toenails curl, we could recite the following holy mantra, which is guaranteed to forever banish the demons of obfuscation:

“Bullshit.”


listening to Black Sun Empire | Stasis