Home | Community | Message Board
You are not signed in.
Sign In New Account
Forum Index Search Posts Trusted Vendors Highlights Galleries FAQ User List Chat Store Random Growery


This site includes paid links. Please support our sponsors.

General Interest > Philosophy, Sociology & Psychology
Threaded Mode Threaded  Previous topic Previous  View all topics Index  Next topic Next 

Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!

Shop: North Spore North Spore Mushroom Grow Kits & Cultivation Supplies   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order   Myyco.com Golden Teacher Liquid Culture For Sale   Sporeworks.EU Spores for European Microscopy   Original Sensible Seeds Autoflowering Cannabis Seeds

Jump to first unread post Pages: | 1 | 2  [ show all ]
Re: Buddhist retreats? [Re: Sinbad]
    #6051184 -

Let me ask the buddhists here.

Is tripping an acceptable form of spiritual practice? If yes, then is it (should it) an acceptable Buddhist practice (in your opinions). Or I guess I'm wondering what you guys thought about tripping and what the general concenses would be from the buddhist community about tripping. The fact that you guys are on this site makes me believe that you guys trip (or atleast have tripped before).

For me personally, to make a clear distinction between tripping and meditating would be hard. At low doses or when I'm coming down from a trip, it definitely feels as if I am meditating, and it feels like it's a great help in achieving that single pointedness of mind, and for extended periods of time.

I think there's some pro's and cons. I think a pro would be that it makes it easy to achieve those extreme altered states of consciousness very similar to a state probably achieveable only from many years of meditation. ... and I guess that also makes it a con. I think the struggle in itself... to exercise that mind on your own... is a great opportunity for mental development that you are foregoing.

On a side note, I do notice some differences. When I'm tripping, I can almost see different brain processes... and can hear some different conversations going on... I haven't got that with meditating.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Buddhist retreats? [Re: djtetsu]
    #6051388 -

djtetsu said:
Let me ask the buddhists here.




There are no buddhist's here :grin:

Quote:
Is tripping an acceptable form of spiritual practice? If yes, then is it (should it) an acceptable Buddhist practice (in your opinions).  Or I guess I'm wondering what you guys thought about tripping and what the general consensus would be from the buddhist community about tripping. The fact that you guys are on this site makes me believe that you guys trip (or at least have tripped before).



Acceptable by whom?  I see it as a valuable aid to spiritual practice, but not a practice in of itself.  As an acceptable buddhist practice, some say yes, others say no, others say MU!

Quote:
For me personally, to make a clear distinction between tripping and meditating would be hard.



Meditating is holding yourself in perfect balance.  Tripping is something to help hold you up.

Quote:
At low doses or when I'm coming down from a trip, it definitely feels as if I am meditating, and it feels like it's a great help in achieving that single pointedness of mind, and for extended periods of time.





Balancing is easy when you have something to hold onto :wink:

Quote:
I think there's some pro's and cons.  I think a pro would be that it makes it easy to achieve those extreme altered states of consciousness very similar to a state probably achievable only from many years of meditation.... and I guess that also makes it a con.  I think the struggle in itself... to exercise that mind on your own... is a great opportunity for mental development that you are foregoing.



From my experience, they cannot be linked that easily.  Tripping is tripping, meditating is meditating.  Tripping shows you how you are when you are tripping, but meditation simply shows how you are. 

I find with meditation, I become the awareness that observes states and feeling tones come and go, thereby transcending the states.  With tripping, it is easier to maintain a steady state of awareness, but it is also easier to associate yourself with a particular state or feeling tone than when not tripping. 

Quote:
On a side note, I do notice some differences.  When I'm tripping, I can almost see different brain processes... and can hear some different conversations going on...  I haven't got that with meditating.


Tripping opens attention so much that the field of direct experience expands exponentially without much effort.  The reason you cant sense that stuff when meditating is because your attention is fixated on something, therefore closing off other experiences.  Try this, RIGHT NOW, quickly look at an object in the room...


Now, what happened to everything else?  Where did it go?  At that exact moment, were you breathing in or breathing out?  Attention closes around the object of fixation excluding many of the details of your experience.

I hope I answered your question. 

:heart: Peace :heart:

:hippie: 


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Buddhist retreats? [Re: Quoiyaien]
    #6052044 -

thanks for the thought out reply.

I agree and disagree on some of your points.

Part of reason being I was getting used to doing really low doses and preferred that mid-way point between tripping and meditating versus a full blown trip. So to me the line was really blurry. And it could also be that they both have subjective elements to them (I see hallucinations during meditation).

But mostly I agree. It is a great spiritual aid. I can personally vouche for my mushrooms because it .. in a way .. got me started on a daily meditation (though it's not always sustained!)

It's interesting that Buddha explicitly told his followers not to do drugs, and by drugs he meant any intoxicants.

I guess my response to that would be, 'so what?'

There are no buddhists here.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Buddhist retreats? [Re: djtetsu]
    #6052622 -

I think psycadelics as useful as far as they can open the socially conditioned mind to new ways of thinking and being that our beyond our usual conceptions of 'reality'. As far as Buddhism is concerned, i find that most forms of it present complete paths in and of themselves without the need for any chemical altering of mental functioning.

IMHO psycadelics can offer 'temporary' spiriutal insights  given the correct set of circumstnces, causes and conditions. But this is also greatly dependent upon the condition of the individuals  body, energy and mind at the time of consumption. But to me it seems very much like playing russian rulette without the proper guidence of an authentic shaman, and as the insights are unstable and temporary in nature, i see little benefit from repeated psycadelic usage in the long-run. Better to meditate.

Saying all of this i recognize that without psycadelics i might never have developed an active interest in Buddhism at all. So i do owe them a debt of gratitude for that, hence why i feel very much at home in this community.  :heart:


--------------------

Edited by Sinbad (09/12/06 09:25 AM)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Buddhist retreats? [Re: Sinbad]
    #6052668 -

I'm a card carrying Buddhist.

I have meditated, tripped, and meditated while tripping. Each experience is different.

No Buddhists I have met prescribe any intoxicant for anything.

That said, there are more and less uptight Buddhists from those who seem like whip cracking Sister Marys, to those who don't realize the Sixties are over. And everything in between.

I personally am a drug addict. No drugs no happiness for me. That's the way it is.

On the other hand I do often go without drugs for weeks or months or years depending on the circumstances. So I am mixed up about the whole thing.

I can tell you this from a lifetime of meditation, and I do mean 25 years, starting when I was fifteen. And that is, the insights from drug induced meditations pass, the insights from non-drug induced meditations pass. What does not pass is the certainty of perception itself, which one want to be sure is not drug induced but the ipso facto signs of refinement as based on the path one has chosen.

To allay doubt and create peace of mind one must be sure that what they are doing is correct, and that sense of correctness cannot be had by experimentation alone. One must at some point follow their path with sureness and follow all the rules, or else thay just will never know what they are doing.

Since I did follow the path correctly for a number of years, before blending my own personal habits into it, I feel comforted about what I am doing and where I am. I cannot translate that into your life.

Each of you has to make a choice which may be extremely hard for you, though not impossible, to either follow a path as layed out for you by those who have gone before, or to forge your own path.

I suggest that if you don't care to follow, then you're not going to, if you are following then this isn't a meaningful conversation, but if you're someone in the middle trying to figure out what to do, then the path is specifically for you. And you should follow it as taught, with no intoxicants, so that you may be sure about what can come from it.

So I have not preached a good and evil to follow/abstain. I have set out three clear choices. I have followed each in its turn. And now at the age of fourty I am somewhere in the middle, based on the exigencies of my life.

I would seriously recommend though that all people at least take some time off from drugs and everything, all of the materialist goals, to pursue some inner finesse and perception in their lifetime. Otherwise, they will never change for the better and experience what I call bhava, or the joy of becoming more divine.


--------------------
...or something






Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Buddhist retreats? [Re: eve69]
    #6052736 -

Indeed i do not think its totally impossible to take psycadelics sparingly and still follow an authentic spiriutal path. After all, this reality is merely an illusion as far as Buddhism is concerned anyway, so it is as it is. Also I think there is a tendency with any religion or tradition for people to limit themselves and become quite fundamental in there views toward others, even when they have been in similar situations themselves.

Personally i feel that many Vajrayana practitioners in general are hypocritical in that they will feel it ok to drink alcohol mindfully, but all other substances must be out of the question! To me, this is just wrong view. Personally i always feel like a beginner on my path, so as far as compatability of psycadelics and buddhism is conerned, i really dont know. Maybe i shuld take some more mushrooms just too see.  :wink: :lol:


--------------------

Edited by Sinbad (09/12/06 09:46 AM)

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Buddhist retreats? [Re: Sinbad]
    #6052853 -

our teacher used to scrutinize us:
how many hours were you stoned this week?
how many hours did you meditate?
(any overlapping was called being stoned, not meditating)

he looked grumpy at any ratio that was not strongly in favor of meditating.
even more grumpy when non-stoners were in vicinity, at those times he would treat all stoners as slime worms, which was pretty funny.

another korean teacher used to blow weed on friday nites with me and my now ex-wife (she just watched and laughed - really he was her friend); after we finished our family dinner we would go visit his temple with some hash or joints; once at the end of a retreat, he drove 15 miles to my house on the back of a flat bed construction truck and in this way visited me (I guess a contractor told him where I lived) very late at night (2AM) with some sangha to crack open my stash and smoke - which was funny all in a circle like that.
he now completely denies that happenned and declines any recollection of me, and I know he's not senile.

What a businessman!


--------------------
:brainfart: _ :finger:

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Buddhist retreats? [Re: redgreenvines]
    #6052877 -

Perhaps it was all just a salvia induced hallucination?  :smirk: :lol:


--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Buddhist retreats? [Re: Sinbad]
    #6052886 -

we were in heaven
it was a secret


--------------------
:brainfart: _ :finger:

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Buddhist retreats? [Re: redgreenvines]
    #6053225 -

Since I am a Vajrayanist, I can tell you that I am not a hypocrite. I admitted to being a druggy. But that doesn't mean that I feel that the path is hypocritical either. The use of the substances is in general meant to open the heart and to allow indiscriminate compassion. Now that may sometimes be the outcome of psychedelics, but more often than not, as even a shallow perusal of these forums will show, is that people actually become even more dualistic through drug use. First off is the dualism of the highs and lows produced through chemistry, and then also, since most drug use is done outside of ritual settings which emphasize nonduality, what happens is that the unprepared druggy engages the dualitic discursive mind even more without any training through which to transcend it.

As I have mentioned elsewhere Namkhai Norbu says a problem with drugs is that they lend themselves not to liberation but to increased craving/attachment, and the yearning for more and more. Ppadmasambhava said the entore world would be detroyed through drugs, and my Tsawai lama Kunzang Dechen Lingpa said how the various maras when buddha beat them all vowed to reincarnate as the drugs of abuse.

Thus the Vajrayana admits alcohol in tsok practice as a sacrament, but sees no further benefit for the practitioner.

Thus, one is pretty much on their own regarding drug use. Which may be bad, but it also may be good as the road for clarifiying awareness is therefore also clear and steadily open and nondependent upon substances.

That is a great thing. If liberation depended on drugs then there would be very dry seasons.

There's no denying that drugs open the mind, but without a path and training there is no way to use those experiences. Namkhai Norbu tells of how traveling around India one sees the effects of drug use on Westerners who 'dropped out.' They are eating garbage and living free...as beggars...and that is not a successful life...from any perspective.

I personally use drugs to stave off the pain of extended work without repreive. It would be frowned upon by any of my lamas or gurus. I know that, and make no excuses. Thus I am not a good aspirant and I know that. Therefore I practice as much as possible and try to repair my samaya as often as I am able.

I don't think anybody here will respect a guru from any tradition who has not been able to acheive their liberation without drugs. That should be the long and short of it.

At any rate, drugs which produce dullness and carelessness are to be especially avoided. Since we are dealing with dualistic vision it behooves one to knowledge their capacity in general. Thus 'know thyself' is the key factor in drug abuse and the path. If not taking drugs makes one a hyper and caustic and evil person who likes to trample others, but getting high on pot makes one nice and friendly and helpful then this is in the nature of acknowledging ones capacity and making reparation in the manner which will benefit others.

To determine whether these are real issues to coonsider or not one again should know themself, and study a range of gurus as a bee goes to many flowers. And then finding one that yeilds the appropriate nectar, one should stay with that particular flower. Ie., search out a guru who can benefit you, on your level. And then work from that. The Vajrayana does not preclude anyone from engaging in practice. There is a practice for you somewhere out there.


--------------------
...or something






Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Buddhist retreats? [Re: eve69]
    #6053988 -

eve69 said:
I can tell you this from a lifetime of meditation, and I do mean 25 years, starting when I was fifteen. And that is, the insights from drug induced meditations pass, the insights from non-drug induced meditations pass. What does not pass is the certainty of perception itself, which one want to be sure is not drug induced but the ipso facto signs of refinement as based on the path one has chosen.

To allay doubt and create peace of mind one must be sure that what they are doing is correct, and that sense of correctness cannot be had by experimentation alone. One must at some point follow their path with sureness and follow all the rules, or else thay just will never know what they are doing.

Since I did follow the path correctly for a number of years, before blending my own personal habits into it, I feel comforted about what I am doing and where I am. I cannot translate that into your life.

Each of you has to make a choice which may be extremely hard for you, though not impossible, to either follow a path as layed out for you by those who have gone before, or to forge your own path.

I suggest that if you don't care to follow, then you're not going to, if you are following then this isn't a meaningful conversation, but if you're someone in the middle trying to figure out what to do, then the path is specifically for you. And you should follow it as taught, with no intoxicants, so that you may be sure about what can come from it.

So I have not preached a good and evil to follow/abstain. I have set out three clear choices. I have followed each in its turn. And now at the age of fourty I am somewhere in the middle, based on the exigencies of my life.

I would seriously recommend though that all people at least take some time off from drugs and everything, all of the materialist goals, to pursue some inner finesse and perception in their lifetime. Otherwise, they will never change for the better and experience what I call bhava, or the joy of becoming more divine.


thanks for the thought out response.

I think when I'm forty I will probably have similar reflections, a long history of meditating/tripping/doing drugs and ofcourse their different combinations. I will have less time having it done it following the rules but I guess I'm usually not the one to follow them anyway.

I think I agree that well... ultimately it is a path definable only by you, and I guess that should be enough to defuse any sort of argument that entails this topic. I agree however that everyone should purse spirituality without any intoxicants at some point.

Rather than to make rules or to follow them, I think the more important goal is to find a balance. I can also fess up that I like to get high and I like to meditate while I'm stoned because it makes it more enjoyable. I also get pretty wasted twice a week drinking because it's fun. That makes me sound pretty irresponsible. Well.. on the other hand I do meditate pretty frequently (and yes lots of them sober), and believe in cultivating positive thoughs in my mind as much as possible, and day to day I'm almost always mindful to be as grateful, patient, and compassionate as I can be. And I'm also learning from my own experiences, such as ... you can't hold on too firmly or hold too loosely... any idea, any practice, or anything. Things just require an easy-does-it approach, an almost natural stroke of the wrist. As I write that I will mindfully blaze up my pipe.
Anyway, I can call myself a Buddhist and sleep very well at night.
Your opinions may differ.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Buddhist retreats? [Re: eve69]
    #6056631 -

Due to my self-cherishing, and mixing my identity with external phenomenon, I feel absolutely impelled to articulate a defense for the NKT against the heavy negativity spoken against the NKT in some of the information presented here. However, upon connecting with the spirit of my practise and with my experience in Kadam Dharma, I found that the NKT I know and the NKT presented here are two very different worlds. In all truth, I'm very thankful that I am not part of the destructive, cult-like tradition presented here. I would advise that anyone seeking a spiritual path avoid such corrupt teachings.

This is my scope on the matter. I hope it is fair that I've shared it, and I hope that these will be the final words on the subject, as I agree with Sinbad when he says that no thread need be weighted down by negative debate about subject matter which is only vaugely associated with the thread's original subject.

May all beings find peace within themselves, and through this may they bring peace to the world.


--------------------


:poison: Dark Triangles - New Psychedelic Techno Single - Listen on Soundcloud :poison:
Gyroscope full album available SoundCloud or MySpace

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Buddhist retreats? [Re: Ped]
    #6058474 -

www.spiritrock.org -- i heard they gots good retreats.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Buddhist retreats? [Re: Sinbad]
    #16042463 -

Ok I just wanted point out to the people who keep asking why do you want to go east or on a retreat...first of all there are 3 month 6 month and year long retreats and life long journeys. Ok second you cant find in the western world of buddhism what you can find and learn from the teachers in eastern...in tibetan buddhism their are so many different forms of meditation and all are needed to attain nibbana(nirvana) and different states of jhanas are entered.. the teachers there are truly enlightened and to those who say living at a monastery is hard, no shit. its not meant to be easy...but going to prison is hard too(well getting there isnt very hard, but being there is hard sometimes mentally). Anyways if you are a buddhist your going to devote your life to end suffering. and future lives to come. After im off of parole i will be getting a one way ticket to india(where my family is) and i will find a tibetan buddhist monastery and learn from the greatest teachers that are actually enlightened...i have much respect for western buddhist teachers but they arent living a monks life..i am going to do as the buddha did because it is the only sensible way that leads to enlightenment.. im going to leave all life here including loved ones, technology, everything. and put on the robes and live the life as it is meant to be lived for me.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Buddhist retreats? [Re: illuminated1]
    #16043755 -

The last major Buddhist retreat was many years ago. They fled Tibet and ended up in some slum in India.  I'm sure they will eventually regroup and mount a counter attack. :satansmoking:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Buddhist retreats? [Re: Icelander]
    #16043914 -

:rofl:

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Jump to top Pages: | 1 | 2  [ show all ]

Shop: North Spore North Spore Mushroom Grow Kits & Cultivation Supplies   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order   Myyco.com Golden Teacher Liquid Culture For Sale   Sporeworks.EU Spores for European Microscopy   Original Sensible Seeds Autoflowering Cannabis Seeds

General Interest > Philosophy, Sociology & Psychology
Threaded Mode Threaded  Previous topic Previous  View all topics Index  Next topic Next 

Similar ThreadsPosterViewsRepliesLast post
* A man who thinks he is a christian, but in acuality, he's a buddhist? *DELETED* JCoke 1,437 9 07/13/06 07:26 AM
by Sinbad
* I want to go on a religious retreat! Are there any good ones Grandpa 903 5 10/30/03 03:48 AM
by Anonymous
* Are Buddhists naturally very introspective people? PowerTrip 1,551 8 08/01/06 05:36 AM
by redgreenvines
* when an old friend complained to me how shallow the last retreat was for him redgreenvines 1,881 11 01/13/08 06:57 AM
by redgreenvines
* Need another Buddhist's help!
( 1 2 all )		 Amber_Glow 2,586 35 04/10/07 03:14 AM
by Gomp
* Why are Buddhists more moral?
( 1 2 all )		 SkorpivoMusterion 2,668 35 12/08/03 07:20 PM
by Anonymous
* Buddhist philosophy and Buddhist Religion
( 1 2 all )		 Icelander 4,476 34 04/04/07 08:20 PM
by Icelander
* The Buddhist Humanism FreeYourMind 1,213 6 04/02/07 09:13 PM
by Icelander

Extra information
You cannot start new topics / You cannot reply to topics
HTML is disabled / BBCode is enabled
Moderator: Middleman, DividedQuantum
3,193 topic views. 0 members, 35 guests and 24 web crawlers are browsing this forum.
[ Show Images Only | Sort by Score | Print Topic ]
Search this thread:

Copyright 1997-2026 Mind Media. Some rights reserved.

Generated in 0.034 seconds spending 0.009 seconds on 17 queries.