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Re: Vipassana Meditation [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #7274854 -

Perhaps you took what I said out of context.

I am also an individual who discovered meditative states as a consequence of psychedelic drug use. I still use psychedelic drugs. I see nothing wrong with the responsible use of psychedelic drugs. I learned, and realized many things through the psychedelic experience. In fact a recent lsd experience brought me a great state of concentration and awareness. It was indeed a booster shot for me.

I find marijuana doesn't usually qualify as a psychedelic, and I find its effects to be very numbing. It dulls my awareness, and makes me lethargic. Both these effects qualify as hindrances in the Buddhist philosophy. The effects of marijuana seem to mimic meditative states in a shallow way, and just don't compare to clear mindfulness, for me.

So to get back on topic, in my experience Vipassana and marijuana don't go well together. Vipassana actually greatly reduces my desire to be intoxicated in any way.


--------------------
All I know is that I dont know.

Row, row, row, you boat, gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.

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Re: Vipassana Meditation [Re: badreligion2good]
    #7274931 -

i got into meditation before psychedelics
when I got into psychedelics it was different for me than for others
it was like coming home.
I do not mix the two endeavors,
but often I find when really stoned, that my return to integration includes some meditative application of awareness.


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:brainfart: _ :finger:

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Re: Vipassana Meditation [Re: badreligion2good]
    #7275110 -

I appreciate all that you've said. A dozen or so years of cannabis use in my youth only prevented me from developing emotionally and socially, it ill-effected my motivation to excel in high school which in turn barred me from universities which would have been much more enriching than the one I attended as an undergraduate. Abuse of cannabis was in part responsible for plummeting grades and a subsequent semester's leave of absence. Under the influence of early acid trips, I saw the superfluous nature of being stoned, but continued to use it to reduce the existential angst of late adolescence. Odd how many people simple blink the attendent negative states of paranoia that accompany cannabis intoxication, not to mention other negative side effects. It wasn't until post-undergraduate studies that I began to get serious about neuronal clarity.

I wish to dwell in Enlightened awareness, and this is hindered by intoxication, hence the Buddhist proscription against intoxicants. Psychedelics however, belong in Buddha's medicine bowl as "Moksha Medicine" to quote Huxley. Psychedelics are like the stick one stirs the fire with before consuming that stick too. In other words, psychedelics are the last substance to be used (despite their inebriating effects) before going stone cold straight. Even so, today we received some acetyl-l-carnitine in the mail - a supplement for mental clarity and energy. We've been experimenting with Gamma Amino Butyric Acid (GABA) at night (incredible dream life and daytime calm), and with Piracetam (with Choline Bitartrate on the side) by day (a 'nutraceutical' or 'smart drug'). It seems that green tea is just not sufficient for our needs - being old and all. :wink:


--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

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Re: Vipassana Meditation [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #7275493 -

I began smoking cannabis at the age of 15, I just recently turned 19. I smoke pot almost every day, though I realize its negative effects. When I really examine my motivations for cannabis use it is to ease existential anxiety, which I know is an elusive condition. Marijuana helps me let go of day to day anxieties temporarily, but I know it is not a permanent fix. Upon beginning meditation practice I noticed the similarities and differences between marijuana use and the cultivation of mindfulness. I make sure not to smoke pot before meditating because it definitely effects my ability to maintain concentration on the breath.

"it ill-effected my motivation to excel in high school which in turn barred me from universities which would have been much more enriching than the one I attended as an undergraduate. Abuse of cannabis was in part responsible for plummeting grades and a subsequent semester's leave of absence. Under the influence of early acid trips, I saw the superfluous nature of being stoned, but continued to use it to reduce the existential angst of late adolescence."

This is the boat that I am in now. Hopefully mindfulness is the cure.


--------------------
All I know is that I dont know.

Row, row, row, you boat, gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.

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Re: Vipassana Meditation [Re: badreligion2good]
    #7275504 -

maybe I am a sane loon but my experience with cannabis was that it helped me care about school.
the worst i have ever done in school has been since really not using any drugs whatsoever, however the correlation is far too weak to make anything but a flimsy argument

but it gave me a lot of general enjoyment. i learned how to use it cease all forms of thinking and simply allow thoughts to flow by in very complex streams of association while i witnessed them from a perspective of absolute equanimity

and this is not by smoking til you're "fucked" it was about taking 1 or 2 hits of mids just barely feeling anything.

it was like an attention-paying catalyst
the flipside was hurting and aching lungs, never ever worth it, ever, and so much daily "fucked" smoking that my brain was in a haze

so i understand both spectrums, but cannabis is clearly useful in my experience, not my opinion.

it convinced me that I absolutely was and had to a Buddhist and there was no way around this, this was really hard to juggle with my sober self and all its programmed fears and all the cultural baggage i had.


--------------------
I am the MacDaddy of Heimlich County, I play it Straight Up Yo!

....I embrace my desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow, to feel inspired, to fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain, to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human......
Om Namah Shivaya, I tell you What!

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Re: Vipassana Meditation [Re: badreligion2good]
    #7277210 -

Well, maturation both from within and from social forces without play their parts in awakening late adolescents to early adulthood. The Freudian "Reality Principle" needs to supercede the residually infantile "Pleasure Principle" which entails blissing out (a variation on sleep), play (at the expense of neglected work) and creativity (biological, career, aesthetic and other forms) instead of self-pleasuring (I got high before I began to masturbate, but getting high was a surrogate non-sexual 'mental masturbation' for me. I got 'spacey' instead of 'earthy').

The Reality Principle entails strong ego development, in the service of total organismic functioning. Not to worry, ego-transcendence requires a healthy ego to be transcended. Weakened or undeveloped ego structures must become fully functional before the egoic level of life can be incorporated into a higher more comprehensive sense of identity.

In the 60s, the motto for The Pleasure Principle-oriented people was "If it feels, good, do it." I think Nike borrowed its successful and suggestible "Just Do It" slogan from the former. But I digress. Getting stoned takes the harsh edge off the subject-object dichotomy that ego-consciousness entails, but it does this by a regression to the "id-oriented" Pleasure Principle (to be consistent with the Freudian model, which does speak clearly to the issue of getting high).

However, the Freudian model falls flat because its 'higher' level is "The Superego" which is really just a further development of the ego which involves introjected moral values from one's parents or principle caregivers. There is no truly high or transcendental possibility in Freudian theory, so consciousness being aware of itself, without form or content (in a word, Being) as one encounters in successful meditation just gets relegated to unconsciousness, not superconsciousness. Even Jung made this mistake. Jung believed that an individual loses consciousness to the extent that one transcends one's ego. This is wrong from the high perspective of asamprajnata samadhi - self-effulgent awareness with no ego identity. Ken Wilber calls this error "the pre-trans fallacy."

In the same way that lovers do not like their partner being drunk (a state of  unconsciousness), being stoned - despite the frequent claim that 'it puts me in touch with my body and hence my feelings' - does not facilitate putting one in touch with my partner! So love-making can remain on the level of the adolescent "Phallic Stage" and not transition into the adult "Genital Stage" of human development (yep, more Freudian gobble-d-gook) in which one's partner's satisfaction (not just sexual satisfaction) takes precedence over one's own selfish pleasure needs.

Of course, this is all about 'childhood's end.' Childhood can continue into more dangerous regressions when individuals begin to use opiates, Pleasure Principle overcoming Reality Principle and viola!, street junkies emerge, incapable of dealing with everyday reality. (We used to quip when working with junkies: 'Damn! Broke a shoelace! I can't handle this shit. I have to hit-up'). Fortunately, most stoners don't become junkies. The opposite trend of course is to Awaken, and so I've come full-circle (I hope I didn't make anyone else dizzy :smile:).


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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

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Re: Vipassana Meditation [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #7277266 -

"In the same way that lovers do not like their partner being drunk (a state of unconsciousness), being stoned - despite the frequent claim that 'it puts me in touch with my body and hence my feelings' - does not facilitate putting one in touch with my partner! So love-making can remain on the level of the adolescent "Phallic Stage" and not transition into the adult "Genital Stage" of human development (yep, more Freudian gobble-d-gook) in which one's partner's satisfaction (not just sexual satisfaction) takes precedence over one's own selfish pleasure needs. "
well hmm i'd have to disagree
maybe just me. my friend wasn't really in touch with me but i was guiding him out of his mind and we melted into semi-complete unity by chanting of a mantra and it was a spectacular event of unison the likes of which i have never ever seen before
only when chanting ended did he go into his own little world of outerspace and i had difficulties seeing it, as he was having a full blown trip of sorts, seeing far away lands, and i was telling him to take me there but couldn't figure out how to see it.

when i am stoned i am IMMENSELY connected to people, and aware of soooo many facets of communication that i am otherwise oblivious to, and it is a remarkable thing it sounds like the cannabis treated you very poorly.

it is all about dose and intention.
but if i am STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONED
i am probably useless in interpersonal relations, perhaps this is the problem.

(i reference the unity semi-complete because it did not involve synasthesia as a "proper" psychedelic may have) but it was the deepest i've resonated with anyone in my life.


--------------------
I am the MacDaddy of Heimlich County, I play it Straight Up Yo!

....I embrace my desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow, to feel inspired, to fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain, to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human......
Om Namah Shivaya, I tell you What!

Edited by leery11 (08/09/07 08:31 AM)

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Re: Vipassana Meditation [Re: leery11]
    #7277538 -

If two human beings resonate well, it isn't due to cannabis, and one is misidentifying the essence of the situation by attributing it to peripheral effects. Beinhood is of the essence, not mere cannabinoid receptor distortions, pleasurable or not.


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γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

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Re: Vipassana Meditation [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #7277543 -

'Paths to God'...


--------------------
“Strengthened by contemplation and study,
I will not fear my passions like a coward.
My body I will give to pleasures,
to diversions that I’ve dreamed of,
to the most daring erotic desires,
to the lustful impulses of my blood, without
any fear at all, for whenever I will—
and I will have the will, strengthened
as I’ll be with contemplation and study—
at the crucial moments I’ll recover
my spirit as was before: ascetic.”

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Re: Vipassana Meditation [Re: Lion]
    #7277568 -

I like to sit in a chair while I meditate, but I recently read somewhere that you're not supposed to have your back supported. Why does it matter?

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Re: Vipassana Meditation [Re: it stars saddam]
    #7277573 -

I think it matters because having your back supported changes the way you breathe and also might make you less aware of your body and thus less aware in general.

You could always sit on the chair without resting your back on it.

I haven't seen you post here for awhile. :smile:


--------------------
“Strengthened by contemplation and study,
I will not fear my passions like a coward.
My body I will give to pleasures,
to diversions that I’ve dreamed of,
to the most daring erotic desires,
to the lustful impulses of my blood, without
any fear at all, for whenever I will—
and I will have the will, strengthened
as I’ll be with contemplation and study—
at the crucial moments I’ll recover
my spirit as was before: ascetic.”

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Re: Vipassana Meditation [Re: Lion]
    #7277602 -

I think I'm just going to keep doing it my way since all of my most intense meditations have occurred while sitting cross-legged on my couch. Eventually I will teach myself the discipline to reach that state without any back support.

Edited by it stars saddam (08/09/07 01:53 PM)

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Re: Vipassana Meditation [Re: it stars saddam]
    #7278059 -

In India yogis used to use meditation belts. You can see them in some temple carvings. They criss-crossed under the crossed knees, across the chest and back, over the shoulders. One could lean back some and be supported. In Japan, those who cannot sit in lotus, half lotus or easy pose can kneel with a cushon between calves and buttocks. An Egyptian Adept was illustrated on a papyrus in a seated position or throne (opening the third eye of an Initiate).
http://www.yogamad.com/Yoga/Yoga+Props/Yoga+Belts/
Lying tend obviously removes too much bodily tension, encouraging sleep (although I once found myself in a Nirvikalpa samadhi while lying down trying to astrally project. I was filled with humming yellow-white light, a smile stretched from ear to ear, and there was bodily rigidity/paralysis for the duration). One can sit against the wall and learn to move away from it. One should elevate the spine even a little bit, not sit completely flat, even if it's a ball of cloth).


--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

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Re: Vipassana Meditation [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #7278124 -

So you feel that sitting on the couch during meditation is not ideal?

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Re: Vipassana Meditation [Re: it stars saddam]
    #7278194 -

MarkostheGnostic said:
If two human beings resonate well, it isn't due to cannabis, and one is misidentifying the essence of the situation by attributing it to peripheral effects. Beinhood is of the essence, not mere cannabinoid receptor distortions, pleasurable or not.


mmmm but
cannabis takes the kinks out of consciousness
oOOOOOOOOOOOO is all you are... then MMMMM is all you are
then aaaaannnnn is all you are then neeeee is all you are
and so forth
it is immensely powerful at removing the egos hold on anything, as you have said i think, softening subject-object boundary lines, including if the person is your object of focus

do you disagree, or disapprove? no doubt it is not "clear" and LSD is to me, very much so moreso clear, but for trance induction (ego dispelling) through sound in particular cannabis is quite the folly....



for meditation my experience is that lying down does not produce the same level of clarity and cessation of mental motion that sitting up does.


--------------------
I am the MacDaddy of Heimlich County, I play it Straight Up Yo!

....I embrace my desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow, to feel inspired, to fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain, to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human......
Om Namah Shivaya, I tell you What!

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Re: Vipassana Meditation [Re: it stars saddam]
    #7278195 -

If your head, neck and spine are aligned. I do not subscribe to the Japanese (specifically Zen) tradition that Shunryu Suzuki popularized: pulling in the chin, focusing on the 'hara' (which corresponds to the Svadhisthana Chakra). It is a very 'martial' bodily attitude which reminds me of the military attention - chin in, chest out, stomach in, ten hut!). But, I do subscribe to a straight but flexible spine (made supple with Hatha Yoga asanas) in which the stomach is held slightly taught to correct for lower back sway. No slouching, no reclining.
The 'hara' does lend bodily stability (as it does in Judo, Jujitsu, Aikido and in Karate horse-stance), and it has been recommended in meditation for "the hysterical" and those "who try to fly before they can walk" (quotes from Toward the One), but there are other Buddhist meditations that utilize other centers and other breathing techniques. Personally, I use a Thai Theravadin Buddhist exercise that resembles some Hindu Yoga and some Christian Hesychastic practices using higher centers. It is a matter of one's own psycho-physico-spiritual constitution that determines what makes sense.


--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

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Re: Vipassana Meditation [Re: leery11]
    #7278225 -

Dude, you're gonna use cannabis until you are convinced by your own experience that it amounts to a further identification with your mind and with your body, not to any transcendence of those ordinary identifications. I'm not going to "disapprove" of your present stage. I went through a long period of cannabis use myself. In retrospect, it did nothing by itself to enhance any aspect of my life. As a piece of a greater gestalt which served an early attempt to thwart the social conventions of my parents' generation, it may have had a brief use, but I got caught up in it, became reliant on it, and that by itself reinforced the lie that I am not sufficient all by myself. My psychedelic use is so infrequent that it is far from a dependency. It is more like occasionally taking your boat to a sandbar to scrape of the barnacles that slow down speed and efficiency.


--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

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Re: Vipassana Meditation [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
    #7278237 -

sitting is best
any position can be used


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:brainfart: _ :finger:

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Re: Vipassana Meditation [Re: redgreenvines]
    #7280814 -

I wanted to mention something about pitfalls with meditation.
meditation is personal, and although it relates eventually to your personal relationship with the universe as a kind of inseparable unity it begins with just working on your own engine in isolation.

they talk about sangha, and with sangha you get some support and you realize that the lonely path is not that unique in some ways.

meditation is more like a clinic or being in a garage for the duration of practice.

eventually you can use it like a track, not the real road, but a test road, and do some meditation in life actions, practicing awareness, relaxation and insight.

ultimately you can use it on the road with other people and there is no distinction at all about what is and what is not meditation.
some refer to this as reaching the other shore, and not needing the boat, but really it is practice on the open road, and some clinc and garage are still useful, and occasional limited track runs will help with kinks.

now the issue of lsd and meditation comes up a lot, and they do not go together really.

lsd is a relationship thing, even if you do it alone, it is always something that is engaged with a big world, the open road, people, party time...

if someone asks me about drugs and meditation I can't say that the combination flys, but also meditation helps a lot in it's clinic and track aspect to prepare the tripper to relax and be aware. to have beginner's mind.

tripping is an open road thing.
vipassana practice is clinic or garage, and maybe with skill it is limited track.

I hope that analogy is useful.


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

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Re: Vipassana Meditation [Re: redgreenvines]
    #7280822 -

So you're saying that those phony meditators who get impatient on line at the grocery store are poor drivers?  :wink:

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