5th Precept - Don't Get High 

True that!

Lol

It's the only thing keeping me off 7 different pills. The VA is a tool to Big Pharmaceutical.

Spoken like a true OMalley. I understand, said Mahoney.

Lol

Dallas Dan Digital Productions : Actually, mindfulness being a practice based in awareness, you can do whatever you want including smoking, drinking...it’s very interesting because say that you are executing an action that intoxicates your body and the function of your head varies, becoming foggy, restless, confuse....you will be knowing all that through the awareness energy of mindfulness, even mindfulness will become difficult to be practiced as concentration, attention, alertness won’t be in their full capacities. Mindfulness and zazen are the two most important and useful tools to any zennist practitioner.

@@lorenacharlotte8383 Im just speaking for my own experience. I cant smoke or drink and still practice sitting and focusing my mind. It doesnt work for me.

Dallas Dan Digital Productions : When you drink you must be aware that you are drinking. Then you must be aware of all activities in your body and mind through the whole process. If anything happens and you carry on, it only means that you are not practicing properly mindfulness. If you were, your view will be very different.

@@lorenacharlotte8383 fantastic. Good for you

Dallas Dan Digital Productions : I beg you pardon. Apologies, You did say that you can’t drink and smoke and then sitting down. You’ve got it at once. Good for you!. Didn’t read you correctly. Apostrophe was missed out and my sight is not good.

that is an interesting way of putting the same point that Jodorowsky made, which I mentioned elsewhere

I like your position. I agree 100%. I think it's a matter of balance. There are actually people (in the realm of physics and studying consciousness) who believe mindfulness and zen are not always positive. They describe it leads to "living in the current moment" (at the expense of planning for the future, learning from the past), "and when the current moment goes bad, these people aren't prepared for that. It can be an existential crisis to them. Their way of existing was just fake. Not realistic balance of past/present/future." I think what they are confusing is that many people are driven to mindfulness and zen'ish delineation between thoughts and authentically experiencing the current moment (vs narrating it) because they suffer from mental illness. Benjamin Lebet discovered that our minds make choices/decisions 2/10ths of a second before our conscious mind believes it made the choice. So, basically our concious existence emerges from the subconscious, and rationalizes being in control of that. Mindfulness puts a person as close to that emergence as possible. If someone suffers from mental illness, that's typically due to past trauma which has been dis-integrated into the subconcious where it then affects choices/decisions that are made there. The inexplicable "making the same choice over and over again, hoping for a different result. The definition of insanity." If insanity is that kind of "dark passenger" (as Dexter called it), then people who sense that there is this compulsion to self-destructive behavior would eventually find mindfulness and zen-like principles as a way to be at that source of compulsion, and recognize it as it happens (instead of just following the rationalizing inner-narrative, and expecting things to "be different this time."). My point is that the not-so-positive side that those experts note could be part of a larger "not so positive side" which the person would suffer from if they shunned living in the moment, and followed their unconcious mind as it repeats the same patterns of behaviors. What they suffer in the present moment (due to lack of preparation for harsh present moments) could be less than what they'd suffer if they went globly through life believing "this time will be different," never watching the thinker, and never vetoing their thoughts. I.e., their choices may not be very good to begin with. They may be at risk of following the dark passenger too much, rather than avoiding the dark passneger too much. I think the topic of cannabis is like that. Sure, we've all seen people who didn't find balance with it. Too much of a stoner instead of getting out and engaging life with who they know they are. But, their use of canabis could put them in a better place than they would be without it. I.e., the problem isn't canabis, it's the person. Cannabis is just a sign of a symptom being treated. Like insulin is a sign of diabetes being treated. It's just part of a disability. A part that can help or hurt. If it hurts, you don't get rid of the insulin. You just dial in the dosage. (FWIW: I don't think alcohol is anywhere near fitting into this discussion. I think it's literally poison, whose only medicinal purpose is to sterilize wounds. The root of "inTOXICated" is significant, for a reason. Our bodies didn't evolve with an endocanabanioid system to process "poison." We didn't evolve with a system to process special compounds of alcohol. There are none. It's just poison which makes a person believe their false self, rather than expose them to their confabulated self the way cannabis does. I think it's entirely different. But, as you note: it can be hard to find a balance. I would just say that that difficulty may not be due to cannabis but the underlying problems the person has, and what led them to cannabis as a treatment or form of honesty with themselves. Just like mindfulness/zen is a form of existing more honestly in the moment, but can be unbalanced too. Typically for the same reason as cannabis: the person already has a challenge which causes imbalance. The question is whther they're better off being imbalanced with presence or not. Cannabis is just another form of presence, IMO. The opposite presence as alcohol. ).

May I put in: The scholar-physician Paracelsus (1493-1541) said: "Wrong quantity (or use) makes the poison!" This, i.m.o., quite neatly sums up the problematics. And regarding history: The use of (herbal) drugs is part of human history, and especially the history of philosophico-religious cults, at least since the stone-age. Buddhism, in general, is no exception, for clergy and laity always tend(ed) to use stronger/weaker "medicines" of all kinds to get along in life---that it would not always work as intended (guided by manifold sorts of holy and not so holy intentions) or salutary (in the sense of healing this or that organism), is another question.

Thank you, Evan! I just cannot understand his attitude. I have actually tried to get my head around why someone would believe that a drug can cause enlightenment. Especially someone with such a strong background of meditation as Stephen Batchelor. He must be defining "enlightenment" in a fundamentally different way. My feeling about drugs is that it's like being shot out of a cannon. If the cannon is aimed properly, you'll get a huge thrill and end up in a big pile of blankets (or whatever). But far too many things can go wrong and the consequences are too great. Just the idea of putting any sort of psychedelic into my body feels too much like Russian roulette. I wouldn't go near them.

@@HardcoreZen this whole conversation fascinates me. Classical psychedelics are fundamentally misunderstood, and the fact is that they don't make you a better person, they don't enlighten you, they don't do anything other than AMPLIFY and ACCELERATE whatever processes are already happening within a person. Having lasting breakthroughs on something like LSD, for example, depends on the ability of the person to "therapize" themselves or having a therapist with them. And even then, it still depends on so many factors whether or not an insight will stick. This is called integration, and not enough people who trip really do this. I am also guilty of slacking on this. But the really fascinating part for me is the biological perspective. The reason these substances have any effect at all is because of the way they interact with the brain. For me, I feel as though lsd has (in conjunction with years and years of therapy) helped my brain form connections between areas that didn't develop normally for me. I have a couple neurodevelopmental conditions that are physiologically characterized by some areas of the brain not being as "connected" as they are in people with normal brains. But even if a person doesn't have my conditions, depression produces a similar anatomical phenomenon. A brain that has that feature is said to have "rigid plasticity". Plasticity is the brain's ability to form new neural connections. Psychedelics increase neuroplasticity, the question is how long the changes last. Some studies have shown that people with depression had remained in remission up to six months after experimental treatment with psychedelics. In a controlled setting with clinical support, these substances have enormous utility. But the most important next step is gobs and gobs of research. You are absolutely correct in saying that it is like playing Roulette. Not every brain needs to experience a state of hyper-connectivity, in fact plenty of brains should never!

@@ergotoxicosis Yeah... I think these substances have value. But I also feel like most people should stay away from them. They have to be used with tremendous caution. But when I think of the way I used them when I was in my late teens... Gawd! I *thought* I was being cautious. But really, for my first ever trip, I took a hit of acid from someone I'd never met before and then I rode in the back of his pickup truck about 20 miles. THAT is what I thought of as being cautious!

@@ergotoxicosis I am so grateful for this thoughtful response. I loathe when people place judgments on the use of things like cannabis for the reasons you've described. I've tried to describe how it helps to my doctors and they have their preconceived notions about it, when I'm sharing how it's helped my experience and helped me become more open and receptive and I've been able to heal much more quickly than just traditional therapy. Thank you!

That's an interesting way to put it.

Interesting metaphor.

Oh that’s a good analogy.

Awesome way of looking at it. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks, what text(s) is that from?

By your definition, psychedelics would not be considered getting “high”. Rather than numbing or running, they seem to be like a magnifying glass.

Interesting point

Snudge Galbraith although, of course, I think it depends more upon the intention and motivation. Also, as I believe Aldous Huxley said, psychedelics are neither necessary nor sufficient for “salvation”, but I think they can be beneficial to some people in some cases, but to each their own.

Yeah, maybe forget about going beyond the mind and body. Advaita isn't Zen.

@@ObakuZenCenter Who claimed it was?

There are numerous different versions of the precepts.

@@HardcoreZen Yes, that's why I wrote this version here, just for general purpose. I learned them because I would love to be ordained, I don''t know if I will get the chance, no temples around here, just very far. Best regards from Transilvania!

I tried that for a while. It didn't work, so I had to stop using it altogether.

I think that's part of what Kobun is referring to. If you do the right things, your karma is better, and your life is in good shape.

Ultimately, it's up to you. I became a vegetarian just a few months before I discovered Buddhism. So, to me, they're separate matters. Not all Buddhists are vegetarian. Neither of my Zen teachers were, and yet both encouraged me to continue my vegetarianism. They thought it was better to be vegetarian. As for the beer, again, it's your choice. I've practiced at times when I would smoke marijuana occasionally and at times when I did not. The practice was always clearer and better at times when I did not. For me, getting serious about zazen meant giving up intoxicants entirely.

@@HardcoreZen Thank you.

I think a big reason is how and when Zen Buddhism came to the US. It first started becoming popular in large coastal cities in the 1960s. San Francisco, in particular, but also Los Angeles, New York, and other places. The people who became the first generation of American born practitioners had previously been San Francisco hippies. They brought their political views and their attitudes to drugs with them. Often they tried to justify these views through Buddhism. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't. I'm not sure if some of those teachers are able to tell the difference.

IMO, alcohol is the opposite of cannabis, and that the precept may have been specific in its target for a reason. Like others note, cannabis often does lead the person to a more honest sense of self (which can be very painful. I think the people who say "i tried it and didn't like how it made me feel" are the people who should keep using it. They should experience that feeling more. If it's nothing, then no reason to fear experiencing it. But, it's probably their conscious self feeling threatened existentially by the exposure -- out of the conscious self's control -- to their subconscious. The more disintegrated their subconscious is, the more they rely on their consciously confabulated existence. A threat to that would be like riding a bicycle for the first time with no training wheels. The more you depend on those training wheels, the more terrified you'll be as you experience doing it without.). Anyway, I think that's the opposite of alcohol. Alcohol seems to put the person further from their subconscious, and makes the confabulated/grandiose self more believable. "Liquid courage." It's the opposite of cannabis being humbling, inward dwelling. It's a way to escape problems (and then face them when you're sick with a hangover) whereas cannabis actually makes the person feel a little worse because their problems come to mind (they can't narrate their toughts where they want. Reality can way heavily. Then when you come off the high, you feel more refrehsed and aware of the problem you have to deal with, and it's not as threatening. It's the opposite of alcohol which is more of an "escape."). I think there's something to be said about how alcohol's only medicinal purpose is to sterilize wounds. It's literally toxic, providing the root of "inTOXicated." Compare that to how the human (and canine) body evolved with an endocanabanoid system with receptor sites for compounds found in cannabis. Like the immune system has receptors for compounds in garlic, ginger, echanacia, etc. It's totally different than the literally poisonous nature of alcohol.

Trying to find enlightenment is definitely going into delusion with unclear mind.

^

Drugs aren't an easy option and Zen isn't particularly hard. It's just that so many want something done for them, whether through drugs or some other way, that they find it hard to break the habit of wanting something external (or internal on one level), to fix them, of wanting something that will do the work for them.

But Markus, can giving or consuming alchohol ever be ethical (under capitalism)? I kid

Thank you! I am sure to be in Munich again. I go every year. The person who organizes my tours of Europe lives there. But I don't think I'll drink any beer. I've decided that I need to be very strict with myself about this precept. I will, however, eat a big pretzel with you!

@@thefrantasticmissfine I'm a declared opponent of catpeealeism. Giving away a lager which is capital is far more ethical than selling a cat pee ale.

@@HardcoreZen The pretzel shape is endless. I vow to share one with you.

@@markusschipke5975 I AM SO HAPPY! I love Bavarian pretzels. They can't make them correctly over here.

I think Ikkyu was able to reach people who would not ordinarily be interested in the dharma. So I can't be too critical of him. But I don't think it's a good idea to imitate his behavior.

The only thing close to a Zen view on caffeine is the legend that Bodhidharma fell asleep when meditating and got so mad that he ripped his own eyelids off and threw them on the ground. The eyelids then sprouted into tea leaves to help future practitioners stay awake while doing zazen. They drink lots of tea at Zen temples. That's why there's a tea ceremony. As for me, I developed a problem from too much coffee a number of years ago. These days I can't drink any caffeine at all or it gives me outrageous headaches. It's absolutely an addictive substance.

@@HardcoreZen lol what the actual...hahah

@@HardcoreZen I'm trying to imagine most of Zen without LOTS tea, which means LOTS of caffeine...

That's a good way to put it. I come at it as "cannabis can be a conduit to seeing through the self-talk, the confabulated self." It was for me. But, you're right: there is a point where reality sets in and cannabis doesn't add to that. There's a point where you have to use your more honest sense of self and engage with the real world as that newly understood (or growing in understanding) person. Cannabis can keep the person inward focused when they should be more in the application stage. Even then, I think once-a-month re-visits with cannabis can be positive (or never negative). I think the risk is chronic overuse. A way of life rather than a tool to re-center one self, and get honest with one self. A "bad trip" could be positive if the person uses it to engage with the world as a more honest person (more outward facing than inward). They might not have had that realization without the "bad trip." One person's unpleasant visit with their mind is another person's getting honest with themselves.

I think I did a video on that. Or did I? Here's a blog I did on the subject in 2011. hardcorezen.info/crazy-wisdom-or-just-plain-nuts/185/comment-page-2

crazy wisdom is......…...…....crazy!

There certainly are!

I seem to remember David Carridine (sp) saying they had a zen monk on the set who closed the bar every nite? Whatever. I don’t drink or do drugs.

Yeah. I don't get it either.

Any references on the permanent brain damage? Am quite intrigued. Goes a little far to say you are „out of the game“ though.

If it hadn‘t been for serious psychedelic experiences, I suppose I wouldnt have ended up with buddhism. I had to recognize that the two together are not sustainable in the long run though

@@Fantersam yes, a bit far. its an ambiguous area, really each drug has to be researched and actually some psychiatric medications are really toxic, witness jordan peterson almost being killed by benzos, how he didn't know about the problems with them, i don't know

In general, Zen people tend to get along well with Pure Land Buddhists. I used to sit zazen at a Pure Land temple in Chicago. It's pretty common for Pure Land people to sit zazen. Kodo Sawaki and Kosho Uchiyama were interested in Pure Land Buddhism. Uchiyama Roshi used to chant nembutsu. They both talked about it sometimes. Neither of my main teachers had much to say about Pure Land (positive or negative). Pure Land Buddhists have some beliefs that are not like Zen Buddhists. But nothing in their beliefs is absolutely contradictory to any beliefs Zen people commonly hold. I mean, if you ask me, I'd say, sure, maybe there is a Buddha named Amida who lives in the Pure Land and maybe you can be reborn there if you chant his name. It doesn't seem impossible to me. But I am not personally attracted to that sort of idea. I don't think most Zen people would think of Pure Land Buddhists as heretics. As for mixing... I don't know. I think that if you want to follow a certain path it's best to follow that path in a pure way and not mix it with another path.

@@HardcoreZen yeah, thanks, I see. What regards the rules, the Pure-Land people seem more relaxed (and therefore appealingly human). But, then again, especially for a Westerner, it isn`t easy to really belief in the existence of Amida-Buddha and the Western Paradise or Pure Land; many would rather think of a fairy-tale. Many moons ago, I read the study of a German physician: Günter Schüttler, about "Satori-Erfahrungen" in Japan. It was the first, and, for a long time, the last really (natural)scientific treatise on Zen-matters. Some of the ex-post reports of the practitioners, presented in it, were quite abstract, to which "enlightened" (ger.: aufgeklärte) "Western rationalists" most probably can relate much easier, than to heavenly utopias,. But who really knows for sure? For the time being, agnosticism is also an option.

I think that's true, about "as long as you can't say."

Leo "I run a cult" gura

True. I think he was a brilliant teacher and I learned a lot from his books. I do think his drinking and accompanying abuses (of others) takes away somewhat from the rest. I don't think alcohol makes anyone smarter or enlightened, it lowers inhibitions and good judgement.

@@gracefoster4861 I'm finding that the unnatural horrific pressures that are being perpetuated against us (average humans) has driven me to use some psychoactive substances responsibly...Plant medicine is so helpful during these times

Oh I have taken psychedelics!

@@HardcoreZen Then I stand corrected. For me they were the gateway to zen and Buddhism. After tripping, Indra's Net makes perfect sense. Now I only use them for pain relief. I have chronic leukemia and one small dose once every two or three years works wonders, far better than opiate pain relievers, non-addictive, and without side effects.

@@HardcoreZen I agree that psychedelics by themselves will not lead to enlightenment. However, I do think they can point you in the right direction. Soon after starting to use them, I decided it would be a good idea to start reading Alan Watts (this was back in the '70s and he was kind of fashionable) and that led me to D.T. Suzuki, Shunryu Suzuki and to SFZC. And it was Buddhism that seemed to match up to most closely to the insights I had gained on psychedelics so I've stuck with it. I agree with you that it is irresponsible to promote psychedelics as part of Buddhist practice though and of course, they can be dangerous.

@@gregwallace552 I am glad psychedelics are being researched for uses like you're using them for. I take triptans for headaches, which are derived from LSD. They work wonders.

@@HardcoreZen By the way, apologize for jumping the gun in my original comment. I hadn't finished the video or I wouldn't have said that you hadn't tried them or known anything about them. Obviously, I was in error. And I basically agree with what you said. I'm subscribing to your channel now.

Yeah. I get that.