mjaviem wrote: ↑Sat Jan 15, 2022 11:39 pm
Using drugs for meditative purposes is wrong practice. It generates addiction, not release. The net effect is negative. They generate depression and anxiety. Skillful meditators are those who refrain from using drugs. The moral dimension is to not use drugs, to not be heedless. There's a whole precept against it.
What is required is faith about the Noble Eightfold Path. No experience of fulfillment induced by drugs can increase faith.
They don't highlight any nature or lack of it. They don't show uncertainty of reality. They only confuse and sow doubts.
Psychedelics do not produce addiction. In fact, they have been used successfully to cure addiction to other drug habits. Sometimes only one trip is enough for some people.
They likewise do not generate depression, and have been used to treat depression successfully.
Ceisiwr wrote: ↑Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:01 am
You can't be mindfully practicing sense restraint whilst on acid. If you were, you wouldn't be taking acid in the first place.
Yes you can. It's not a sense pleasure it's a mind manifesting agent and meditation integrates with it perfectly.
Ceisiwr wrote: ↑Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:01 am
Jhāna is a state where you are secluded from sense desires. It only comes about in part through virtue and sense-restraint. Of having a balanced mind. Of not giving rise to wanting to experience this or that. Of letting go. Using drugs is the opposite of that. You are chasing an experience, rather than letting go. Jhāna can of course be grasped wrongly, but Jhāna isn't comparable to drug use. You can't compare a state that is based on letting go with a state that is immersed in delighting in the senses. Apples and oranges.
Again you are conflating the application with the means. You can use psychedelics to delight in the external senses or you can use them to go deeper into the mind.
I have posted reports of use in this way which you have ignored and are clearly nothing to do with chasing sense desire but are aligned with some types of meditative goals.
Ceisiwr wrote: ↑Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:01 am
Using hallucinogenics doesn't decrease greed and delusion. You can't get into Jhāna whilst using drugs, and without Jhāna you can't awaken at all.
Again, blanket statements don't apply. It can reduce or increase greed depending how the state is used.
Ceisiwr wrote: ↑Sun Jan 16, 2022 12:01 am
As I said, the Buddha would have known about the practice of using substances to alter one's mind for spiritual purposes. All the evidence we have is that he rejected that practice. If you want to argue that he could have taught it because it makes sense to you, you can. However anyone can argue for anything being taught by the Buddha with that logic can't they.
No, there is no evidence he rejected or endorsed the practice.
I can't see him talking openly on their use though even if it could be beneficial for some due to probably the image it fostered amongst laity.
Certainly though if he was against them outright he could have included injunctions saying it was wrong rather than relying on people having to stretch the fifth precept against alcohol, to trying to cover substances that give some people a clear sense of having tasted nibbana and seen past lives etc
So I see his silence on the matter as significant.
Anyway I have my views based on much experience and they are no hindrance to me but a great benefit on the occasions they are used, which is usually only every few months or years.
I'm not trying to convince anyone and not really interested in debating the matter. There is plenty of direct experiences and emerging research supporting my perspective but I can accept the counter arguments also so we can leave it there.
There is an extensive review of the relationship between meditation and psychedelics here for those interested and open minded
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6137697/