Pharmacological Aids to Enlightenment

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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Alex123
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Re: Pharmacological Aids to Enlightenment

Post by Alex123 »

DAWN wrote:We must develop that is unconditioned
All that have condition, must be rejected

Eating food is conditioned and something that one has to do for life. Do we need to reject eating and starve to death?
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Sam Vara
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Re: Pharmacological Aids to Enlightenment

Post by Sam Vara »

daverupa wrote:
DAWN wrote:We must develop that is unconditioned
All that have condition, must be rejected
The eightfold path is conditioned, so that's not quite right.

Caffeine, cannabis, cocaine, chocolate... it's interesting to see the unspoken assumption remain unspoken, to wit "this substance will make the Dhamma easier, because as-is it's not easy enough..."

I'm much more interested in getting an arahant under an fMRI...
That's why we ought to be reticent about attainments. The arahants who declare on here: they don't stay around long, do they? I reckon they get tracked down by men in black, and there is a desert laboratory somewhere that is full of them...
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Hanzze
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Re: Pharmacological Aids to Enlightenment

Post by Hanzze »

daverupa wrote:
DAWN wrote:We must develop that is unconditioned
All that have condition, must be rejected
The eightfold path is conditioned, so that's not quite right.

Caffeine, cannabis, cocaine, chocolate... it's interesting to see the unspoken assumption remain unspoken, to wit "this substance will make the Dhamma easier, because as-is it's not easy enough..."

I'm much more interested in getting an arahant under an fMRI...
I would not take it that verbally, but at least the statement is not wrong. We use the contitioned skillfull to get free from it. One step after the other, but the direction is clear. And regarding the food, if there is no more food, what would burn. So one keeps the flamme burning, that it might not run away and burns again on another place, till no more food is left.
No need to put additional oil into it, in fear that there would not every nutrition be burned. Just mindful collecting all to the center, mindful, that there is no more nutrition left.
Just that! *smile*
...We Buddhists must find the courage to leave our temples and enter the temples of human experience, temples that are filled with suffering. If we listen to Buddha, Christ, or Gandhi, we can do nothing else. The refugee camps, the prisons, the ghettos, and the battlefields will become our temples. We have so much work to do. ... Peace is Possible! Step by Step. - Samtach Preah Maha Ghosananda "Step by Step" http://www.ghosananda.org/bio_book.html

BUT! it is important to become a real Buddhist first. Like Punna did: Punna Sutta Nate sante baram sokham _()_
daverupa
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Re: Pharmacological Aids to Enlightenment

Post by daverupa »

Well yes, the raft needs to be discarded. But it also needs to be built, and used. I wager we agree.

:heart:
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
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Hanzze
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Re: Pharmacological Aids to Enlightenment

Post by Hanzze »

If one used the plants to make such a raft rather to capture them which what ever mouth, yes. Eaten there will be no raft but of cause more time to think about to make maybe a different or better raft.
Just that! *smile*
...We Buddhists must find the courage to leave our temples and enter the temples of human experience, temples that are filled with suffering. If we listen to Buddha, Christ, or Gandhi, we can do nothing else. The refugee camps, the prisons, the ghettos, and the battlefields will become our temples. We have so much work to do. ... Peace is Possible! Step by Step. - Samtach Preah Maha Ghosananda "Step by Step" http://www.ghosananda.org/bio_book.html

BUT! it is important to become a real Buddhist first. Like Punna did: Punna Sutta Nate sante baram sokham _()_
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Ben
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Re: Pharmacological Aids to Enlightenment

Post by Ben »

daverupa wrote:I'm much more interested in getting an arahant under an fMRI...
That is an interesting proposition, Dave. However, in my experience, there seems to be an inverse relationship between real spiritual progress and talking about it.
As for the use of substances like tea and coffee - in my experience you don't want to go into an intensive retreat dependent on them. I have found that with the increase in wakefulness comes an increase in mental agitation which doesn't aid one's development of samadhi.
kind regards,

Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
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Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
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Mawkish1983
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Re: Pharmacological Aids to Enlightenment

Post by Mawkish1983 »

I vote against using drugs as an aid to samadhi or sati. I believe that the arguments I have seen in their favour present strawman arguements or are at least very naive. Any attempt to strive towards abandoning craving by trying to control the physical world, or the mental world through physical means (i.e. looking 'out there' to change the disposition of what is 'in here') I believe is doomed to failure.
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Ben
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Re: Pharmacological Aids to Enlightenment

Post by Ben »

Mawkish1983 wrote:I vote against using drugs as an aid to samadhi or sati. I believe that the arguments I have seen in their favour present strawman arguements or are at least very naive. Any attempt to strive towards abandoning craving by trying to control the physical world, or the mental world through physical means (i.e. looking 'out there' to change the disposition of what is 'in here') I believe is doomed to failure.
:goodpost:
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Compassionate Hands Foundation (Buddhist aid in Myanmar) • Buddhist Global ReliefUNHCR

e: [email protected]..
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tiltbillings
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Re: Pharmacological Aids to Enlightenment

Post by tiltbillings »

DAWN wrote:We must develop that is unconditioned
All that have condition, must be rejected
Wrong.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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DAWN
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Re: Pharmacological Aids to Enlightenment

Post by DAWN »

tiltbillings wrote:
DAWN wrote:We must develop that is unconditioned
All that have condition, must be rejected
Wrong.
All that have condition is impermanent, is illusion, all that is impermanent is dukkha, right practice cant bring the dukkha, right practice brings descovering of Unconditioned, Unestablished, Uncreated.
We must find the peace without help of drugs. If we find peace in drugs, we cant find peace in Dhamma.
Sabbe dhamma anatta
We are not concurents...
I'am sorry for my english
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DAWN
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Re: Pharmacological Aids to Enlightenment

Post by DAWN »

daverupa wrote:
DAWN wrote:We must develop that is unconditioned
All that have condition, must be rejected
The eightfold path is conditioned, so that's not quite right.
Eightfold path have not conditioning as aim
Eightfold path have inconditioning as aim

Eightfold path intying a knot, he don't tying a knot
Eightfold path dont brings the complicate(conditioned) life, he bring the simple(inconditioned) life
Last edited by DAWN on Sun Sep 09, 2012 10:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
Sabbe dhamma anatta
We are not concurents...
I'am sorry for my english
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DAWN
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Re: Pharmacological Aids to Enlightenment

Post by DAWN »

ancientbuddhism wrote:
Hanzze wrote:However, do you think that it aids to Enlightenment?
They enhance cognition
The Buddha is NOT-COGNITION.

If we take a black leaf and spill on it many colors, we will not see any color
But if we take a clear leaf and spill on it many colors, we will see all this colors

Buddha's mind is clean of knowlege, and this proprety of all knowledge is his only skill, his only knowlege.
To understand a fenomene here and now, he dont need to study this fenomena, he dont need a knowlege, he just need to dunk his clear mind into dhamma, and then he see, like on clear leaf, what colors is on it.

Why is like that? Because we have a consciousness of somethink, only when there is difference, like clear of colors leaf can show all colors, like a silience can show a noize, like a night can show a day, like a cold can show the warm, like a no-cognition can show a cognition, like a uncinditioned can show the conditioned§ like a death can show a life ...

We cant taste a cup of tea that someone offer to us, if our cup of tea is full.
To taste all tea here and now we have to clean our cup of tea
To understand all dhammas here and now we have clean or mind of all dhammas

Once Socrate were asked, what is your knowledge? And Socrate respond that his only knowledge is that he have no any knowlege.

So if some serious meditator want to know all dhammas, he must clean his mind, make the leaf clean.

So any drugs is not good method for not good aim.
Last edited by DAWN on Sun Sep 09, 2012 10:26 am, edited 2 times in total.
Sabbe dhamma anatta
We are not concurents...
I'am sorry for my english
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m0rl0ck
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Re: Pharmacological Aids to Enlightenment

Post by m0rl0ck »

He of Cryptic Brevity wrote:Wrong.
Could you expand on that? The unconditioned is by definition not dependent on any conditioned thing or phenomena.
“The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling.” ― Robert M. Pirsig
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Caraka
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Re: Pharmacological Aids to Enlightenment

Post by Caraka »

ancientbuddhism wrote:
Caraka wrote:
If such a drug existed, I think it's not a violation of the 5th precept, since the full phrase includes "which lead to carelessness".
If such a drug existed is idle speculations.

The fifth precept is for me a translation trying to make the Buddhas teaching about moral and ethic understandable in English. What if it really meant 'smacking your feet off the fundament that your virtue is buildt upon' ?

Anything that can lead one onto unwholesome thoughts or actions is not good, I hope all can agree about that. So for me the question is not what Pharmacological Aids might lead to, or not. It is all about what can lead me onto more wholesome thoughts and actions. Alcohol? Drugs? Pharmacological Aids? I don't think so.
Except for some of the amphetamines listed as Nootropics (and even these can conceivably be used without risk of ‘heedlessness’), I don’t see how any of these fail the caution of sīla.
Classic. Claiming amphetamines (Nootropics) can be used without risk is like looking at the sunset going down over the trees while the birds are singing, and saying this is so beautiful it must indeed be the work of God. Taking no account for evolution (facts).

And your only argument is saying Except? I'm curious about what facts you build such a statement upon..
daverupa
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Re: Pharmacological Aids to Enlightenment

Post by daverupa »

DAWN wrote:...
“Ariyo panāyye, aṭṭhaṅgiko maggo saṅkhato udāhu asaṅkhato”ti?
“Is the Eightfold Path conditioned or is it unconditioned?”

“Ariyo kho, āvuso Visākha, aṭṭhaṅgiko maggo saṅkhato”ti.
“Friend Visākha, the Eightfold Path is conditioned.”

MN 44
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
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