Fear mongering and psychedelics

[FranLover]

The sermons you will find in Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Taoist, etc. places of worship to the public are virtually indistinguishable in substance. Be an ethical person, is basically the shared ground.

Exactly. every wise person that ever existed, they all denounced Mara. They just called it by different names. No wise one ever said "yes, lets run around following our every whim, falling prey to every emotion, satisfying every carnal desire, yeah thats the way to live"

Do you know about the different buddhist schools? They say, "In my tradition, we believe the Dalai Lama is a reencarnation of blablabla...and in my tradition we believe in drawing devas....and im my tradition we believe in chanting...in my tradition we meditate more than in the other schools."

my question to you my friend is: Is there not something deeply flawed in being attached to these distinctions?

 

[OneIsEros]

In the Pali canon there is a moment where someone asks the Buddha why some people are more intelligent than others.

The Buddha’s answer was that they asked questions. So no, I do not think that asking follow-up questions is a flaw.

You are confusing the moment of transcending scholastic understanding with not having yet even reached that limited form of understanding. If you think you are one of the exceptional individuals in history who bypassed the scholarly phase, power to you. But even in a tradition like Zen, there are only a handful of people who did that. The vast majority were scholars whose scholastic discipline was an aspect of their practice.

And yes, there are disagreements among the Buddhist schools. The Buddha taught that he had found a liberation that was genuine, but that many spiritual accomplishments on the way could be confused for that final liberation. Hence why he was not satisfied with his own teachers, who led him as far as (first) meditative “nothingness”, and then (further) to “neither-perception-nor-non-perception”. These sound great, but his unyielding inquiry revealed that this wasn’t enough. It is natural there is some inquisitive disagreement in Buddhist philosophy.

 

[FranLover]

But even in a tradition like Zen, there are only a handful of people who did that. The vast majority were scholars whose scholastic discipline was an aspect of their practice.

"Then it is clear, Sariputta, that you have no such direct personal knowledge of the Arahats, the Fully Enlightened Ones of the past, the future, and the present. How then dare you set forth a speech so lofty and lordly, an utterance so bold, a veritable sounding of the lion's roar, saying: 'This faith, Lord, I have in the Blessed One, that there has not been, there will not be, nor is there now another recluse or brahman more exalted in Enlightenment than the Blessed One'?"

 

[OneIsEros]

Alright, message received. Dance with joy in the depth of your understanding, O cosmic jester of wisdom.

 

[FranLover]

I wish you inmense joy and happiness as well my friend. I, like all of us, have a lot to learn, and that is something to look foward to. And I learned inmensley from this one conversation. Thats one reason why people, people like you Eros, are so lovely. God bless!♡

 

[OneIsEros]

Nah man, I think you’ve got it! The world religions are all saying the same thing and the differences are a matter of semantics rather than meaning. :thumb_up:

That whole “formal nature” vs. radical anti-idealist thing is some sure tricky grammar, though. I mean, when my Zen teacher explained how a lobotomy does not make me any less complete in my nature because of the complete absence of a formal nature, which contributes to their rejection of the categories “good” and “evil”, it sure did blow my mind at the time, after having studied Aristotelian/Platonic/Procline philosophy, and how according to these folks “evils” are the defects which occur in the formal nature of substances (like, for example, humans having chunks of their brains cut out).... It seemed like a different way of looking at things like “self-nature”, at the time.

But hey, you say tomato, I say potato. Same thing, different word.

 

[FranLover]

Sounds like a good teacher. A good way to see that is in scars. A wound on the flesh heals. These self repairing, evolving mechanics of biology on all levels is the nature of nature. But only on the visible level, on the deep level, that is not a formal nature of nature, only one form, one manifestation of the formless. All the colorful leaves and branches and flowers of the tree form because of the colorless sap of the tree.

For example, I dont see a fundamental difference between these two statements; "The world is suffering" and "the purpose of life is the expansion of happiness." On a superficial level they sound distinct though. I know for example that when people hear the Four Noble Truths many think its depressive and gloomy. But its such a superificial level of thought to think that the "the world is suffering" is a concrete idea; it is formless, it is Pratītyasamutpāda

 

[OneIsEros]

Wait until you read the Samyutta Nikaya then. There’s dozens of sutras where the Buddha proclaims the significance of life to be less than a speck of shit or dirt on his fingernail. He wasn’t exactly a eudaimonist when he thought of life in an ultimate sense - whereas Plato and Aristotle definitely were eudaimonists in the ultimate sense.

 

[FranLover]

I've not read all the Samyutta Nikaya, but I have read several sutras. I dont see why life being insignificant means buddah is not an eudaimonist in the ultimate sense. It seems to me that that makes him an ultimate eudaimonist, he is saying that our karma is the ultimate. Btw, I love the parts where the buddah fits whole universes in just one of his pores; very psychedelic.

 

[OneIsEros]

If I recall, he couched it in terms of worth or value, so while Plato/Aristotle consider the universe to exist in terms of goodness, the Buddha actually denies this. The aim of Buddhism is not the generation of good karma but the end of all karma. As my Zen teacher repeatedly says - it is not about goodness. Some Tibetan Buddhists may disagree, but they are a very idiosyncratic branch of Buddhism. The only goodness the Buddha seemed to subscribe to seemed to be in negative terms. That is to say, healthy relationships, for example, are good because they counteract suffering - not because they are a positive “good” in themselves, as a Platonist would assert.

 

[FranLover]

is the buddah a good person, of integrity, full of compassion?

 

[OneIsEros]

Yes, Gotama was ethical in the extreme.

But there is a difference between believing reality is constituted in goodness, and being ethical.

Gotama did not think that there was any aspect of existence that justified life. To him, once Dukkha is resolved, the only motivation to go on living is to save other people from Dukkha. If there was no one to save, he was literally going to sit down and wait for his body to die.

In contrast, Platonism, in conjunction with the creation account in Genesis, asserts that every formal aspect of reality is good, and taken in its totality, is “very good”. This gives rise to the age old problem of evil in a universe that is supposedly good in Western philosophy, and attempts at accounting for it, which are known as theodicy.

No such tradition exists in Buddhism. Why? Because the Buddha flatly denied that existence is “good”. It has no positive value. No meaning, no purpose, nothing. Nada. It’s a speck of shit with distracting pleasures and horrible torments with no overarching value. That does not mean it is “evil”, it is rather completely neutral, neither good nor evil. But it does involve suffering, which only ends with Nirvana - which is itself, again, neutral. Its “goodness” is the end of the suffering. But that’s it. It’s a utilitarian good, not an “end in itself”. The ethical hero, Gotama, saves us from a mess, he doesn’t lead us to “the Good”. Life is not affirmed in Buddhism. Life is distinctly affirmed in Platonism, although it teaches that transcendence into the life of God or the Good itself is the highest goal of being (after all the other goods - life is good from top to bottom in Platonism). Not for Buddhism though.

 

[FranLover]

If there was no one to save, he was literally going to sit down and wait for his body to die.

I dont know about that

In contrast, Platonism, in conjunction with the creation account in Genesis, asserts that every formal aspect of reality is good, and taken in its totality, is “very good”. This gives rise to the age old problem of evil in a universe that is supposedly good in Western philosophy, and attempts at accounting for it, which are known as theodicy.

No such tradition exists in Buddhism. Why? Because the Buddha flatly denied that existence is “good”. It has no positive value. No meaning, no purpose, nothing. Nada. It’s a speck of shit with distracting pleasures and horrible torments with no overarching value. That does not mean it is “evil”, it is rather completely neutral, neither good nor evil. But it does involve suffering, which only ends with Nirvana - which is itself, again, neutral. Its “goodness” is the end of the suffering. But that’s it. It’s a utilitarian good, not an “end in itself”. The ethical hero, Gotama, saves us from a mess, he doesn’t lead us to “the Good”. Life is not affirmed in Buddhism. Life is distinctly affirmed in Platonism, although it teaches that transcendence into the life of God or the Good itself is the highest goal of being (after all the other goods - life is good from top to bottom in Platonism). Not for Buddhism though.

Its not 'thats just it' with no purpose, thats not what the buddah is saying, he is saying that its very subtle, beyond the scope of conjecture, and he always stresses to give merit to things that our of merit. He stresses that we should do what we ought to do, thats the definition of purpose, and the confirmation of nibbana and its bliss is the definition of divine purpose. The noble truths state that there is an end to suffering. the destruction of clinging. all these things have great merit.

Damapada

Sukhavagga: Happiness

www.accesstoinsight.org

200. Happy indeed we live, we who possess nothing. Feeders on joy we shall be, like the Radiant Gods.

201. Victory begets enmity; the defeated dwell in pain. Happily the peaceful live, discarding both victory and defeat.

202. There is no fire like lust and no crime like hatred. There is no ill like the aggregates (of existence) and no bliss higher than the peace (of Nibbana). [17]

203. Hunger is the worst disease, conditioned things the worst suffering. Knowing this as it really is, the wise realize Nibbana, the highest bliss.

204. Health is the most precious gain and contentment the greatest wealth. A trustworthy person is the best kinsman, Nibbana the highest bliss.

205. Having savored the taste of solitude and peace (of Nibbana), pain-free and stainless he becomes, drinking deep the taste of the bliss of the Truth.

206. Good is it to see the Noble Ones; to live with them is ever blissful. One will always be happy by not encountering fools.

Kalama Sutta: The Instruction to the Kalamas

www.accesstoinsight.org

Kalama Sutta

"'Suppose there is no hereafter and there is no fruit, no result, of deeds done well or ill. Yet in this world, here and now, free from hatred, free from malice, safe and sound, and happy, I keep myself.' This is the second solace found by him.

"'Suppose evil (results) befall an evil-doer. I, however, think of doing evil to no one. Then, how can ill (results) affect me who do no evil deed?' This is the third solace found by him.

"'Suppose evil (results) do not befall an evil-doer. Then I see myself purified in any case.' This is the fourth solace found by him.

"The disciple of the Noble Ones, Kalamas, who has such a hate-free mind, such a malice-free mind, such an undefiled mind, and such a purified mind, is one by whom, here and now, these four solaces are found."

"So it is, Blessed One. So it is, Sublime one. The disciple of the Noble Ones, venerable sir, who has such a hate-free mind, such a malice-free mind, such an undefiled mind, and such a purified mind, is one by whom, here and now, four solaces are found.

"'Suppose there is a hereafter and there is a fruit, result, of deeds done well or ill. Then it is possible that at the dissolution of the body after death, I shall arise in the heavenly world, which is possessed of the state of bliss.' This is the first solace found by him.

 

[ghrue84]

Looks like the OP decided to quit this forum altogether. The OP was tired of fear mongering. Nothin wrong with that. I don't like it myself. I have found that all of these things exist within myself so I understand them. Watch a fearful child and smile when you see the multitude of false reasonings associated with their various fears. They know not what they do. They will act out in brutal ways when forced into a corner to face the fear soon becoming that which they feared the most.

I have seen the worst of myself and I know my demons. I am very well aware of them. They have caused me a tremendous amount of pain and suffering. These demons were allowed to run rampant in my mind unchecked for a long time. Ignored and unchecked, these demons can become real. They can certainly become something very real to a novice psychedelic user. Maybe it's lazy language to chalk anything dark into the demon and devil category? I feel that maybe some of these people who say the saw a demon or experienced something dark while in the midst of a psychedelic trip are simply experiencing something that they do not understand within themselves. The simple and lazy thing to do when engaging with something we don't understand is to label it evil or demonic and then we can say what we wish about it. I don't see demons or devils anymore because I understand the darkness of the mind now. Anyone can behave in an evil way if pushed far enough. It's completely relative. Something someone else may refer to as 'evil or demonic' I would likely refer to as 'cool! or wicked!'. I like dark things now. I now recognize them within myself and the fear vanished.

I cannot judge someone who sees demons as I saw them before as well. No one could have told me they weren't real. It was what I knew then. There was nothing wrong with me. I was just learning. I think we are all learning. We will create names for our fears, names for thing we do not understand. We learn and the names and labels of things tend to drop away in the end.

Thank you OP for creating this thread! I certainly hope you will come back and respond to what I have said to you here. I was hoping to chat about this with you and was very disappointed reading you were leaving. I guess that is just the way it is for a forum like this. Ebb and flow.

Thank you for explaining your thought processes.

It's very interesting to see what your distant past perspective was compared to your more recent past. It's also helpful, since I've had difficulty understanding such a point of view (your distant past point of view) with a former friend.

He was trying to impose on me the (according to him) "fact" that the world is by nature evil, a prison, Satan's world and we are here because we did something bad and we are being punished. Saturn is Satan, the "black cube", the "god of this world" and we can only be saved by Jesus Christ. I wanted to see the divinity in everything, and he was trying to impose and force all this into my belief system. It was rough. Listening to him every day trying to convince me of these and many other things. I had told him various times to stop with the Satan talks but he was incessant and could not care less that I had told him I did not want to speak of such things. He was just trying to force and transmit his beliefs on me. Because he was right and I was a "fool". It got even rougher when he kept doing it until I finally lost my patience and told him that he was the one worshiping the devil since he couldn't seem to stop talking about him. I offered him an exorcism and told him that Yahweh was the real devil. That the real God isn't a murdering sadist like Yahweh. Anyway I got myself riled up... Re-living that again is not good for me I will stop here and refrain from writing all the details.

I find it interesting that you mention labels and names and how they tend to drop away. I believe that this is because all words are failed attempts at describing the ineffable. Ever try to explain or describe a psychedelic trip and immediately notice that the words that you try to attribute to the trip do not do the trip justice? That they offer only an incomplete and inaccurate version of what was experienced?

The mind can be your greatest enemy(demon) or your greatest friend (angel), like in the cartoons I saw when I was little, where the character would see a demon and an angel above their head or their shoulders. That was a description of the possibilities of the mind. What is of note is that the character ALWAYS chooses which thoughts he will turn into acts and which thoughts he will let go. The mind presents thoughts to you, you observe these thoughts and decide whether you will act upon these thoughts, or let the thoughts go. From this, you can gather that you are not your mind. You are the master of the mind. If, however, you decide to identify with and act upon every thought your mind presents to you, then you are allowing the mind to take you for whatever ride it wants to take you.

It is important to understand the nature of thoughts. All thoughts are transient or impermanent. They come and go. Rise and fall. You can always just observe thoughts rise and fall without being identified with them. What I mean with getting identified with them is thinking that you are your thoughts.

For example, lets say I'm going to do an experiment and observe what thoughts arise while I'm standing still in a forest. "Wow, it's so peaceful here compared to the city." "I wish I could come here more often." "The city is so noisy." "The forest is so calm." "The inhabitants of the forest all seem to be in harmony."

Did any of the thoughts stay permanently? Did all of the thoughts eventually vanish? Is any thought truly permanent?

If no thought is truly permanent, then anyone can certainly watch their thoughts come and go, without acting upon any of them, whether good, bad or neutral. This, again, means that you are the master of your thoughts, and the thoughts are not the masters of you.

 

[dragonrider]

Looks like the OP decided to quit this forum altogether. The OP was tired of fear mongering. Nothin wrong with that. I don't like it myself. I have found that all of these things exist within myself so I understand them. Watch a fearful child and smile when you see the multitude of false reasonings associated with their various fears. They know not what they do. They will act out in brutal ways when forced into a corner to face the fear soon becoming that which they feared the most.

I have seen the worst of myself and I know my demons. I am very well aware of them. They have caused me a tremendous amount of pain and suffering. These demons were allowed to run rampant in my mind unchecked for a long time. Ignored and unchecked, these demons can become real. They can certainly become something very real to a novice psychedelic user. Maybe it's lazy language to chalk anything dark into the demon and devil category? I feel that maybe some of these people who say the saw a demon or experienced something dark while in the midst of a psychedelic trip are simply experiencing something that they do not understand within themselves. The simple and lazy thing to do when engaging with something we don't understand is to label it evil or demonic and then we can say what we wish about it. I don't see demons or devils anymore because I understand the darkness of the mind now. Anyone can behave in an evil way if pushed far enough. It's completely relative. Something someone else may refer to as 'evil or demonic' I would likely refer to as 'cool! or wicked!'. I like dark things now. I now recognize them within myself and the fear vanished.

I cannot judge someone who sees demons as I saw them before as well. No one could have told me they weren't real. It was what I knew then. There was nothing wrong with me. I was just learning. I think we are all learning. We will create names for our fears, names for thing we do not understand. We learn and the names and labels of things tend to drop away in the end.

Thank you OP for creating this thread! I certainly hope you will come back and respond to what I have said to you here. I was hoping to chat about this with you and was very disappointed reading you were leaving. I guess that is just the way it is for a forum like this. Ebb and flow.

Thank you for explaining your thought processes.

It's very interesting to see what your distant past perspective was compared to your more recent past. It's also helpful, since I've had difficulty understanding such a point of view (your distant past point of view) with a former friend.

He was trying to impose on me the (according to him) "fact" that the world is by nature evil, a prison, Satan's world and we are here because we did something bad and we are being punished. Saturn is Satan, the "black cube", the "god of this world" and we can only be saved by Jesus Christ. I wanted to see the divinity in everything, and he was trying to impose and force all this into my belief system. It was rough. Listening to him every day trying to convince me of these and many other things. I had told him various times to stop with the Satan talks but he was incessant and could not care less that I had told him I did not want to speak of such things. He was just trying to force and transmit his beliefs on me. Because he was right and I was a "fool". It got even rougher when he kept doing it until I finally lost my patience and told him that he was the one worshiping the devil since he couldn't seem to stop talking about him. I offered him an exorcism and told him that Yahweh was the real devil. That the real God isn't a murdering sadist like Yahweh. Anyway I got myself riled up... Re-living that again is not good for me I will stop here and refrain from writing all the details.

I find it interesting that you mention labels and names and how they tend to drop away. I believe that this is because all words are failed attempts at describing the ineffable. Ever try to explain or describe a psychedelic trip and immediately notice that the words that you try to attribute to the trip do not do the trip justice? That they offer only an incomplete and inaccurate version of what was experienced?

The mind can be your greatest enemy(demon) or your greatest friend (angel), like in the cartoons I saw when I was little, where the character would see a demon and an angel above their head or their shoulders. That was a description of the possibilities of the mind. What is of note is that the character ALWAYS chooses which thoughts he will turn into acts and which thoughts he will let go. The mind presents thoughts to you, you observe these thoughts and decide whether you will act upon these thoughts, or let the thoughts go. From this, you can gather that you are not your mind. You are the master of the mind. If, however, you decide to identify with and act upon every thought your mind presents to you, then you are allowing the mind to take you for whatever ride it wants to take you.

It is important to understand the nature of thoughts. All thoughts are transient or impermanent. They come and go. Rise and fall. You can always just observe thoughts rise and fall without being identified with them. What I mean with getting identified with them is thinking that you are your thoughts.

For example, lets say I'm going to do an experiment and observe what thoughts arise while I'm standing still in a forest. "Wow, it's so peaceful here compared to the city." "I wish I could come here more often." "The city is so noisy." "The forest is so calm." "The inhabitants of the forest all seem to be in harmony."

Did any of the thoughts stay permanently? Did all of the thoughts eventually vanish? Is any thought truly permanent?

If no thought is truly permanent, then anyone can certainly watch their thoughts come and go, without acting upon any of them, whether good, bad or neutral. This, again, means that you are the master of your thoughts, and the thoughts are not the masters of you.

It sounds a bit like your friend was having a psychotic break. It could have been a relatively mild one. Because it is not always very obvious that someone is having a psychosis.
Sometimes people somewhat retain their ability to think rationally.

But only to a point. You unfortunately cannot reason someone out of a psychosis.

Whatever is the case, it is not a healthy thing at all, to obsess over fire, brimstone, satan and infernal punishment.

 

[ghrue84]

It sounds a bit like your friend was having a psychotic break. It could have been a relatively mild one. Because it is not always very obvious that someone is having a psychosis.
Sometimes people somewhat retain their ability to think rationally.

But only to a point. You unfortunately cannot reason someone out of a psychosis.

Whatever is the case, it is not a healthy thing at all, to obsess over fire, brimstone, satan and infernal punishment.

Thank you, I was in a ride of guilt, confusion, and at times even believing my friend because he was one of the best friends I'd ever had in my life until he changed. I really valued his opinion and I even studied part of the Bible because of this. I had no reason to believe that he would lie to me about this, that's how much I trusted him. I was also worried about him at the same time.

I'm still recovering mentally from how exhausting and worrying the situation was. I tried both to listen to him to see if he could prove that what he was saying was true (he couldn't), and to tell him what I thought, several times. But he decided to disappear at some point. Haven't seen him since. I haven't seen him since last year I think. It's really sad because we tripped together on several special occasions (for me anyway). And it's a really tough situation because he's my best friend's cousin. And even my best friend has had no contact with him either. We both haven't seen him in months.

But for some reason I think he'll be fine.

Thanks for your analysis, I too think now that he was suffering a mild psychosis, but I think he'll get over it eventually. I remember him saying at one point, a little before he disappeared: "I went deep in the rabbit hole man." I felt like he had realized at that point or prior to it that this "truth" that he had been propounding and attempting to pound into my mind was no truth. Hopefully he did realize it and he's happy and unafraid of life and the world and of me.