Entheogenic use of Cannabis and Yoga

Pat Macpherson, Seth Auberon, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly (Wikipedia edits)

Sadhus: India's Mystic Holy Men (Dolf Hartsuiker). Reviewed at hermitary.com.

An entheogen ("generating the divine within") refers to substances or practices used in a spiritual, religious, shamanic, or sacred context, whether natural or human made, to expand consciousness. Checking out is abuse, but tuning in may be searching (WQ).

.

What, man? I'm cool. I can maintain.

Cannabis (street name Mary Jane) has been used in an entheogenic ("generating the divine within") context in India since the Vedic period dating back to approximately 1500 BCE but perhaps as far back as 2000 BCE.
 

WARNING: Avoid intoxicants (in accord with fifth precept, see below). Wisdom Quarterly advocates only the healing use of plants and exercise, not their abuse. Hemp is a miracle; weed is not. Not high-THC, but high-CBD content, is medicinal.
 

There are several references in Greek mythology to a powerful drug that eliminated anguish and sorrow. Herodotus wrote about early ceremonial practices by the Scythians [some argue that the Buddha's family, the Shakyans, were in fact the Scythians], thought to have occurred from the 5th to 2nd century BCE.

• AUDIO: Medical Marijuana: CBD not THC
• Cannabis CAN cure: What is CBD?

Spiritual endeavors are not about partying.

Itinerant Hindu sadhus (revered full-time spiritual seekers) have used it in India for centuries (Edward Bloomquist. Marijuana: The Second Trip. California: Glencoe, 1971). And many yogis look like it, which is not to their credit or benefit, with their dreadlocks (jata), droopy countenances, and failure at spiritual attainments.

• The goal of the Eightfold Path of Yoga, according to Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras, is the stilling of the mind, the vrittis. What does this have to do with Buddhism? Patanjali's whole system of exposition and language (hybrid Sanskrit) would not have been possible without Buddhism:

Patanjali's "eightfold path" of yoga

The factors of the Path to enlightenment

Vyasa's Yogabhashya, the commentary to the Yoga Sutras, and Vacaspati Misra's subcommentary state directly that the samadhi techniques [right concentration] are directly borrowed from Buddhism's meditative absorptions [the Noble Eightfold Path defines samma samadhi as the first four jhanas], with the addition of the mystical and divine interpretations of mental absorption.¹
 

Even if you get blissed out, remember to breathe! Maty Ezraty teaching (lansingyoga.com)

 
According to David Gordon White, the language of the Yoga Sutras is often closer to "Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, the Sanskrit of the early Mahayana Buddhist scriptures, than to the classical Sanskrit of other Hindu scriptures.² According to Karel Werner,

Patanjali's [yoga] system is unthinkable without Buddhism. As far as its terminology goes there is much in the Yoga Sutras that reminds us of Buddhist formulations from the Pāli Canon and even more so from the Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma and from Sautrāntika."³

Uma's dad Robert (nymag.com)

American Buddhist and Dalai Lama translator Prof. Robert Thurman writes that Patañjali was influenced by the success of the Buddhist monastic system to formulate his own matrix for the version of thought he considered [Vedic] orthodox.⁴

However, it is also to be noted that the Yoga Sutras, especially the fourth segment of the Kaivalya Pada, contains several polemical verses critical of [some] Buddhism, particularly the [philosophy of the] Vijñānavāda (Yogacara, "Yoga Practice") school of Vasubandhu.⁵

 
Ancient and modern India and Nepal

Sick hippies, intellectuals, and sell outs

The earliest known reports regarding the sacred status of cannabis in India and Nepal come from the Atharva Veda estimated to have been written sometime around 2000-1400 BC,⁶ which mentions cannabis as one of the "five sacred plants."⁷

 

There are three types of cannabis used in India and Nepal. The first, bhang, consists of the leaves and plant tops of the cannabis plant. It is usually consumed as an infusion in beverage form and varies in strength according to how much cannabis is used in the preparation.

The second, ganja, consisting of the leaves and the plant tops, is smoked.

The third, called charas or hashish, consists of the resinous buds and/or extracted resin from the leaves of the plant. Typically, bhang is the most commonly used form of cannabis in religious festivals.
 

Maybe it's called "pot" because it makes couch potato's pot bellies crave potato chips or called "dope" because... well, it isn't making Bud any wiser. If beer is "liquid ignorance," dope may be its gaseous form. Moreover, CBD is more useful than THC.

• “After years of [pot] growers aiming to boost THC percentages in their crops, many growers have switched to focusing on producing CBD-rich strains because of the increasing demand by medical users” - WQ (ProjectCBD.com)
  

Marijuana in modern Hinduism

Aghori yogi ritually drinking sacred bhang from human skull cup with Shiva behind.

 
During the Indian and Nepalese (particularly in the Terai and Hilly regions) festival of Holi, people consume bhang, which contains cannabis flowers.^8,9

According to one description, when the amrita ("elixir of life") was produced from the churning of the ocean by the devas and the asuras, Shiva created cannabis from his own body to purify the elixir (leading to cannabis' epithet, angaja, or "body-born").

Yogi dozing off on nails (petermalakoff.com)

Another account suggests that the cannabis plant sprang up when a drop of the elixir dropped on the ground. Therefore, cannabis is used by would be Hindu sages due to its association with the mythical elixir and Shiva. Wise drinking of bhang, according to religious rites, is believed to cleanse karma, unite one with Shiva, and avoid the miseries of hell in future lives. [It may well have the opposite effect depending on what one does, the karma one engages in, while intoxicated.]

 

It is also believed to have medicinal benefits. In contrast, foolish drinking of bhang without rites, which is considered bad karma.¹⁰ Although cannabis was regarded as illegal and designated a Schedule 1 drug (no redeeming value), many Nepalese people consume it during festivals (like Shivaratri), which the government tolerates to some extent, and also for personal and recreational purposes.

Buddhism and pot

I'm totally into Buddhism, yoga, veg food. I just use this as like medicine, man. - Yeah, right!

.

In Buddhism, the Fifth Precept is to "abstain from wines, liquors, and intoxicants that occasion heedlessness."

How this applies to cannabis is variously interpreted. Cannabis and some other psychoactive plants are specifically prescribed in the Tibetan Mahākāla Tantra for medicinal purposes.

However, Tantra is an esoteric teaching -- a questionable blending of Hinduism and Buddhism -- not generally accepted by most other forms of either Buddhism or Hinduism.¹¹ More

FOOTNOTES

Meditate for health and to end all suffering.

1. John David, The Yoga System of Patanjali with commentary Yogabhashya attributed to Veda Vyasa and Tattva Vaicharadi by Vacaspati Misra. Harvard Univ. Press, 1914.

2. White 2014, p.10.
3. Karel Werner, The Yogi and the Mystic, Routledge, 1994, p.27.
4. Robert Thurman, "The Central Philosophy of Tibet." Princeton Univ. Press, 1984, p.34.
5. John Nicol Farquhar, An Outline of the Religious Literature of India, p.132. 
6. Courtwright, David (2001). Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World. Harvard Univ. Press. p.39.
7. Touw, Mia. "The religious and medicinal uses of Cannabis in China, India and Tibet". J Psychoactive Drugs 13 (1).

8. Report of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission. Simla, India: Government Central Printing House. 1894. Chapter IX: Social and Religious Customs.

9. "The History of the Intoxicant Use of Marijuana". National Commission of Marijuana and Drug Abuse.

10. "Indian Hemp Drugs Commission Report - Appendix".

11. Stablein WG. The Mahākālatantra: A Theory of Ritual Blessings and Tantric Medicine. Doctoral Dissertation, Columbia Univ. 1976. pp.21-2,80,255-6,36,286,5.

Driving under influence but not "high"? (NPR)

Pfc. Sandoval, CC Liu, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; SCPR.org/Staff, NPR, Feb. 23, 2014

Smells totally crunchy, bro! - I beg your pardon, valued patron? - Medicine for my girlfriend.

  

As cannabis becomes legal, driving concerns grows

Pot is safe until smoked (in a bikini)

Here a customer smells a strain of marijuana while being helped by employee Billy Archilla inside the retail marijuana shop at 3D Cannabis Center, in Denver.

• LISTEN NOW (11:40) DL

The Lodo Wellness Center in Denver, Colorado has been selling medical marijuana for several years. But since Jan. 1, 2014, when marijuana in Colorado officially moved from underground to behind-the-counter, they have also been selling legal, recreational pot.
 

Hey, monkey, don't drink and drive! (BO)

A majority of Americans now say they support full legalization, and the trend is spreading: Legal weed is coming soon to Washington state.
 
Meanwhile, the public health community is warning of a potential safety problem: more people driving while stoned, whatever "stoned" means. Health officials and law enforcement do not yet have the data or tools to define or address the concern.

A substance is something to abstain from and avoid if it is being used with the intention of getting high and dissociating. Mindfulness and acceptance would be better strategies.

  
Public perception
Inside the Lodo Wellness Center, shoppers do not seem particularly worried about getting behind the wheel with pot in their systems -- since it lingers in fat for days or weeks, long after one is "high."
 
"You could smoke about an ounce and still have your motor skills," says 39-year-old Dante Cox. "When it comes to one shot of alcohol, all that goes out of the window."
 
Like Cox, several others say it's okay to smoke before driving, and it's definitely safer than drinking [alcohol] and driving.
 

UCLA, USC students unite against racism

For advocates of traffic safety, their words are of concern. "I think this is the next big issue in highway safety," says Jonathan Adkins, executive director of the Governor's Highway Safety Association.

[And it is yet another issue that can be used to push for a more oppressive "police state" in America under every possible pretext.] He tells NPR's Arun Rath that there's a prevalent feeling in American culture that marijuana is no big deal.
 

POLL: Divide California into 6 states?

"Well, it is a big deal if you use it and then get behind the wheel," he says. "We need to have the same cultural intolerance for marijuana use behind the wheel as we do with alcohol."
 
Alcohol-related crashes still kill around 10,000 people a year, and research clearly shows how drinking alcohol affects driving. The impact of marijuana is much less clear. More

• Pot measure withdrawn, 2 others still aim for ballot
• Feds issue roadmap to banks on legal pot business
• What can the new legal pot industry learn from USA's failed alcohol Prohibition?
• Drug-sniffing dogs pose challenge with legalized pot 
• Jewish American held in Israel for murder killed
• As the economy struggles, Venezuelans hit the streets 
• Will AZ gov. sign controversial "religious freedom" bill? 
• Cal State Los Angeles debates the meaning of "diversity"
• Does gov.'s water proposal address CA's drought needs?

Ukraine gets a new president due to protests

Nazis and our U.S. "war" on drugs (comedy)

Wisdom Quarterly (eds.); H. Neal Smith (serendipity.li); Stephen Colbert (colbertreport.com)
How does truth -- for example, as exhibited on "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" -- go unheard when presented seriously? The shows transcend politics through satire. Thomas J. Falletta takes a look at the shows' affect on news, debate, and business in Congress.

 

Hemp vs. marijuana -- not the same thing

The following is a compilation of historical facts. Randy William Davis and I had been independently asking the question: "Why is marijuana illegal?" Every time we found an answer, it led to several more questions. He had been looking into other political activities, mainly concerning the Nazis of Germany. He soon drew a connection between the general attitudes of the Nazis and members of the government and industries of the United States.

Much of politics beginning 1820 centered around oil and the great wealth available to those who transformed it into gasoline for the burgeoning automobile industry, home heating, lubrication, and the new idea of synthetics -- plastics.

Of the big oil families, the Rockefellers remain at the top of the heap. Those who supported them, specifically the Mellon banking family, also profited greatly. Andrew Mellon, who had invested a great deal of money in Rockefeller, was not going to lose the chance at becoming fabulously wealthy.

Does anyone need to tell us Nazis are bad?

Another client of Mellon's, the DuPont family, in addition to building companies like General Motors, was developing synthetic fibers and plastics from petroleum.

Law firms like Brown Brothers Harriman handled the legal work for these and others. Media giants like the Hearst family were more than happy to join the ranks of the exorbitantly rich by putting out whatever "news" was to their benefit. These people had no concern for the health and well-being of society at large.

Indeed, the less the average person knew, the better for the rich one. Strangely enough, it was many of these same people who were responsible for the criminalization of hemp and marijuana.

Hemp, the plant humans have used for several millennia, and the industry that provided the best in cloth, rope, [paper, sails,] and oil, had fallen on hard times. Hemp was growing luxuriously throughout America's farmland, but it was extremely labor-intensive.

Until the availability of the decorticator, hemp had to be harvested in large part by hand. American industry needed more than hemp could produce in this way.
 
The decorticator came on the scene in 1935, and hemp was on its way again, until the petroleum industry saw a problem: Fuel could be made from hemp that would burn cleaner, more efficiently, and with a greater supply than crude petroleum oil. Rudolph Diesel had built his famous engine intending it to burn vegetable oil, mainly hemp. 

 

Hemp was already well known for its lubricating ability, which was of importance to the young aviation industry. Hemp oil in an aircraft engine does not break apart chemically at high altitudes like petroleum did at the time....
 

Right wing hypocrisy about drugs (Tom Tomorrow/thismodernworld.com)

  
Hemp, as almost everyone knows, is in the same family as "marijuana." The flower tops and leaves of other species of Cannabis Sativa L. It was smoked freely at many fairs in its concentrated form hashish. "Hash dens" were popular in America's bigger cities. But blacks and Hispanics were known to smoke the dried flowers and leaves. Jazz musicians of the period were widely known as smokers. Big oil and its enablers found an excuse to drive hemp away:

Claim all sorts of bad things about marijuana without making a distinction between it and hemp so that the average person will not know. Then what they and their forbears had grown up could be taken away. This was done by playing up white America's racism.

The powers that be in industry and various government agencies scared everyone by claiming that marijuana would drive users insane and lead to the abuse of more insidious drugs like heroin and cocaine.
 
By 1936 "Reefer Madness" was all the rage. It served as a pretext for Congress to pass the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. The ecological and drug-free hemp industry was crippled. Big oil was safe.
 

Hitler glorified in American media (TIME)

Meanwhile, Adolph Hitler was building Germany into a war machine with the same American industrialists who wanted to ban hemp. Hitler had no oil, but Rockefeller did. With the help of these Americans, Hitler got oil. The rest of the Hitler story is well known.
 
After WW II, the American intelligence community turned its attention to the Soviet Union. They sought to use former Nazi intelligence agents as well as other Nazis against the Russians.
 
By 1955 over 10,000 former Nazis, many of them war criminals who evaded any kind of prosecution, were brought into the United States of American and put into our CIA (Central Intelligence Agency).

With them they brought their hatred, inhumane experiments, and their willingness to subjugate all for the greater good of Nazism. With the help of America's right wing, they became entrenched. Their policies still rule America today.

The prohibition of hemp and marijuana was fallout -- part of a much larger attempt to control American citizens, over what we read, see, hear, eat, and smoke. The policies that led to marijuana prohibition are the same policies that have taken away rights Americans hold dearest.

This is a summarized chronology of the events of the 20th century. Because of the "War On (Some) Drugs," we now stand to lose all of our freedoms. It can be a complex concept to contemplate.

But when we look at interrelated elements in a historical context, we can begin to see how and why the government we have now is bogus.

Colbert: America Again: Re-Becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't

The following CHRONOLOGY is far from complete and may never be complete. In some instances, only those involved in the government possess the actual proof, and most of them are unlikely to share it with outsiders. In other cases, the actual proof is available, and it is used where possible. In still other instances, to quote Bob Dylan, "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."
 
1820-Rothschilds establish leading bank in Europe. Bankers who allied themselves with the Rothschilds and those who supported the Masonic Order find themselves well off. Those who did not have it rough.
1840-During an attempt at alcohol prohibition, then attorney Abraham Lincoln states: "Prohibition makes a crime out of things that are not crimes... A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."
1842-Cannabis makes up about half of all medicines sold in America. No one reports serious problems with use.
1850-Cannabis prescribed as the prime medicine for more than 100 separate illnesses in U.S. Pharmacopoeia.
1865-Northern industrialists win War Between the States, gain power base over agricultural South, influencing westward expansion of U.S. and location of railroads. Mary Todd Lincoln prescribed cannabis for the nervous breakdown she suffered following husband (deposed President) Lincoln's assassination.
1875-California, in a blatant act of racism, bans opium smoking by Chinese. Large, well-run opium houses ran out of business, replaced by smaller, less reputable houses. Usage increases.
1876-Turkish hashish exhibition at Philadelphia's Centennial Exhibition is most popular. Fair attendees encouraged to return again and again to "enhance" their enjoyment of the fair. 
1883-First federal law against drugs. Congress heavily taxes opium smoking. First time taxation used to legislate morality instead of raising revenue. Controlled by Treasury Department.
1884-Supreme Court decision makes corporations artificial persons, giving impersonal business entities 14th Amendment protections previously reserved for human beings.
1888-Using 1883 opium taxation law as a precedent, federal government bans certain types of opium from being imported and bans Chinese from importing opium at all. Government now surrenders revenue raising in favor of controlling "morality."
1890-Standard Oil of Ohio is refining 90% of America's oil, thanks to Rothschild financing.
1894-Indian Hemp Drugs Commission report released to British. Study done in India. Judged the physical, mental, moral effects of smoking cannabis, urges against any prohibition based on "no appreciable physical injury of any kind... no injurious effects on the mind... (and) no moral injury whatever." 
1895-Rothschilds begin to finance American business. They do so primarily through the Warburgs of Germany, who were partners of Kuhn, Loeb, and Company of New York. Both Warburgs and Kuhn/Loeb would be principals of Federal Reserve Board. Rothschilds would finance Rockefeller's Standard Oil, Carnegie Steel, and the Harriman Railroad system.
1896-McKinley elected U.S. president. Marcus Alonzo Hannah from Standard Oil of Ohio raises 16 million dollars for campaign, an unheard of sum at the time.
1898-Spanish-American War starts, with William Randolph Hearst's "Yellow Journalism" fueling the fire. Hearst begins long campaign of racism against Hispanics, Asians, and African Americans and their cultural activities.
1900-Mellon Bank, the sixth largest in America, finances very successful oil "gusher" in Spindletop, Texas. In a joint venture, Eli Lilly and Parke Davis develop strain of cannabis called Cannabis Americana. Strain is a very potent Cannabis Indica for use in their medicines. MORE

For instance, the full Warren Commission report into the assassination of deposed President Kennedy will not be released for 100 years. If some serious crimes were not being covered up, why the additional delay?

No one started out with the intention of rewriting history. This project was a simple time line to keep my research and the research of Davis straight because there is so much material. The timeline took on a life of its own.
 

Neo-Nazis keep racism and hatred alive.

It is a companion-piece to Davis's excellent In the Shadow of the Swastika. If anyone wishes to replicate or further investigate any of this, and I urge everyone to do so, a full bibliography is provided.

Over the past seven years, these facts have checked, cross checked, researched, and confirmed any and all sources on this information that came to hand. Some of the proof is too well protected for anyone to get at right now, but as so often happens, it will leak. Then no knee jerk defense of the powers that run our supposedly free society will be able to defend it. The fact that it remains hidden already speaks ill of our alleged freedoms.

Ironic Jon Stewart mocks explosive Alex Jones (It's true, Jon).

• Industrial Hemp: The Geography of a Controversial Plant
• VIDEO: Pres. Obama, Bill O'Reilly, and the Super Bowl Pre-Show (Obama sits down with FOX News' O'Reilly before the 2014 Super Bowl, 02:40)
  
• VIDEO: Remembering Philip Seymour Hoffman (Daily Show interview with legendary drug addict and, who recently overdosed on heroin after years of sobriety).
• VIDEO: Jon Stewart defends WAR with Christopher Hitchens

 

VIDEO: Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy, American Dad): problem with Jon Stewart

The Intoxication Sutra

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly, excerpt "A Brief Code of Buddhist Ethics" from the discourse "Advice to Householders," Sigalovada Sutra (DN 31)

Drug addict Sugarnose Barbie knows how to party on a budget (weheartit.com)

 

Snorting fluoride?

There are four motivations of bad karma (unskillful, unprofitable deeds). The Buddha rhetorically asked, "Due to what four causes is unskillful karma produced?

1. "Led by desire one perpetrates unwholesome actions.
2. Provoked by anger one performs unskillful deeds.
3. Motivated by delusion one engages in demeritorious conduct.
4. Stirred by fear one produces harmful karma.

"But to the extent that one is not motivated by greed, aversion, wrong views, or fear, a lay follower accumulates no unwholesome karma."
 

Smoking on that gas with a mask (Julia Ferguson/flickr)

Who led by craving, contempt, confusion, or cowardice

Transgresses the self-discipline thus proclaimed,

All of that person’s glory dims and fades away,

Declining like the light of the waning moon.

 

But who in spite of desire, dislike, delusion, or dread

Does not transgress the self-discipline thus proclaimed,

All of that person’s glory gains in strength,

Dazzling like the light of the waxing moon.

"Liquid Ignorance" (npr.org)

"There are six channels for dissipating wealth.
 
The Buddha further asked, "What are the six channels for dissipating wealth that one avoids pursuing?

1. "Indulging in intoxicants which occasion heedlessness,
2. roaming the streets at unseemly hours,
3. frequenting unsavory shows,
4. being infatuated with gambling,
5. associating with the foolish,
6. being addicted to idleness."

[Why?] "There are, young householder, these six miserable consequences to indulging in intoxicants which occasion heedlessness:

1. "loss of wealth,
2. increase in quarrels,
3. susceptibility to disease,
4. loss of reputation,
5. indecent exposure,
6. weakened intellect.

What if I, Barbie, were to get high and get a Snookie makeover? Aarrgh!

 
"There are, young householder, these six harmful consequences to roaming the streets at unseemly hours:

1. "You are unprotected and unguarded.
2. Your spouse and children are unprotected and unguarded.
3. Your property is unprotected and unguarded.
4. You are suspected of crimes.
5. You are the subject of false rumors.
6. You encounter many troubles.

"There are, young householder, these six unskillful things associated with frequenting unsavory shows. One who does so remains restless and agitated, wondering:

1. "Where is there dancing?
2. Where is there singing?
3. Where is there music playing?
4. Where is there reciting?
5. Where is there this entertainment?
6. Where is there that entertainment?

"There are, young householder, these six unwelcome consequences to being infatuated with gambling:

1. "One is despised due to winning.
2. One grieves on account of losing.
3. One dissipates one’s wealth.
4. One’s word is not relied on.
5. One comes to be disparaged by friends and associates.
6. One, unable to properly support another, is not much sought after."

"There are, young householder, these six disagreeable consequences to associating with the foolish:

1. "Any gambler,
2. any wastrel,
3. any drunkard,
4. any cheater,
5. any swindler,
6. any violent person

"is one’s friend and companion.

"There are, young householder, these six unprofitable consequences associated with being addicted to idleness. Nothing is accomplished because one is not inclined to put forth the effort to get any work done, instead thinking:

1. "It’s too cold!
2. It’s too hot!
3. It’s too late in the evening!
4. It’s too early in the morning!
5. I’m too hungry!
6. I’m too full!"

Buddha, Afghanistan (Gandhara)

"Living in this way, one leaves many wholesome and profitable things left undone. New wealth is left unacquired. And savings dwindle away." After the Buddha explained in detail, he summarized in verse:

Some are two-faced friends,

Saying ‘friend, friend’ to your face.

Some are with you through your hour of need

And should be recognized as friends indeed.

Sleeping and cheating,

Quarreling and causing harm,

Unwise association and miserliness --

These six causes ruin a person.

One regarding fools as friends

Is given to disadvantageous ways

On account of which one grieves in two places --

In this world and the next.

Dice-and-promiscuity, drinking, dance-and-song,

In bed by day and regarding night as the time to rise,

Associating with fools, a heart to hardness inclined --

These manifold causes ruin a person.

Who indulges in games of chance, consumes intoxicants,

Consorts with partners as dear to others as their very lives --

Associating with clouded rather than enlightened minds --

Such a person declines just as the waning moon.

Intoxicated, broke, destitute,

Thirsty even when drinking,

One sinks in debt like a stone in water --

And bringing disrepute, one is soon bereft of kin.

Who by habit sleeps the day away,

Looks on night as the time to wake,

Ever intoxicated and indulgent,

Is unfit to lead even the household life. Full sutra

The Buddhist Layperson

R. Bogoda, The Wheel No. 294 (BPS.lk)

Wall Street is one h-ll of a place to be a Buddhist, dealing drugs, laundering profits, owning wage-slaves, and trafficking living beings in a three-piece suit as a banker, broker, or rainmaker (elephantjournal.com)

 

While Buddhism recognizes that bread [sustenance] is essential for life, it also stresses that [humans] do not live by bread alone. 

 

How one earns and why one earns are equally relevant. Gain a living, a livelihood, by methods detrimental to the welfare of living beings harms one, harms others, and harms others (human society at large).

Instead, for the benefit of all, most of all for one's own benefit, one pursues "a peaceful occupation," as the "Discourse on Blessings" (Maha Mangala Sutta) calls it.

 

The Buddha admonished listeners [lay Buddhists] to avoid five kinds of livelihood. Refraining from these five constitutes the minimal definition of right livelihood, the seventh factor along the Noble Eightfold Path to happiness now, a good rebirth later, and eventually enlightenment even in this very life. Those five are:

1. trade in weapons,
2. trade in human beings (slavery, etc.),
3. trade in flesh (which includes pimping, human trafficking, breeding animals for slaughter, transporting beings, etc.),
4. trade in intoxicants (drug and/or alcohol dealing),
5. trade in poisons (which would seem to include ignorantly dealing in toxic allopathic pharmaceuticals).

These forms of commerce add to the suffering in this world. We might regard economic activity as a means to an end -- that end being the full development of a person. Work serves us. But if it enslaves us, it should not be regarded as any kind of suitable livelihood.

 

We should not be so preoccupied with business (our "busy-ness" to be more accurate). Are we earning a living that leaves us no time to live? Are we making money now only to be enslaved by the karmic results later? 

• NOTE: If we go to jail for a misdeed, that is NOT the karmic result. That is simply a mundane consequence. The karmic result will be experienced as mental resultants (vipaka, grievous sensations, remorse, misgivings, regret, misery, psychosomatic troubles) and fruits (phala, unwelcome circumstances, fruitions, ripening of deeds.]

While income and wealth through right (fitting, suitable, harmless) means will bring satisfaction and happiness, the mere accumulation of riches for their own sake will only lead to dissatisfaction, emptiness, disappointment, and may even result in unbridled acquisitiveness and self-indulgence, resulting in subsequent physical pain and mental suffering.

 

The enjoyment of wealth implies not merely its use of it for one's own happiness here and now but also the giving for the benefit of others (and therefore of ourselves later) as well. Will drug dealing lead to such well being? Or will it lead to no advantage at all when the results finally catch up with us?

DRUGS - dealing or consuming

Happy Hotei at the altar (DanieljDyer/flickr.com)

The Buddha's attitude toward intoxicants (alcohol or drugs) that occasion heedlessness is clear. Abstain because the heedlessness that results from their consumption, or worse addiction, leads to suffering for a long time. Why?

 

The immediate aim of Buddhists is happiness, which comes from security here and now in our present existence. The distant objective is the lasting peace and security of nirvana , which is freedom from repeated birth and death with the attendant disappointments, frustrations, agonizing forms of suffering, and the general pain of aging, sickness, heartbreak, and death.

The only tool at our disposal to achieve both of these goals is the heart/mind, which under the wise guidance of a teacher who leads us in the direction of liberation, which we ourselves must do after the Path is pointed out. We gradually learn to use skill, without doing ill to ourselves or others. 

Now one of the best ways of impairing this precious heart/mind -- making it dull and blunt, unfeeling, uncaring, and unenlightened -- is to consume intoxicants.

 

Even when taken in moderation, or socially, they have a pernicious influence. Our minds are dulled and distracted, our hearts hardened and made unduly vulnerable. And our bodies suffer as well -- prematurely aging, increasingly subject to accidents and injury, abuse... Then our character, our habits and dispositions, tendencies and temperament, are disturbed. What becomes of our moral and ethical qualities?

 

Under their effects of intoxicants (toxic substances), the mind becomes confused, the heart confounded. A drinker finds it difficult to distinguish between a right and wrong course of conduct, a suitable decision, the meaning of skillfulness and unskillfullness, true and false.

Such a person then wrongs oneself, wrongs those whom one lives with, and wrongs society and the environment at large.

One who abstains, on the other hand, follows the Buddha's advice and abstains, is sober and bright. One's mind is sharp and luminous. One's heart is open, compassionate, and tolerant.

One is therefore able to exercise physical, mental, and moral control. One enjoys clarity and cogency, can easily understand what is going on in mind and in one's surroundings.

 

Happy as a bodhisattva (Moondoxy/flickr)

What of a Buddhist who, as a rule, refrains from alcohol and drugs, but occasionally finds oneself placed in a delicate situation being offered an intoxicating drink at a social event, say at a party thrown by a superior or at some important function? Accept or refuse? At least two possible courses are open -- politely decline (e.g., on medical grounds, which are justifiable) or request instead a non-alcoholic drink. One need not feel obliged to explain or make excuses.

Mindfully noting what is taking place, we impress on our minds that deviating from the Path the Buddha pointed out is to fall away, even temporarily, and become susceptible to heedlessness, recklessness, and confusion.

 

Alcohol and drugs are funny in that they impair our ability to think clearly, decide wisely, and perform any task competently. If a Buddhist layperson, aiming at perfectionism, occasionally lapses -- that is the very definition of perfectionism. Far from leading to "perfection," it leads to discouragement, a sense of futility, inaction, and lapsing.

Approximating what good we are capable of, we are free. We suddenly have strength. We decline, we choose wisely, we will, we follow enlightened advice, we live in the world, but we do not sink in the mire of it, which would be to our great peril.

Question: DMT?
Anonymous Reader 3,961,953

• Q: Hey, what about "mind expanding drugs" -- entheogens, natural DMT, pineal gland hormones, magic mushrooms, IBOGA, rye mold extract (LSD), harmine, peyote cactus, ayahuasca, daime, tsentsak, natemä -- or Jerri Blank's Glint, Ecstasy, Lando Griffin's Toad, Limitless, and the like?
• A: Do they lead to heedlessness?
• I don't know.
• Q: Why are you trying to live by hard-and-fast rules and absolute axioms when you are an adult capable of making decisions, distinguishing harmless from harmful actions, and living as if this is your life?
• I don't know.
• A: Yeah then, our advice, don't take drugs. Grow up instead.
• But in some articles Wisdom Quarterly seemed to be saying that DMT...
• Grow up, Arthur Jackson!