im no buddist but if it says no recreational use of drugs, then your good. To me marijuana isnt a drug, its a plant. The term drug to me means man made. Just because our idiotic government says it is, doesnt make it true (considering alcohol is legal and everything) and what if your using the marijuana medicinally?
Interesting way to skirt the definition of a drug. To my understanding, a drug is anything with an effect on your body's physiology (And the built-in Mac dictionary agrees with me, so it must be right!), beyond the normal "Oh, I ate this thing, now I have energy" kind of response. Caffeine is a drug, so's nicotine, and THC is most certainly a drug. Just because the common way to take THC is to get it from a plant that secretes it naturally doesn't make it not a drug. Anyways, I think the idea of avoiding drugs is to discourage attachment to the material world. While you certainly could just smoke weed and feel enlightened, it's not really getting away from the material world by doing so, because to keep it up you'd have to keep smoking and smoking and smoking. The point of Buddhism is to get away from that kind of dependence on the material world, to reduce your interaction with it to the bare minimum: eat enough food to stay healthy, drink enough water to keep hydrated, and keep clean so you don't get sick. That's about it. But that's just me playing Devil's Advocate for the whole five precepts thing. As I said, Buddhism's a big and scattered body of thought and not everybody abides by the five precepts. Basically, if you're a Buddhist but can't say which particular school you belong to (Ie, if you're Zen, can you say if you're Soto or Rinzai?), it becomes a personal judgment call.
Curious what makes the books you read and studied Buddha to be a legit representation of Buddha? In my studies of Buddhism the fifth precept is one that refers to refraining from taking intoxicants and poisons. In this precept the understanding I have is that if your mind is befuddled by drugs, alchol or "plants" then you would be at risk of breaking the other precepts through lack of clear thinking. Let's face it weed isn't exactly brain candy. I have to admit as a buddhist I'm not a very good one but I try to understand his teachings and use them as berst I could, without quitting smoking. I also tend to understand his teachings better after a bowl or two.
http://www.amazon.com/Spiritual-Path-Buddha-Zen-Tantra/dp/B000Q9TCH2 You'd have to read it to understand. It's not preaching, it's like relating information about what happened. Everything starts with "it was said". It's just a 5 star book. The end is weird because it starts becoming preachy, which is the exact thing the begining of the book stood against, but hey that's human nature I guess. The first half of the book is easily the best experience I've ever had reading a book. It enlightened me when I was deeply suicidal. Truly great stuff.
Here is the answer. The five Buddhist precepts (sometimes 8) are apart of the eightfold path. The eightfold path is basically a step by step guide to reach enlightenment. One of the five precepts state: Do not use intoxicants that can lead to mindlessness. Now, onto the question. In a sense, using any drugs is against Buddhism philosophy. But a question you can raise is: "Does marijuana actually lead to a lack of mindlessness?". It might for some people, it might not for some others. It all depends on what YOU think and know.
it depends on why your using it becuase most sects follow the rule don't use it purely recreationaly if your doing just to have fun dont but if your using to better understand yourself and the world go ahead but maybe your sect doesnt follow that rule. also it really matters what you think you dont have to follow all the rules of your sect but one of the best things about budhism is that you can define the rules your way and make your own belief system based on the rules if you ever desire it maybe its not helping you achieve nirvana
I'm pretty sure that I read an account of the seven or however many truths there are in buddhism were established under the influence of marijuana, so I would think it's cool, but as with anything, too much of what you love only diminishes the enjoyment
I dont think that the act of smoking is neccesarily wrong. What is more important is your intent and reason for it. If someone smokes weed to escape the world and/or just for the pleasure of it, that act could be considered wrong/the misuse of weed. Also I believe the frequency with which someone uses weed has something to do with the matter. Smoking weed everyday changes the experiance of the drug. I personally believe smoking weed everyday turns one's mentality on weed into something different. It turns weed(for me atleast) into something more of a sedative, rather than a valuable experiance. From the stance of a buddhist, i would say that they are against drugs and alcohol. They believe they cloud the mind and do provide a good amount of pleasure. I often meditate and do believe in buddhist ideals, but I dont consider myself a buddhist.
enlightenment comes from within, not from a mind altering chemical, thats all i have to say on the matter
i see what youre saying, and i completely agree. though.. i dont use marijuana as a way to attain enlightenment. i use it to get high :] haha
"Believe in nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." -Buddha. I've been asking myself if it's okay for me as a buddhist to smoke weed since not using drugs is mentioned in buddhist teachings. And this quote got rid of all of my worries.
All suffering stems from attachment. The end of suffering is the sole goal of Buddhism. It is possible to engage in ANYTHING without attachment. It all comes down to, as Dr. Feelgood said, attachment. That is not to say that you "can" do anything, I am just saying that an absolute claim that you "can't" do something is contrary to the primary message. It is your own personal journey. Use Buddhism to assist you on your path, but ultimately it is YOUR path.
In my Taoist practice I use Cannabis. I know that it is used in Chinese Medicine and that some Taoist used it for immortality (enlightenment), though I am not sure of the description of how they used it for immortality. I personally do not allow any dogma to disuade me from that which helped with our evolution. Cannabis is a highly spiritual herb to me. Its me heart n soul.
It depends on what kind of meditation you're working on as to whether it's beneficial or not. It's main use is in higher forms of meditation like Mahamudra and Dzogchen.in these Tibetan traditions there is little meditation as most would recognise it. What's used as a means to reach and further expand enlightenment is predominantly an understanding of the true nature of reality via its various aspects. Sorry for the cut and paste, but this subject is something I've written about before as I practise Dzogchen myself. ".. Why cannabis and meditation? Why do some cannabis users seem to get shifts in awareness, or find themselves growing more 'spiritually-minded' as time goes by? And how can a drug that seems to induce soporific states have any place in meditation? Doesn't Buddhism in particular warn against the use of any intoxicant as being detrimental to meditation? Well, actually what the Buddha warned against was the use of intoxicants that may result in you losing proper awareness of reality, 'mindfulness'. But, using cannabis, depending on type, dosage and personal circumstances at the time of ingestion, doesn't always result in us becoming vegged-out and half-asleep. On the contrary, the states it can bring on are sometimes anything but vegged out, and it can actually create a far more balanced and lucid state of mind than just about any other recreational drug. Although it does have other useful effects, the ability of cannabis to get you to this state is one of the main reasons why it's of so much use when combined with traditional focussing ('shamatha') meditation styles. One of the aims of many supporting techniques in all traditional meditation schools is to get you to a point where you can turn on, or remain permanently in, a state where you feel happy, totally relaxed and very mindful (aware) of the here and now. At a basic level, meditation itself is designed to initially take you to that very state, so, if we have a drug that allows us, with practise, to get there, then it can reduce the time that you would normally spend on preparing your mind for deeper meditation methods quite substantially. Being at the just right level of high can provide a good basis for us to meditate effectively within, by adding deep relaxation and a sense of well-being that we would otherwise have to spend time creating in ourselves. A relaxed and happy mind is clearer and more able to sense the subtle changes in awareness that can lead to powerful meditation experiences. If you're relaxed and happy as as you meditate, or even just consider truths about the ultimate nature of reality, then you're far more likely to get a proper glimpse of enlightenment as you do so. But, even with cannabis, many of us will need help reaching the right depth of physical and mental relaxation that's required, and will also need easy ways of generating a happy mind on cue. The aim of 'Cannabis and Meditation' is to provide simple, jargon free methods of doing all of the above, so that you can reach the base state both with and without cannabis, whenever you want to. Unfortunately, cannabis enhances the effects of correct meditation and incorrect meditation too. Obviously, if you're tired, or doing too much cannabis, or the wrong type, or you pretty much go about your normal life while being high, rather than being aware of what the drug is doing to you, then it's less valid as a tool - and it can actually become a barrier to progress. But with the breadth of high caused by a good weed, or better still, eating a good hash, the ideal ground of meditation will open up for you to explore much more easily. Reality Using cannabis regularly and (hopefully) getting into a good, receptive state at the same time, changes our overall responsiveness to shifts in awareness, even when we aren't high. We also become familiar with the pleasant, relaxed feelings it brings on, and we become much more able to find them when we want to, and can even learn to keep ourselves in this happy condition through familiarity with it. But there's more; and the earlier question, 'why do cannabis users tend to become more 'spiritually' sensitive?' is a very important illustration of the processes in play at higher levels of meditation. At one end of the spectrum there are traditional meditation methods that most of you will be familiar with, and there's no doubt that cannabis can help substantially with them. But at the highest levels of practise, meditation is far less about reaching specific states of mind, and much more about understanding the true nature of reality in an ultimate sense. Understanding reality correctly is the most powerful trigger for experiences of enlightenment that there are, and Zen in particular is is full of stories where this knowledge has triggered realisation, or 'Kensho', in its practitioners. For this understanding to really work at its best however, we need to be in pretty much the same state as before, luckily the same state that a good high will bring on. This means that when we're high we can be very receptive to correct knowledge, and can have spontaneous blisses, or experience altered states, just by thinking about reality in the right way – even if we don't truly understand what that 'right way' is...." MelT