Buddhism isn't only about freedom from suffering.

[Adam M]

I just watched Leo's new Ketamine videos! A very interesting talk! I wanted to share my comments.

I just wanted to point out that there are many different types of Buddhism. The Theravada Buddhists are more traditional and mainly focus on discipline, conduct, freeing oneself from suffering, and the classic kind of "cessation" or no-self awakenings. This path is seen as "the narrow path."

This is where Vipassana meditation comes from, and I agree that many ppl can spend 25 years doing Vipassana and only have such a narrow experience of spirituality.

That being said, there are certain branches of Buddhism like the Vajrayana that involves some very complex visualizations and symbolism. The goal of the Vajrayana practices is very Tantric, in the sense that it isn't only about abiding in formlessness. But unifying form and formless, to the point where it's very very difficult to "pin down" what the Varajayana path is even about. It is almost like a nature mysticism mixed with a nondual formless mysticism.

I would not say that the Vajrayana path is only about "no-self" or "cessation." It seems like the traditional Theravada forms a kind of ground or foundation for the radical insights of the Vajrayana.

I would say that it's more about developing "power" "purity" "clarity" and "compassion." But even to say this is a complete bastardization.

That being said, even the Vajrayana must still be missing the radically profound insights from peak 5meo trips.

In conclusion, there are thousands of different kinds of Buddhist meditations... and granted, many of them can be very narrow and rigid. However, some Buddhists (although admittedly more rare) can be extremely loose and open, embodying more of this spirit of "consciousness experimentation." Which I personally admire.

So to me, it just sounds a bit weird when Leo is making a (very valid) criticism about "Buddhists." The criticism definitely applies to the Theravada traditionalists but less so to the Vajrayana pracitioners.

But I agree that all of them should just suck it up and do some fkn psychedlics... even if just for the spirit of experimentation and exploring new territory.

P.S.
As someone who is also very creative and has a very active mind... I would just like to report that Buddhist meditation from different traditions has helped me A LOT be a lot more grounded. And even to use my creativity with more sharpness and compassion. And... psychedlics (Shrooms, LSD, and 5MEO) have also been key players for me.

[VeganAwake]

Osho once said that all the three main religions born out of India Buddhism Jainism Hinduism are intended to create an inner zero..... nothingness as Buddha called it apparently!

I just watched that Osho video which is why I mentioned it ❤ 

[Adam M]

@VeganAwake Yes, that is one of the main goals...a great way of explaining it.

 

What happens after the inner 0 is achieved?

The being must conitnue to live and interact with experience... no?

There is a lot of nuance and complexity involved... you can't just simplify all of religion into 1 sentence. 

[Leo Gura]

@Adam M Yes, there are many versions of Buddhism. But in my mind I like to think of Buddhism in its purest form, the form that was taught around the Buddha's time. Other, more flowery versions of Buddhism evolved much later and I have not studied all those.

At some point you gotta stop studying all the niggly spiritual schools and just go awaken. The goal here is not to become a scholar of religion.

[VeganAwake]

2 hours ago, Adam M said:

you can't just simplify all of religion into 1 sentence. 

Well it's what the sentence attempts to point out which is neither complex nor simplistic. 

It points to everything simultaneously being nothing, without separation or non-dual.

This kind of freedom is actually the goal of all religions but over thousands of years it's become spiritual materialism.... in other words diluted which is also not right or wrong.... it's just what apparently seems to be happening!!

❤ 

 

[Adam M]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

@Adam M Yes, there are many versions of Buddhism. But in my mind I like to think of Buddhism in its purest form, the form that was taught around the Buddha's time. Other, more flowery versions of Buddhism evolved much later and I have not studied all those.

At some point you gotta stop studying all the niggly spiritual schools and just go awaken. The goal here is not to become a scholar of religion.

Yeah I agree.

I will continue studying religion though just because it fascinates me ;)...

I'm ordering some 5meo-MALT online... it's legal here in Canada ?? ??

[Water by the River]

"Secret Drugs of Buddhism: Psychedelic Sacraments and the Origins of the Vajrayana" by Michael Crowley, Buddhist Lama:

• Vajrayana or Tantric Buddhism in India (before it got destroyed and survived in an altered form in Tibet/China/Japan) is basically early Buddhism + use of Psychedelics (original Amrita used in Rituals = psychedelic brew/mushrooms/...)",
  • which later got more or less lost when Buddhism was institutionalized (indepdendant Siddhas replaced by monasteries, tripping monks/nuns probably didn't work very well discipline-wise).
  • The visualizations of the Tantric Development Phase (Anuttarayoga) were done under Psychedelic Influence (Ganachakra/Amrita).
  • Even in Tibetan Buddhism supposedly lineages of psychedelic use are still alive (Dutsi pills), although of course nowhere nearly as strong as it was in India, where much more psychedelic plants were growing.
  • And the psychedelic rituals for sure helped to get a preview of ones own always present true face/Dharmakaya/Infinite Consciousness.

Even in the Mahayana phase after early Buddhism, but preceding Vajrayana/Tantric Buddhism, there are strong psychedelic clues left:

• The Supreme Array Scripture: A Psychedelic Sutra for Buddhist Psychonauts", Paper by Douglas Osto
• Many Sutras are full of exploration of the vast other universes & dimensions of reality, including of the workings of reality/imagination.
• "Altered states and the origins of the Mahāyāna  (Douglas Osto)"

And before Buddhism "Hinduism"/"Yoga"/Upanishads/Vedas all had strong psychedelic plant connections, as in the West (Books of Carl Ruck, and for example The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name).

Edited April 27, 2022 by Water by the River

[Husseinisdoingfine]

19 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Yes, there are many versions of Buddhism. But in my mind I like to think of Buddhism in its purest form, the form that was taught around the Buddha's time.

You were pretty harsh on Buddhism, you called it ''complete nonsense'' in your solipsistic blog video. Now you're saying this, and even talked positively about Buddhist principles (Right livelihood in you scam video, and alleviation of suffering in your ketamine video). At the end of your ketamine video, you told us that there were so many ways to interpret awakenings, so many different awakenings, which is why there are so many traditions, hence we need to awaken ourselves and not just blindly believe you.

I think you need to choose your words more carefully. Are these traditions ''complete nonsense'', or are you conscious of Buddhism in its purest form taught around the Buddha's time?

[Leo Gura]

@Husseinisdoingfine  It's complete nonsense from the highest level of God-realization.

But from the relative human state of consciousness it has value.

[seriousman24]

Osho also said tantra=conscious indulgence(pleasure) yoga=conscious supression(removal of suffering) in Vigyan_Bhairav_Tantra(there're 2 different free lecture transcripts in pdf forms on the 112 tantra/energy techniques)
In the end of each path they converge because there's an element of pleasure in the removal of suffering/solving a problem and an element of relief/catharsis in indirectly/creatively dealing with suffering by intentionally searching for another pleasure that will indirectly/naturally solve suffering.

Tantra is meant to be personal so getting real info on it is naturally difficult and because almost every spiritual generalization is sadly about removal of suffering and rarely about indulgence, incidentally psychedelic's tend to be more tantra oriented but then you come out with yogic like explanations with the major exception of leo who actually correctly empathizes love.

People are horribly confused about what pleasure is, extremely so, even here where chemical assistance is encouraged, we are naturally confused because perfect pleasure(or love) seems to necessitate "solved suffering" as a platform of which our physical body already as multiple loops of through natural survival processes, thing like digestion look trivial, supposedly come from solved "loops" from earlier universes according to yoga but just because they are survival processes does not mean that their purpose is to protect you from suffering, these processes are to facilitate communication between beings through the common grounds of shared experiences of the physical loops of pleasure that we share, then the only positive love based explanation of others is that solved uniqueness adds additional pleasures/love to the already impossible.

Different would be "pains/pleasures/uniqueness" of each individual being coalesce into higher orders of love through the loops that the physical body facilitates by forcing/funelling each one of us into being in cooperative creation using the survival mechanisms as the common factor which is always primarily pleasure not pain/suffering.

Makes me think of a forgiving view that it's not just some evil ego that makes us suffer but it's actually also our temporarily disharmonized pleasure that each unique being bring into the universe accidentally hitting one another because neither pleasure or pain can exist by themselves they need each other, so just to not keep this too long I want to people to understand what the ideal perfect pleasure really is rather than the super demonization of it, it's really silly, we all pay too much attention to suffering, we understand even physical suffering somewhat deeply but not pleasure, it's so demonized. This is coming from my personal extreme investment in solving suffering and seeing how my obsession with solving it reached a hardcore limit of which the only possibility was to start exploring pleasure, with my choices being limited to internet activities and food, quite the limited set that through idiotically extreme and unnecessarily painful effort made me understand that intelligent indulgent pleasure is necessary, because I know people have all sorts of intelligent complex personal and generalized mental suffering removal techniques and copes but the pleasure side of techniques is extremely underdeveloped because of course pleasure is "shameful" and honestly I think the main reason I'm able to achieve what I think is a more correct distinction of what pleasure really is is because I got a direct "awakening/realization" of what perfect "non suffering" is before puberty which made me extremely relaxed and open to the intelligence of personal innocent pleasure before the confusion of interpersonal pleasure of emotions/sexuality was present, so all I want to say pleasure is severally underestimated, how it's mechanics function in the body and how it relates to our survival and to our creativity and to love, please stop unconsciously demonizing it and desires too, stop viewing desires like some evil that as to be removed, do feel free to manipulate it to further understand it but know you can be intelligent about pleasure itself, it's a bit hard to come with examples of techniques, tantra techniques tend to be examples of pleasure techniques that use the body up to a certain level to transcend both pleasure and pain, with pleasure you don't just surrender after all suffering as been solved you can rejoice directly in the dance in a direct casual way like with socializing like I'm doing here, you guys are helping me solve my shame of having to depend on others just by the higher level of understanding that I perceive you to have, that is my priority isn't solving shame it's ehancing pleasure, the excitement of breaking free NOT because of suffering but because of love, I make sure to memorize the physical sensations of what one would think doesn't have a physical correlation but does have when you make it so, like when a master perfects a craft like tennis or chess, I don't silence my mind just to minimize suffering, I silence it specifically to reach higher levels of mental/physical pleasure, if you only remove suffering you'll lack energy, perfect non suffering isn't ultimate love, it as to be ultimate pleasure, all evils and shame and guilts will have to be ultimatized both as they are and as their implied harmonization. I apologize for my somewhat disjointed ramblings as usual, thankfully I've come to understand you guys are really nice so I don't feel as guilty as before.

[Leo Gura]

5 hours ago, Water by the River said:

"Secret Drugs of Buddhism: Psychedelic Sacraments and the Origins of the Vajrayana" by Michael Crowley, Buddhist Lama:

• Vajrayana or Tantric Buddhism in India (before it got destroyed and survived in an altered form in Tibet/China/Japan) is basically early Buddhism + use of Psychedelics (original Amrita used in Rituals = psychedelic brew/mushrooms/...)",
  • which later got more or less lost when Buddhism was institutionalized (indepdendant Siddhas replaced by monasteries, tripping monks/nuns probably didn't work very well discipline-wise).
  • The visualizations of the Tantric Development Phase (Anuttarayoga) were done under Psychedelic Influence (Ganachakra/Amrita).
  • Even in Tibetan Buddhism supposedly lineages of psychedelic use are still alive (Dutsi pills), although of course nowhere nearly as strong as it was in India, where much more psychedelic plants were growing.
  • And the psychedelic rituals for sure helped to get a preview of ones own always present true face/Dharmakaya/Infinite Consciousness.

Even in the Mahayana phase after early Buddhism, but preceding Vajrayana/Tantric Buddhism, there are strong psychedelic clues left:

• The Supreme Array Scripture: A Psychedelic Sutra for Buddhist Psychonauts", Paper by Douglas Osto
• Many Sutras are full of exploration of the vast other universes & dimensions of reality, including of the workings of reality/imagination.
• "Altered states and the origins of the Mahāyāna  (Douglas Osto)"

And before Buddhism "Hinduism"/"Yoga"/Upanishads/Vedas all had strong psychedelic plant connections, as in the West (Books of Carl Ruck, and for example The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name).

This is a very cool perspective. Never thought about Buddhism and psychedelics much together. But is makes a lot of sense. It's safe to assume most religions got a kickstart with psychedelics.

[seriousman24]

And energy transmissions from "gods" and enlightened beings.

[Purple Man]

18 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

 It's safe to assume most religions got a kickstart with psychedelics.

That could be the case even outside the frame of the most popular civilizations that used substances in secret rituals, we all know which ones I am referring to. For example, I am from Spain, and among the most interesting and well known mystics of our history we have a pair of Christian saints, Santa Teresa de Ávila and San Juan de la Cruz (most people will know the latter due to his poem "The Dark Night of the Soul", term that has been used often since), hardcore meditators in the Christian sense of the word, the last context where one would try to find a connection with the psychedelic world. And it could be the case or not, but it seems like a strange coincidence that both are from an area of Spain, Ávila, where reportedly a powerful psychedelic mushroom grows, and particularly I read that that mushroom grew freely just besides Santa Teresa´s monastery.

I think it is safe to say that some kind of natural psychedelic must have been involved in the spiritual development of even our prehistoric ancestors. Recently, a small sculpture has been found, tens of thousands years old, and it showed a figure with a spot in the third eye area. Why on Earth would that be the case if a psychedelic experience was not somehow responsible for that? We could speculate with a natural predisposition of ancient Homo Sapiens to natural mystical experiences, and it might be the case, but I think the constant fight for survival makes it a difficult possibility.

[Water by the River]

• For psychedelic use in Christianity in medieval times: "The Psychedelic Gospels: The Secret History of Hallucinogens in Christianity", Brown
• For psychedelic use in the origins of Christianity (as a psychedelic cult similiar to the Elusian Mysteries. Anybody wonder what the wine/Eucharist was, that produced the holy communion with the Father/Dharmakaya/Infinite Consciousness): "The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name", Muraesku
• For psychedelic use in prehistoric times/Neolitic, for example in Göbekli Tepe: "The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name", Muraesku
• In prehistoric times (old Stone Age and probably before): 
  • "Visionary: The Mysterious Origins of Human Consciousness the Definitive Edition of Supernatural", Hancock 
  • "Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution", McKenna
• And for the organization who pretty much finished psychedelic use in the West (more or less)
  • first in original early Christianity, and later what remained of it in medieval and renaissance times, and who had a habit to burn those at the stake knowledable in it:  
    • "The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name", Muraesku
    • The Witches' Ointment, Hatsis

So nature is drenched in all kinds of psychedelics/DMT, and it seems humanity always used that.

 

By the way for some further story telling, here in Germany there is the so called Reinheitsgebot/ German purity law for beer:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinheitsgebot

Not that anybody dropped anymore funny stuff into the beer, like henbane, belladonna, nightshade....

"Religious conservatism may have also played a role in adoption of the rule in Bavaria, to suppress the use of plants that were allegedly used in pagan rituals, such as gruit, henbane, belladonna, or wormwood.[5][6]: 410–411  The rule also excluded problematic methods of preserving beer, such as soot, stinging nettle and henbane.[7]"

It seems like at a certain point in Roman times the "sneak peek" to the Divine Reality or your face before your parents were born via psychedelics got firmly shut from the competition that claimed the monopoly of the path to God/Spirit/Salvation, which was supposed to happen not by direct experience but by the right beliefs.

And since exactly that West and its Church conquered more or less the rest of the world, they also didn't really like psychedelics anywhere they found them...  

To use the words of Ken Wilber: Apparently, Spirit is not yet tired of playing this game...  But "it" for sure left some bread crumbs to find the way back home, following a wonderful, twisted, dramatic, hilarious, tragic, beautiful, exciting and fascinating path...

Edited April 28, 2022 by Water by the River

[Purple Man]

@Water by the River Thank you very much for the references. I only knew  of Muraesku´s work, but the others seem fascinating too.