How interesting that you say that, because they are actually having a lot of success treating PTSD in soldiers with Psilocybin and MDMA 
Yes. Itâs hard to imagine the Buddha sitting under a tree, munching some mushrooms.
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Are you a war veteran who is currently suffering due to PTSD?
Jimisommer, I believe this sort of comment is has people feeling is supportive of drug use. On one hand you discourage the use of drugs at length, then make comments which encourage/advocate their use. Very confusing.
Drugs are a sensitive subject-- understandably soâthey lead to great harm, suffering and death for a great many people. I believe it is very important to use right speech if one must discuss these matters. Just my 2 cents, but sometimes its best to remain silent if ones words are causing confusion or divisiveness, even if that isnât your intent.
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Iâve never encouraged their use, Iâve only talked about their potential effect on practice, and their place in the medical world. There are a ton of studies showing the benefits of these substances for certain situations. These are substances just like any other, sometimes they can be abused, sometimes they can be used for great benefit. Opioids are causing big problems these days, and yet they also allow people with cancer to get through their treatment without it being pure torture. There is no hard and fast line with this stuff, and regarding buddhist practice and the way in which psychedelics are well known for directing people toward spirituality and buddhism in particular, the conversation is worth having. It is one thing for people to just talk about drug use, thatâs obviously ridiculous; but this conversation, the entire time, has been centered around the uniqueness of the relationships between psychedelics and buddhism. Anyone can have an opinion about this, but a fact of the matter is that many buddhist were originally drawn to the practice because of these substances, and it is that concept that Iâm interested in exploring, and have been throughout this discussion. There is no reason to fear this discusssion. There is certainly no reason to try and ban it. Who is to say that these really donât allow someoneâs mind to explore other realms. Many here are so sure that you are able to do this through meditation, and then they gawk at this, I think thatâs unwise. I see so many things brought up as interesting anecdotes to why something more is out there, near death experiences and things like that. Did you know that theyâve found that during near death experiences your brain is liable to empty its reservoir of DMT? These are interesting concepts, and they do concern the EBTs, they concern the 5th precept, and they concern the possibility of being able to contact and experience other realms with your mind. Meditation may allow you to do this with much more stability, but it is still just a unique mind state allowing you to do this, and when there are substances out there that also put you in unique mind states that give you similar sounding experiences, how is that not worth talking about? This isnât about encouraging drug use, it is about being able to have this conversation. You can have an intellectual conversation about these things without it being about âdrugs.â Youâre looking at this all too narrowly. This conversation is about chemical compounds that put the mind in certain unique states that often result in strange and often profound experiences, that have lead a lot of people to buddhism. This isnât about trying to convince others to use them, and thatâs been clear the entire time. You can talk about the possibility that these substances actually allow people to connect their minds with other realms, without encouraging their use. Why is it that when someone says they went to another realm through meditation you believe them, but when someone puts their mind in a similar, albeit less stable, state through a chemical compound, all of a sudden itâs not worth talking about. A conversation like this can easily go off the rails, but we are all intelligent people here who are all committed to studying the EBTs, so there is no reason why that would happen, and so far it hasnât even gotten close. The topic in relation to buddhism and the EBTs has never been strayed from, so there really is no reason to worry. There is plenty of information for someone to make an informed decision, and there is no reason for you to make that decision for them or to deny them the ability to read about it all. This stuff is interesting, there is no reason to be so serious and strict about it. Yes, substances can cause problems sometimes, but conversations like this are definitely not the issue.
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It would be an issue if people started thinking that taking drugs has anything to do with Buddhism - it doesnât. The Buddha never encouraged it.
The only âconnectionâ I can see seems to be that some people who have past experiences with psychedelic drugs have been attracted to Buddhism, and some drug experiences might seem to relate to things that could arguably be experienced through meditation.
But this is not unique to Buddhism at all - plenty of people who have used psychedelics are drawn to Hinduism, Mystic Christianity, Native American spirituality, etcâŚothers might conclude that their experiences were created by purely physical processes in the brain and become hard line materialists.
I donât think these kinds of discussions should be shut down - there are a lot of interesting themes to be discussed. But I think it would be a real shame if anyone read through something here and felt that non-medical drug use was somehow considered a legitimate part of Buddhist practice as found in the EBTs.
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Iâd be grateful for a reference to the sutta or a citation to commentary the passage above.
I am looking for places in the EBT that suggest parallels to modern notions of understanding and verification. At the same time in what ways might such modern notions mislead us while reading and interpreting the EBTs?
The summary I presented is based on the usual way the suttas refer to the four Noble truthsâ specific ennobling tasks of
i) understanding suffering,
ii) abandoning/letting go of its causes,
iii) verifying for oneself its cessation and
iv) developing the path that results in that.
These notions are found in many sutras but special references would be SN56.11 and SN56.12
