By the way, I saw this on Twitter this morning:
There’s this review on Douglas Osto’s book “Altered States: Buddhism and Psychodelic Spirituality in America” by Ronald S. Green:
1 Like
Thanks. But it’s not much of a review, is it? It is just a summary of the book.
1 Like
All of the evidence you have provided gives no reference whatsoever to any non-alcoholic intoxicant. So then why is it that you say it is ‘clear’ that this has a more general meaning? I see absolutely no evidence for that so far.
I might also add that cannabis is bhaṅga in Pāli - I have heard no evidence that bhaṅga, for example, is included under the category majja.
Folks this where common sense come to play.
That is why I said in my previous post that rule are for the fool to follow and wise to take decisions.
The Vinaya and precepts are the minimum standard.
We have to go beyond The Vinaya and rules if you want to become an Arahant.
+1. Armchair Buddhists can afford to get by with the “bare minimum” approach. Frontline combat troops or MMA fighters in the octagon cannot. They’ll get killed or maimed with that kind of approach, for in combat, utmost effort to gain just a tiny edge makes all the difference between life and death, or unscathed and maimed.
I agree Santa.
But even for a armchair Buddhist, trying to bend the fifth precept rule is a big No, No.
Perhaps you can get away from eating lot of sugar to get high.
Refraining from expanding the 5th precept to include things which it simply does not include, cannot logically be labelled as ‘bending’ it.
Perhaps you are right.
Precepts are practiced in many levels.
The five precepts practiced by a lay person is not the same as the five precepts practiced by a monk or an Arahant.
At Abhayagiri, when the precepts are taken, they are translated from Pali as “I undertake the vow to refrain from consuming intoxicating drink and drug which lead to carelessness”. I take that as meaning that any substance which causes intoxication that could cause carelessness is included. Important for me personally to have a clear understanding, because I have struggled with alcoholism. I frequently, before getting help, would try to find ways to get around this precept. Lots of mental gymnastics can be done, of course.
3 Likes
I’m not talking about levels. I’m talking about linguistics. You can’t for example say that the 5th precept includes not participating in cyber-bullying, regardless of what ‘level’. Why not? Because that’s not what the 5th precept says! It doesn’t matter if we think the Buddha would be against cyber-bullying. That, is irrelevant in this context. On this matter we are concerned with the meaning of the 5th precept, not with speculations about what else the Buddha might have prohibited if we were to ask him.
If anyone has any actual evidence that majja refered at the time of the Buddha to anything other than alcohol I would be very interested to examine that evidence. However, without any such evidence I suggest it is absurd to claim that the 5th precept refers to anything other than alcohol.
Who cares really? If you think the point of the precepts is to dish out a legal code, like the Ten Commandements, violations of which will get you punishments from the Kamma System, then I guess this kind of obsessive legalism is important. But the precepts are part of a training system that one voluntarily undertakes to follow because it is good for you and conducive to your liberation. But clearly the letter of the precepts, strictly interpreted, are not the only restraints on behavior conducive to liberation.
It seems to me that if you get high and are reduced temporarily to a spaced out, distracted, heedless dope, that is not good for your spiritual progress, for the same reason all that other stuff is bad for spiritual progress. Focusing on “Is this a violation of the letter of the official silani?” seems like missing the point. It’s not as though there is some strict literalist divine law clerk following you around marking you up for violations.
2 Likes
That’s interesting, I didn’t know that. In my translations, I have also been translating it as “alcohol and drugs”. But I am not sure about it; I understand the objections, and will probably change this. Perhaps something like “intoxicants such as alcohol” would be better.
3 Likes
bhante @sujato do you have anything to add in relation to the pali term majja, which is defined as “intoxicants”. Here is my post from above for reference.
so the idea I think is to know if majja is used in the texts in relation to drugs or intoxicants besides alchohol.
2 Likes
No I agree, I don’t know anywhere it refers to anything other than alcohol. Obviously it applies to recreational intoxicants by analogy, but as to how it should be translated, I think there is room for different approaches.
It is historically curious, given the apparently universal desire to get high on pretty much anything, but we simply don’t seem to have any reference to other recreational drugs.
I’m not sure if this has been noted in this thread, but medicinal cannabis is explicitly allowed in the Vinaya. In Kd 6 we have:
Now at that time the venerable Pilindavaccha had rheumatism in the limbs. “I allow, monks, the sweating-treatment.” He got no better … “I allow, monks, sweating by the use of all kinds of herbs.” He got no better. “I allow, monks, the great sweating.” He got no better. “I allow, monks (the use of) hemp-water.” He got no better. “I allow monks, (the use of) a water-vat.”
From the context, “hemp-water” would seem to be cannabis leaves put into the water that is steamed in the sauna. How this might be extended to other medicinal applications, or to other potential intoxicants is something I will leave for the experts.
Note that there are two different words for hemp in the EBTs. It would seem that sāṇa is “sunn hemp”, which has no intoxicating properties:
Bhaṅga is most likely cannabis, i.e. bhang.
Of course it’s not necessarily the case that the EBT usage exactly lines up with modern biology, but anyway this seems the best fit.
2 Likes
Mada is a common word used in Sri Lanka. We say it as “Math”
This include any intoxicants including cannabis.
In Sri Lanka we say “Ganja”
so did bob marley. also herb.
[quote=“cjmacie, post:42, topic:5928”]
After a recent talk, I asked one of the organizers how it is that a Chan (Mahayana) group takes an interest in Theravada speakers. He replied that such a distinction doesn’t apply to (at least some) Chinese Buddhism.
Do we, in the West, have a perhaps simplistic view here? (Or do the Chinese tend to resist Western conceptualizations?)
[/quote]Absolutely. Sectarianism is massively leavened by the Internet, also, IMO.
[quote=“dharmacorps, post:65, topic:5928, full:true”]
At Abhayagiri, when the precepts are taken, they are translated from Pali as “I undertake the vow to refrain from consuming intoxicating drink and drug which lead to carelessness”. I take that as meaning that any substance which causes intoxication that could cause carelessness is included. Important for me personally to have a clear understanding, because I have struggled with alcoholism. I frequently, before getting help, would try to find ways to get around this precept. Lots of mental gymnastics can be done, of course.
[/quote]At the same time though, participants in this study are not necessarily struggling with the struggles you outline above. Participants chose to trust the scientific credentials of certain people running a certain study. Beyond that, none of us can say.