[Buddha-l] Buddhism, drug use and LSD

[Michael Rolig]

I always understood the case to be the same as the Buddha's experience
with other forms of meditation: yes you can attain different
meditative states, but these are not enlightenment, because they are
temporary.  Attaining very high meditative states may give you a
"spiritual experience", as could drugs, but enlightenment is not a
"spiritual experience, " rather a way of existing without suffering. 
If LSD gets you a "spiritual experience, " but fails to liberate you
from suffering, I don't think that's enlightenment, it's just a
temporary band-aid.

Michael


On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 13:11:20 -0500, Vaj <vajranatha at earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
> On Mar 28, 2005, at 12:52 PM, Stefan Detrez wrote:
> 
> > Can drugs enhance the enlightenment experience without being
> > stigmatized as artificial?
> 
> Chapter four of the Patanjali sutras (i.e. the yoga-sutra) states in
> it's first verse that enlightenment can be engendered through
> "botanicals" (Skt.: ausadhi). And of course it's said that Patanjali's
> system came into Buddhism through Nagarjuna's _Pancha-krama_. Now
> whether pada four (the last chapter) made it, I cannot say.
> 
> If you can get a copy of _Masters of Mahamudra_ with the illustrators
> preface by Robert Beer, check that out. Beer claims to have attained
> enlightenment, accidentally, through LSD. He thought he was on the edge
> of insanity for years, till he met Goenka, who helped him reclaim his
> body.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Steve Feite
> 
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