Can drugs contribute to enlightenment?
Clearly drugs cannot contribute to enlightenment. Right? According to James Austin’s new book, “Zen-Brain Reflections,” which I posted on here, zig-zag Zen is a “cultural aberration”, the term “entheogen” “camouflages” “ungodly hallucinations”, LSD causes bad trips, which studies such as Pahnke’s ignored, drugs amplify delusion, LSD is dangerous because it promotes the idea that reality is something to be maninpulated rather than accepted…and may leave you nuts, and on and on. He quotes Blake negatively, saying that his statement that “if the doors of perception were cleaned” involves a “very big if”.
The biology of religion, however, provides a different perspective. It says that meditation or other spiritual practices cause plasticity-based changes in the brain which promote well-being and/or happiness. There should be no difference if those same changes are occasioned by drugs. There are no a priori grounds for asserting that drugs could not produce equivalent changes in the brain, behavior, and state of life.
Leaving aside arguments along the lines of “I meditated for 20 years to get where I am and I’ll be damned if someone can get there overnight by ingesting psilocybin,” we must examine carefully the arguments for or against drugs being a positive element in spiritual development.
One counterargument is that drugs produce a one-time effect which quickly wears off. But kensho is also a one-time effect, which must be built upon, and there is no obvious reason why drug-induced experiences could not be similarly built upon. Indeed, all of our experiences are “one-time.”
Others argue that drug-based enlightenment experiences simply cannot, by definition, measure up to the “real thing.” But why not, if they are functionally or descriptively identical?
Let’s approach this scientifically. Assume that there is an inherent temporal limitation in the ability of the brain to adapt. In other words, certain types of brain changes require a specific, finite amount of time to take effect. This would seem to support a model of only meditation one, two, four, eight, or sixteen hours a day over years or decades being capable of causing those changes. That may well be the case. But people making this argument provide no neuroscientific evidence whatsoever concerning such required durations for neural modifications. It could just as easily be the case that drugs could in fact accelerate such structural changes in the brain. Or, perhaps extended, incremental drug use could yield equivalent neural restructuring: four pills a day instead of four meditation periods.
An argument with which I can agree is that some people may view drugs as a shortcut, and imagine that they can achieve happiness and understanding through their weekly trip, without bothering to take responsibility to work through issues and manage their own spiritual development. But that is certainly not an indictment of a drug-based approach per se, only of how a certain subset of people try to take advantage of it.
At the end of the day, it seems counterintuitive that selective, disciplined use of psychopharmaceuticals could not play a role in a program of spiritual evolution. Dogen’s zazen has been passed on nearly unchanged for close to a millenium; certainly there is room for the blessings of modern science now to make their contribution.
Image of James Fadiman.
July 14th, 2006 at 11:54 am
i whole-heartedly disagree with you.
July 17th, 2006 at 2:50 am
I whole-heartedly agree with you.
July 18th, 2006 at 4:54 am
I would always believe in direct experience than intellectual derivations like this. Let me know if someone discovers an “enlightenment drug” someday. Meanwhile, I will go with the 2500 years old method…
July 18th, 2006 at 4:57 am
Comments from an online Buddhists community.
July 20th, 2006 at 4:37 pm
It depends alot on your idea of ‘enlightenment’. Afterall, Enlightenment is just an idea. What you consider to be enlightened is the point you want to reach, so, perhaps drugs can be the path for some and not for others?
July 21st, 2006 at 3:26 pm
Drugs for enlightened state, why not? The danger is attachment. Eventually we are only left with consiousness—what then?
November 12th, 2006 at 8:29 am
I experienced deep, strong and beautiful enlightenment, after 9 hours of frightning insanity on the drug pcylociben (Magic Mushrooms). The insanity was unimaginable. The biblical idea of fire and brimstone and eternal damnation in hell is much preferable to the torture (albiet physically pain free) of insanity. Insanity makes a day in hell look like a walk in the park. In itself though, there was enlightenment.
Then there was the answers to the universe, to the self, there was wisdom and understanding of eternal truths and rememberings of a grander reality. The truth of oneness. The illusion of separation. The core of universal motivation being love. The great truths of God, the same thing we call life and love and light. The deliverance from the asking - to finally become the knowing.
Has my life changed? You bet it has. I had my experience on that druga very long time ago and have yet to feel any sense of sadness. For how can I be sad, when love is at the core of every deed?
That drug changed my life, but taught me nothing new, it simply validated what already made common sense to this former Agnostic.
Life is Beautiful. Everyone should have magic mushrooms once - so that they can recall the deeper truths and give them what we all want the most eternal euforia, enlightenment and exctacy.
Haidyn
November 12th, 2006 at 8:38 am
Oh and by the way - I reached Nirvana. And it is as amazing as it’s supposed to be. I hope everybody gets there.
I strongly encourage those who have the discipline to meditate in boxes or under a tree for 20 years (just to taste what I had in a drug experience one cold June day a long time ago) try what I did and having the short-cut route, may help you to understand and experience what all your hard work is aiming towards.
And on a final note. I make my own decisions on what I consider good or bad - or as I prefer to think of it - What works and what doesn’t work for me. At the end of the day - why judge?
Haidyn
February 1st, 2007 at 9:38 pm
The way that can be sold is not the Way
The way that can be shown is not the Way
The way that can be ingested is not the Way…
Thousands of years of attempting to find an external stimuli to affect the body which is the result and cause of ego, not Self, and the only way to find the everpresent way is to empty the “mind” of all attachments to “reality”, and eliminate the falsity of dualistic existence, only then will one truly take the first step towards enlightenment.
But realize this…
He who says he is the way is not the Way.
He who says he possesses the way is not in possession of the Way.
The only one who can experience the Truth which is Divine Eternal Self is the Self of self…
February 22nd, 2007 at 5:21 pm
there is no right or wrong way to enlightenment, nor can anyone know when they truly are enlightented, as there is always a larger truth waiting to be revealed outside of every reality.
i help people attain a better grasp of how to become part of the eternal and infinite, be it by making sure they have a good trip if they decide to do drugs of any kind, or just attempting to explain in my very humble and small way the sort of thing that will help them get to where they want to be in their universe- ruler- creator- destroyer. we are all of these but only by experience can we learn how to apply these abilities to the external as well as the internal life.
there are no rules.
live while u can.
but remember death is not the end.
as birth was not the beginning.
there are countless relams of pleasure, excitement, ecstasy, adventure, joy and love, just waiting to reveal themselves to each and every one of us. knowing your own key to unlocking these internal delights is your secret that must be kept that way.
remember.
share your secret only with the souls who are prepared to understand it, or even want to.
and keep this to a minimum.
in the big wide world, the less said the better on some subjects.
the time to speak of these things openly is approaching.
we have all of eternity to get there.
much peace love and harmony to you all.
david
March 24th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
Yes, there there are “special medicines”, which, if taken with the proper attitude, can facilitate self-realization.” Then he added: “But if you have the proper attitude, you can take anything - take a walk, or a bath. ”
Zen Master Soeng Sahn
September 27th, 2007 at 12:56 pm
ecstacy triggered OCD and panic attacks for me. A lot of hippies who found “the secret” with LSD in the 60’s became angry divorced parents in the 70’s. Does meditation enlighten us? Who knows? But I certainly doubt that drugs do (though I forever think and feel differently now after having done them- and not always for the better) I HIGHLY caution anyone reading this that is considering doing hallucinogens (including ecstacy) that doing it ONCE completely changed my life and I would probably not do it if I could go back in time. Meditate. It can’t hurt you and won’t set off a chamical imbalance in your exceptionally delicate brain chemistry. Thanks for listening
September 27th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
sorry, the email address above is fake
January 4th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
I have known many people who have taken ecstasy and not one of them ever had a bad trip. I have known people who have taken lsd or mushrooms and had a bad trip but not the first time they took it, and they don’t regret trying. These types of drugs are not dangerous, unless you are the type that considers alchohol dangerous. You can get intoxicaed and then go drive your car and die, but that is not the fault of the drug. Psilocybin is one of the safest substances there is, nobody has ever died from overdose, and even the worst trip wears off.
February 6th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
not one experienced person in the world of drugs said no to this possibility. Only the folks that have no experience or one measly X trip which isnt even in the drug category that causes enlightenment. You cannot judge something you’ve never tried and with drugs if you’ve never tried them you’ve never come close to the world of truths they reveal. I will not check back to see ignorant arguements but think about what you say against the matter for we have been in both worlds you are blinded to one, let us ask the color blind man his choice of color.