Comments on: Buddhism and Your Brain

By: poeticinterconnections

poeticinterconnections — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 04:03:10 +0000

Thank you for your comment! I agree with everything you’ve said, and I’ll call you ASAP so we can chat properly.

By: ken ceder

ken ceder — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:54:01 +0000

greetings adam,

the gaol is to be high, not get high. temporary nirvana on a drug or natural nirvan through intense effort of concentration that leads to samadhi is not the goal. nirvana is 1 step before manonash (annihilation of the mind) which is the final goal.

just got off the phone with dr. mike in sb. he turned me on to your blog. we 3 share some common ground & i would enjoy chatting with you at your 1st convenience…ken ceder
(805.895.0788 – cell)

By: poeticinterconnections

poeticinterconnections — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 23:49:24 +0000

I think context and culture make all the difference here: The Native American has, presumably, grown up revering nature and Spirit with every waking move and breath. So a hallucinogenic plant serves more as a catalyst than a shortcut—ritually imbibing the chemical just activates a process already internalized and mastered. An American teenager at a rave, in contrast, probably has no contextual training in spirtuality. So any drug he/she takes is is just a blunt tool, thwacking the initiate into chemically-induced enlightenment with no prior effort or context.

In sum, the Native American comes to the hallucinogenic experience with prior wisdom. Teenager at a rave likely doesn’t. To me, that makes a significant difference.

By: michael

michael — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 01:14:15 +0000

o.k….so, consider an indian tribe, north american, south american, or some other place in the world, that considers the earth to be mother earth and the plant and animal bounties of the earth to be gifts from the great spirit. in the context of a religious ceremony, hallucinogenic plants are consumed for the purpose of bringing about a spiritual state with spiritual visions. in other words, a chemical induction as opposed to a mind induced effortful induction. true, not the same as a teenager at a rave coming on to a hallucinogenic experience, but a chemical induction nonetheless. context, culture…don’t they have a lot to do with how we judge the validity and seriousness of a chemically induced spiritual experience. would you say that the indian is utilizing a quick fix?

By: L.M.

L.M. — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 08:01:31 +0000

Your discussion reminds me of a television report in which an individual with epilepsy whose temporal lobes were stimulated during an episode reported feeling an overwhelming oneness with the universe. Very interesting to contemplate how our neurology might factor in to our feelings of spirituality.

By: poeticinterconnections

poeticinterconnections — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 06:33:04 +0000

Most spiritual masters would say that the enlightened end of an effortful journey is qualitatively different from an instant fix. A Zen master might disagree, though… John Lennon’s “Instant Karma” is playing through my head suddenly…

To me, Nirvana by chemical induction is less cool in this respect: It depends on an external source. True earned mastery of one’s mind and heart is the only way enlightenment becomes self-sustaining.

By: michael

michael — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 07:36:39 +0000

and in the end, is there that much difference between an effortful mental/psychological/spiritual induction to an experience of nirvana and a biochemical induction into the same awareness state by means of a mind altering substance? is the end result the same, qualitatively different, of greater or lesser validity because of the induction technique used? there are many roads to the top of the same mountain. shall we make relative value judgements about the particular paths if they get us us the top?

By: poeticinterconnections

poeticinterconnections — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:30:39 +0000

Thank you for your comment, and your compliments! Your question about whether recent brain/meditation research fully explains spiritual experiences is an important one: Is spirit primary, in which case measured electro-chemical changes in the brain are just secondary effects, or vice-versa? And if vice-versa, could Nirvana then theoretically become deliverable over-the-counter, like the soma pills popped by citizens in Aldous Huxley’s BRAVE NEW WORLD?!

By: michael

michael — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 01:27:27 +0000

I have thoroughly enjoyed your fascinating blogs. This one, finally, has called forth a response. There is a medical literature developing about brain responses that can be measured by using various imaging techniques in meditators at the peak of their meditative experience. There is an area in the brain, for example, that deals with the body’s orientation in space. The brain activity in this area is diminished during peak meditative experiences leading to the notion that this is a neurological explanation for the of the feelings of lack of physical boundaries experienced by seasoned meditators. There may also be an area associated with orientation in time which, if downregulated, could produce a feeling of timelessness. The discussion follows about whether these findings are too reductionistic or simplistic to fully explain spiritual experiences, but they are measurable and duplicatable. Some of these experiments are reported in the book “Why God Won’t Go Away”.