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Several weeks ago during a Zazenkai I was beset by mosquitoes... they must have come in on the firewood! I felt like the Dalai Lama in the mosquito video. Like him, I got bit once and then was swatting afterwards, Zazen or no, I am allergic and swell up like a balloon from them...
Gassho
Jakuden
SatToday/LAH
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
Yes, for medical reasons, if one has to swat ... just swat.
Jishin,
Yes, that's correct. It is illegal on the federal level. My state voted in favor of legalization in November and I can easily obtain it medically by telling my doctor I have anxiety (I have not, will not). The governor and the attorney general have advised all police departments to cease arrests for under 6 ounces as no further cases will be prosecuted. So I doubt the Feds are going to start making arrests.
But I'm not sure what this has to do with anything as this is all besides the point. I was just using anecdotal examples of how meditation, alcohol and cannabis get different reactions from different people.
Please, let's not get off track by starting a thing about the merits/benefits of weed. I'm not qualified and really not interested in the subject.
Sorry for being so verbose.
Gassho
STlah
Shoki
I am just pointing out that smoking marijuana is illegal at the federal level recreationally 100 percent of the time and most of the time for medicinal purposes. Doctors don't write prescriptions for marijuana as the DEA classifies cannabis as a schedule one controlled substance that has very high potential for abuse. In some states doctors write recommendation letters staying that it may benefit a patient and with this recommendation a patient can purchase it without breaking local laws (federal laws are still broken).
The only anxiety or "psychological disturbances" I've experienced during zazen were during my first 6-9 months when my mind was trying to get me interested in my thoughts while sitting. It would suggest the most awful ideas, violent images, and self-deprecating beliefs. It was disturbing, but as I let them go, they would abate. However, my mind became more insidious and would move on to how wonderful I was doing and what a great person I was. It was just trying to get me involved. The frequency of these has lessened, and these days my thoughts are mostly banal - lunch, clothes, a spot on the wall. Occasionally, a violent image will pop up. I think my mind is just prodding me to see if it can regain its foothold. I can certainly see how some people may not react to that type of thing in a psychologically healthy way.
Interesting read, I read something similar to this before about someone who had an experience like this at a Vipassana retreat, I'm definitely hesitant of anything that takes things to an extreme/prevents you from leaving on the premise that you need to tough it out to get the full benefit. Sometimes that's the case, other times you end up in a hospital.
There are also some interesting points about how different people will react to something, going back to the subject of Marijuana (it's 100% legal in Canada now) my experience with it was very different than my sisters or my step mothers. For my sister it provides a fair bit of anxiety relief, my step mother it caused her to panic, and for me it was just... weird, not worth it. I'd imagine for some people intense meditation can be super beneficial, for someone else it might trigger a negative reaction.
I also feel like the term meditation gets thrown around really casually, I don't think sitting Shikantaza is the same as trying to enter some deep jhanic state or something.
It only makes sense that it does, at least in some forms of practice. We know that trauma is "stored" in the body (i.e. as Bessel van der kolk's book points out, "The body keeps the score"). The thing is that a lot of forms in regards to meditation present a very "goal-oriented" practice. I feel like shikantaza should be quite safe for most people.
I don't believe this writing for it is only hearsay. This article relies on too few studies. The work of The Stress Reduction Clinic, hard science by the associates of Jon Kabot-Zinn shows a different conclusion with statistics and thousaqnds of hours of personal testamony, research, and case studies which fly in the face of this dangerous material and shows otherwise with emperical evedence. There is no real research here. These people may have ulteriorer motives among which are to sell magazines. I suspect they have not looked at the Spirit Rock Center, the San Francisco Zen Center or the thousands of meditation halls throughout the USA and Europe. There is no hard science but sensationalism to gain money and further a cause of meadicore reporting without firm evedence, for this is only for the sake of their own reputations.I suspect if you look deeply here you will find no fact only conjecture bassed only one unrelated case of psychyosis without attention to any meditation nor any zazen.
Gassho
sat/ lah
Tai Shi
Dihydrogen monoxide can be really dangerous - “Its basis is the highly reactive hydroxyl radical, a species shown to mutate DNA, denature proteins, disrupt cell membranes, and chemically alter critical neurotransmitters.”
- http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html
Dihydrogen monoxide can be really dangerous - “Its basis is the highly reactive hydroxyl radical, a species shown to mutate DNA, denature proteins, disrupt cell membranes, and chemically alter critical neurotransmitters.”
- http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html
Gassho,
Gareth
Sat today
It is also known that the Buddha ingested dihydrogen monoxide every day, and it definitely was a contributing factor to his enlightenment.
Gassho, J
STLah
PS - It is important to add, for those who have watery eyes, that this was a joke about .... water, which does all those things naturally in the body and they are good things. Yes, it is all wet.
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