I know there's bound to be some Buddhists on here. I'd just like to know if you've ever actually acheived Enlightenment or Nirvana and if so what was it like?

once after taking 200 magic mushrooms, i lay there outwardly comatose, but as i shut my eyes, i went inside my own mind, i could literally see it as a library, i could go to anytime in my life and see the whole scene, and it was like all the things which i had taken in but didn't conciously know had become crystal clear. i could recall everything, i could remember and read every single shop sign in the streets i used to walk to school along 10 years ago. i wasn't really thinking about it though, it was more just seeing it.

then i could see a view from above myself and i looked incredibly simple, just liquids flowing around inside tubes, that is how i viewed myself, then i could see a view of the whole earth and even though i was in space i could see everything on the entire planet down to the finest detail, and it all looked incredibly simple to me, just liquids flowing through tubes, things hitting each other, falling, moving in straight lines moving in parabolas, just everything looked simple. then i realised that that is how life really is, that it all is incredibly simple, its just our minds that are so complicated.

I don't think it counts if you're on drugs, but that's just me. Higher states of consciousness? Yeah, sure. Nirvana? No. If I had, do you really think I'd be on Totse? I'd probably be off explaining things to people and feeling eternally stoned.

I like that description of a mushroom trip ^ very beautiful description, and much like my own experiences with shrooms.

You come here saying "is anyone enlightened" already your mind is hungry.

Even if someone is enlightened and says "I have been enlightened" they will not be enlightened to you if they do not fit what your mind defines as enlightenment. Even if they are, what is it to you? It will not enlighten you, it will just keep you hoping.

Meditation techniques, are very holy words. Since divinity is just beyond mind, beyond words, meditation techniques that tell HOW to go beyond words, are as holy as words can get. Yet they seem so simple, but really, this is the way it is. Simple.

One night I was laying next to someone, they were asleep. I had a strange curiousity. I wanted to see if I could align my breathing with theirs, only opposite. So I followed their outgoing breath with my ingoing breath. When they breathed in, then I would breathe out. I did this for the entire night, trying not to miss one breath. If I lost track of what I was doing, the sound of their breathing was a reminder and I would be back to being completely aware of it. Thus, I could not escape meditation unless I wanted to. My mind could not fool me, now thoughts could not put me to sleep, now I was in charge.

The next day, I saw many things and knew many things which I can explain for hours, but I'd rather say it simply: things were never the same. Whoever I was before that night, died that night. I knew now that, I could never be as ignorant as I was before because now there was no turning back. I was reborn.

Through meditation techniques it is possible to get a pentrating eye. With this eye, things are neither big nor small, near or far. Big nor small! Infinite in depth, yet empty. Both words can be used to describe the same thing. "Everything and Nothing." This can sound frightening and in a way it is, but only to ego because ego is shattered. But this is the way things are! Ego divides. Really, you will look at something, and thought will say "it is over there" but with this eye, now everything you look at is not separate from you. Mind will try to trick, but with this eye, now you know. This knowing is deep, deeper than mind.

"Enlightenment is a shitstick!"

You think enlightenment will happen to you in the future, that maybe you will strive and eventually reach the goal, that you must meditate on a mountain for years before it happens. This very thought is an obstacle. Drop it completely, for mind works only by setting some goal, some ideal, some dream. This is the exact obstacle. Mind will say "heaven is in the future for you if you're good" and then you'll do actions based on desiring this future goal. But the Buddha says, nirvana is right here, in this moment. The Buddha was a very wise man. I didn't know much of him before that "experience" but after it, I had an innate sense to look up some of his quotes, and I could do nothing but laugh, and laugh and laugh. Because I knew, that this man really knew. And his words sound so simple, and that's how it is. Simple.

[This message has been edited by Fuck (edited 11-21-2005).]

quote:Originally posted by TerminatorVinitiatoR:

once after taking 200 magic mushrooms

http://www.totse.com/bbs/rolleyes.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/rolleyes.gif)

i ate a box of golden tops out and about in london one day and then caught the tube home in rush hour. whilst i was on that tube i came to a much greater understanding of things.

namely that taking mushrooms and riding packed tube for an hour is not something i ever want to do ever again. ever.

It doesn't take much of those to get me tripping.

I loaded my mp3 player up with pink floyd and tool once, went out to an empty school field and took only half an 8th. I did it alone and sat there staring at the trees. After some time, I saw the "underlying" faces. I don't think shrooms make you "hallucinate", many will argue, but I think they make you see what was already there, just beneath what you usually see. Because my mind could not "create" these designs even if I wanted it to, that sounds completely absurd to me.

Designs in the trees, looking at my hand, every small square and crack on the back of my hand, it was like they were words I could read now. Breathing too, they were all alive, Every part of us is alive, every single cell and shrooms make you see this. I didn't know what those "letters" said, but yet I did. It was like they were a "lesson"...In the sky, wheels and tubes, great designs that I couldn't really "see" but I could. They were just underneath normal sight, they were staying there, changing but not fast enough to disappear... (like someone else said, tubes...) and the same "letters" that weren't letters, more like cells, or I dunno, little designs. I felt like now even death could come but it could not destroy me. I felt spit in my mouth and the desire to spit like normal, it was like, it seemed pointless now. Anything besides just sitting there seemed absolutely pointless, any effort was pointless I realized, since death is inevitable, but this was not a depressed thought now. In fact, I'd never been happier.

I jumped on my bike and rode around in the field with no destination, it felt like I was a little kid again. Went home and looked in the mirror for a minute, and oh man... couldn't do that too long, guess I wasn't "ready" for that. Seeing your face, your known face as nothing but a part of this rolling reality, is to know you have no face. Even if you just glimpse it. This is REALLY ego-shattering...

If someone has the balls to take mushrooms and do a mirror meditation for a long period of time, then they do indeed have the biggest balls in the world. Because then you're melting into reality completely...Anyone ever do that?

I think I remember someone mentioned that one time here.... said they "got lost" in the mirror and it was the scariest experience of their life, I could see why.

I did with meditation then I lost it

i reflect everynight to music of all sorts, I feel enlightened.

quote:Originally posted by Fuck:

If someone has the balls to take mushrooms and do a mirror meditation for a long period of time, then they do indeed have the biggest balls in the world. Because then you're melting into reality completely...Anyone ever do that?

That sounds like a challenge lol. I just looked up mirror meditation and it sounds trippy, I remember doing it for a minute or two when I was younger and my face would start morphing after a while, very bizarre. But the piece I read says that if you do it long enough, your head can disappear and you see the wall behind yourself? That sounds crazy, is it bullshit?

I have one hit of acid left and a tiny bit of hash, I might try this on Friday. For certain reasons I've got to give tripping and whatnot a break for quite a while, this could be an interesting note to end things on. Looking at mirrors has never bothered me while tripping, I'm curious what this would be like.

quote:Originally posted by crazygoatemonky:

I don't think it counts if you're on drugs, but that's just me.

Explain.

Well, I think enlightenment can be describe as perfect awareness of everything. The idea being that you can be human, and still understand and be a part of the universe. Drugs is having something else change the world for you, warping your view of reality, instead of accepting reality the way it truely appears to you. Not to mention (at least for Satori), even if you do get close (Kensho) you can't be on drugs all the time to sustain it. But basically, enlightenment should be from you, and you seeing the universe in all it's (im)perfection, not drugs seeing things for you.

Of course it "counts" when you're on drugs. But what good is enlightenment if you have to take a few hits of acid before you can achieve that state of mind every time? LSD can open the doors, but it doesn't mean a thing if you can't find those doors again while not tripping.

[This message has been edited by Cowbox (edited 11-23-2005).]

^I agree. Drugs are a tool that can unlock doors, they do not show you what is through them or even necessarily open them for you.

There has been a moment where I have felt enlightened but it was brief. Then I lost it. Perhaps to some people that means I wasn't truly enlightened, but for me... that one instant of warmth and understanding is enough to keep me pursuing.

yeah, I want my money back

i have also known the OTHER side of hallucinogens, the not so good enlightenment.

the trip where you die a thousand times every minuit.

where nothing makes sense, and you have gone past sanity.

your original mind has died and you are trapped in a bad journey you can't escape from.

quote:Originally posted by TerminatorVinitiatoR:

i have also known the OTHER side of hallucinogens, the not so good enlightenment.

the trip where you die a thousand times every minuit.

where nothing makes sense, and you have gone past sanity.

your original mind has died and you are trapped in a bad journey you can't escape from.

it's only a bad journey because you interpret it that way... the good trips and the bad trips are the same "trip", but depending on how you wrap your mind around it, you're in for a very different ride.

quote:Originally posted by TerminatorVinitiatoR:

the trip where you die a thousand times every minuit.

where nothing makes sense, and you have gone past sanity.

"If you want to live at every moment as it presents itself, you've got to die to

every other moment" - aldous huxley



[This message has been edited by Cowbox (edited 11-25-2005).]

quote:Originally posted by Cowbox:

"If you want to live at every moment as it presents itself, you've got to die to

every other moment" - aldous huxley





bullshit, are you trying to tell me the trip i had was a good one in some way?

well it wasn't.

is extreme paranoia and fear good??

Bad trips are always good in some way, even though the feelings themselves are bad. It's because bad trips always have a cause, and figuring out what that cause is will always lead you to some truth about yourself that you were ignorant of before.

Bad trips have changed my life for the better at least as much as good trips. You just have to try and understand them next time one happens, while it's happening. Don't try and escape them, that just makes it worse. Embracing a bad and scary experience can be a very good thing you know, it's the best way to treat fear in general.

quote:Originally posted by imperfectcircle:

Don't try and escape them, that just makes it worse.

So true. What another said about bad trips sounds my like trips with salvia, now it just shatters my ego, my mind, but my mind doesn't want to be shattered (mind never wants to go away). But with this drug, immediately, all that I've known, clinged to, all attachment, it is thrown off, because now I'm closer to reality, I can feel the breathing and for some odd reason feel it as life and death, and this frightens me so I will breathe in but then I will have to breathe out and my mind cannot comprehend being beyond it, so it gets scared.

It is as if I repeatedly try to exist, but every moment I die, this is important and it really does show something about the mind. It's always best to observe to learn things, even in the worst trip, just observe, what more can you do? I think now my ego is very much scared while on salvia, but now I do understand the trip, so it is not very scary at all, at a deeper level only.

But like someone else said, drugs are just one of many keys, meditation is the natural way. But either way to understand mind is to go beyond it. Drugs just sometimes take us there "too fast" if we're not ready for it, and that's when it becomes a "bad trip" because you can't have control. But the thing is, if you let go of the control, the attachment, if you let go of everything, you can learn much.

quote:Originally posted by TerminatorVinitiatoR:



bullshit, are you trying to tell me the trip i had was a good one in some way?



that's exactly what i'm saying... it may not be "fun", but a bad trip tends to me the most insightful one

Buddhists aren't supposed to be taking drugs.

but JESUS made me take the mushrooms!