Did Shinzen Young Use Psychedelics?

[Ray]

Hi, 

I was making research on Shinzen Young and I've stumbled upon the fact that he's a student of shamanism and he probably did some ayahuasca or Pedro... do you got any other pieces of information? I would be interested in seeing his point of view on the matter, thanks!

 

Here's the article I've found the info on 

https://openheartopenheart.blogspot.com/2020/02/why-do-buddhists-turn-to-shamanism.html

 

Thanks! 

[Leo Gura]

He was a drug addict in the late 60's in San Francisco along with the Hippie movement. Psychedelics made him turn to Zen.

[Girzo]

What's even crazier, Shinzen had a serious car accident under influence of LSD in his youth. He has suffered at least some brain damage while being high on psychedelics and I think it might be related to how talented of a meditator he is. He would deny that, though, but for me it's suspicious.

Shinzen also had had some weird episodes on his path towards Enlightenment, like hallucinating giant insects everywhere for months as an after-effect from his intense meditation practice, which had eventually passed.

[Girzo]

Found the video:

 

[Consilience]

@Girzo He would deny it because the first few years of living in a monastery he had horrible results and considered quitting, at least that’s what Ive heard. He has communicated how his first few years of real practice yielded pitiful results. Although that’s technically all hearsay. 

I think his meditation talent has more to do with thousands upon thousands of hours training. Imo his real talent is his ability to distill complicated buddhist language and concepts into a digestible format for the western mind. 

[Girzo]

@Consilience Makes sense.

[Yali]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

 

He was a drug addict i

 

@Leo Gura Hard drugs?

[Leo Gura]

8 hours ago, Yali said:

@Leo Gura Hard drugs?

If I recall correctly, yes.

[lmfao]

This might be a false memory, but I feel like shinzen might have been addicted to weed. Not sure 

[Yali]

@Leo Gura

3 minutes ago, lmfao said:

addicted to weed

he was addicted to weed. not sure about hard drugs though.

[Grateful Dead]

yeah I am reading his book right now and he wrote that he used weed and lsd

[Jodistrict]

He told me once that the reason his voice cracks is because of all the pot he smoked.  He also related how through deep meditation  he lost the desire to smoke weed.  I have never heard him talk about psychedelics .  As for the Shamanism,  Shinzen became interested in Native American spirituality, and he ended up doing a Sun Dance (along with the two knives through the breasts and being  hung from a tree).   This had nothing to do with drugs.  It should also be mentioned that  Shinzen used meditation to teach people how to manage pain (eg., AIDS patients).   Thus, the Sun Dance was a good opportunity  to meditate with pain.  He would also teach Strong Determination meditation, which produces discomfort and pain.

Edited April 16, 2021 by Jodistrict

[Ray]

@Leo Gura @Girzo @Consilience @lmfao@Yali @acidgoofy @Jodistrict Thanks a lot you all for the Infos, I appreciate it! 

@Jodistrict I see, that's really eye-opening, I was in fact surprised by the fact that I couldn't find him talking about psychedelics directly. Tough again it would be reeeaaally interesting to have his Point of view on it, both for his experience and his "algorithmic" appraoch. Thanks mate :)!

[outlandish]

21 hours ago, Girzo said:

Found the video:

 

He's a delightful storyteller. That was clearly not his first time dropping acid either eh? Amazing that he didn't have a lot of emotional trauma from that experience.