Psychonauts Library – 4 Essential Books About Psychedelics (KJ Book Rec)

Psychonauts Library - 4 Essential Books About Psychedelics (KJ Book Rec) | Third Monk image 4

Psychedelic_Vomit_Explosion_by_Maneshi

Psychedelic agents, when properly understood, are probably one of the most valuable, useful, and powerful tools available to humanity. Yet, their use is extremely complex, which means that they are widely misunderstood and often abused.

It is not psychedelics that are complex. In their most useful application, they play a rather straightforward role. In my observation one of the outstanding actions of psychedelics is permitting the dissolving of minds sets. One of the most powerful mind set humans employ is the hiding of undesirable material from consciousness. Thus, a very important function of psychedelic substances is to permit access to the unconscious mind.

The unconscious mind is enormously complex and possesses an extremely wide range of attributes, from repressed, painful material to the sublime realization of universal love. With such variance in experience, learning more about psychedelics is essential for safe, sustained benefit.

These 4 books about psychedelics are an amazing foundational base for Psychedelic Knowledge.

Doors of Perception - Books About Psychedelics

The Doors of Perception PDF

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern. – William Blake from the poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Beyond essential reading, Huxley’s recount of his afternoon trip with mescaline tops many psychonauts list for psychedelic themed reading. Aldous is well known for his love of psychedelics, and his narrative ability is undeniable.

To pierce the veil and gain insight into reality and ourselves, yet still bring back a semblance of those insights once rigid mind sets again solidify is the hope of many psychedelic users.

That within sameness there is difference, although that difference is not different from sameness. – Aldous Huxley

The Doors of Perception Audiobook

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test - Books About Psychedelics

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test PDF

What do you mean, blindly? That baby is a very sentient creature… That baby sees the world with a completeness that you and I will never know again. His doors of perception have not yet been closed. He still experiences the moment he lives in. – Tom Wolfe

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is known as the quintessential book that first documented the rise and growth of the burgeoning hippie movement.

Wolfe’s account of Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters brought psychedelic use to the mainstream. This was a time before it was perverted by hedonistic tendencies, but more importantly, before both sides of the coin knew the other even existed.

The world was simply and sheerly divided into ‘the aware’, those who had the experience of being vessels of the divine, and a great mass of ‘the unaware’, ‘the unmusical’, the unattuned. – Tom Wolfe

TIME Interviews Author Tom Wolfe

godel-escher-bach- Books About Psychedelics

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid PDF

A metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll.

On the surface Hofstadter’s book may seem like it is about mathematics, art, and music, but it is actually about how cognition, thinking, and meaning itself arise from well-hidden neurological mechanisms.

Through analogies between mathematics (Godel), art (Escher), and music (Bach), Hofstadter explains how self-referential loops – ‘strange loops‘ – are the foundation for all meaning. Basically how meaning actually comes about from complex interactions between parts which when taken individually, possess none.

It is a wonderful book that will have you reevaluating the way you perceive and interact with your reality. 

Meaning lies as much
in the mind of the reader
as in the Haiku.
– Douglas R. Hofstadter

PiHKAL - Books About Psychedelics

PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story PDF (2nd Part only)

How long will this last, this delicious feeling of being alive, of having penetrated the veil which hides beauty and the wonders of celestial vistas? It doesn’t matter, as there can be nothing but gratitude for even a glimpse of what exists for those who can become open to it. – Alexander Shulgin

PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story is a book by Dr. Alexander Shulgin and Ann Shulgin. The main title is an acronym that stands for Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved.

Arranged in two parts, the book is considered the Bible of Phenethylamines (a class of chemicals known for their psychoactive and stimulant effects):

1st Part: A fictionalized autobiography of the couple.

2nd Part: Detailed synthesis instructions for 179 different psychedelic compounds, including bioassays, dosages, and commentary.

How he could be a good user of LSD,” I asked, “And know about the spiritual dimension – all that sort of thing – and still be a crook? I don’t understand.”
“Then it’s time you did. Psychedelic drugs don’t change you – they don’t change you character – unless you want to be changed. They enable change; they can’t impose it… – Alexander Shulgin

Ann and Sasha Shulgin – PiHKAL and TiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story

What other psychedelic books have you enjoyed reading?

Flower of Life GIF - Books About Psychedelics

> Are Psychedelics Useful in Buddhist Practice? | College of Liberal Arts, National Taiwan University

This is What Happens When an Artist Suffers Cancer of the Pineal Gland

This is What Happens When an Artist Suffers Cancer of the Pineal Gland | Third Monk image 7

pineal-gland

The tiny, pea sized pineal gland located in the center of the human brain has for ages been thought to be the seat of the soul. Prone to calcification from fluoridated water and other toxins in our food supply, many people are actively interested in detoxifying and de-calcifying their pineal glandThe rush of cosmic energy that is available when the mind’s eye is wide open, there is no other spiritual experience that compares to it.

What happens to a person who loses this gland to disease or some kind of accident?

Shawn Thorton, who, while studying art in school developed an illuminated painting style that baffles the rational mind. Experiencing severe illness, and often having manic and visionary episodes which revealed the contents of his extraordinary paintings, Shawn was learning to paint while, yet unbeknownst to him, he was suffering from brain cancer and had a tumor forming right where his pineal gland sits.

The over-arching style is reminiscent of an alien technology, laden with intricacies, schematics, and winding connections, a sort of motherboard of madness. Much like the human brain, his paintings show a complexity that is not easily understood.

Was his pineal gland releasing DMT, the spirit molecule in elevated levels while battling cancer?

I suffered from a slow growing cancer in my pineal gland while I attended art school and during subsequent years while my paintings developed with an underlined mythology that alluded directly to the pineal years before I even know of its existence.

I think I’d work myself into a frenzy for a while and yes, when I would fall lie down in bed I’d have something like a manic episode that was very lucid and visionary. That still applies to this day, but I try to control it better so I don’t get sick again.

I’ve had a lot of truly mystical and otherworldly experiences as a result of my history and battle with brain cancer and I’m really drawn to things that resonate with a certain powerful energy, and I’m always honing in on that more and more. whether consciously or subconsciously.

I treat depression with mushrooms. Haven’t done DMT ‘intentionally’. Man made chemicals are a thing of the past for me, as I’m really sensitive. –Reddit

Shawn Thornton Art Gallery

Semiotics of the Alchemical Forest

Semiotics of the Alchemical Forest

Black Pyramid Meditation

Black Pyramid Meditation

Mother Brain Decoding the Psychonautical Device

Mother-Brain Decoding the Psychonautical Device

Deaths Head Seals

Death's Head Seals

The Beast in the Solar Disc

The Beast in the Solar Disc

The Serpent’s Egg in the Seat of Consciousness

The Serpent’s Egg in the Seat of Consciousness

ShawnThornton

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Click here for more of Shawn’s amazing art.

Painting, for me, is largely an attempt to decrypt the mechanisms of illness through a disciplined medium. I feel, on some deep internal level, that through my painting practice I’m engaged in a psychic process to illuminate the intricate vessels and cogs of an insidious physic current that stems, in part, from having had a serious illness, and all the subtle and profound ways I was altered by this experience.

All throughout my early adulthood, I struggled from the mental and physical effects of a slow growing tumor in my brain, the symptoms of which were repeatedly misdiagnosed by my doctors as purely psychological in origin, and it ultimately took over half a decade to get a proper diagnosis and treatment to shrink the tumor. I suffered immeasurably during this period from having repeatedly undergone a host of treatments meant to treat the symptoms of mental illness, and paradoxically, from a mental illness that ultimately could not be contained. The tumor was in the very center of my brain, in a small, mysterious organ at the top of the spinal column, the pineal gland. I didn’t have any prior reason to consider the actual material existence of the pineal before this.

As for its spiritually ominous and physically precarious location at epicenter of my being, my ability to conceptualize these facts seemed utterly unreal, ethereal, like nothing short of a sordid space exploration, as it had been making its presence known to me for so long and now there were surgeons probing into my head – into my consciousness. As I further researched my illness directly after being released from the hospital, and after having had undergone emergency brain surgery a few days earlier, I quickly became very quizzical by what I was finding. What had been developing in my art, half unconsciously, over the previous several years in which I had been very ill and labored to keep painting, all of a sudden became very clear. Elements in the paintings seemed to correlate directly to the pineal gland and to many of its mystical and biological functions that have puzzled humankind for centuries.

All throughout the history of human sciences, religions, and philosophies, of different civilizations and cultures all over the world, people have contemplated and researched the pineal because of its mysterious location at the center of our brain. For me, most notable, was its purposed role in the production of endogenous DMT in humans, and its proximity in our brains to the Ajna chakra, or third eye. I also found it intriguing that the pineal gland regulates biorhythms in humans through the production of the hormone melatonin. This brought to mind images of medical charts; of archetypal schematics and universal symbols.-Shawn Thornton

> Strange Story Artist Pineal Cancer | Waking Times

An Introduction to Cannabis Edibles (Guide)

An Introduction to Cannabis Edibles (Guide) | Third Monk image 3

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With all the options available to medical marijuana patients today, many are choosing to explore methods of medicating beyond the traditional pipe or paper.

Edibles Provide a Safer Alternative to Smoking

Ridgemont High - Edibles

Many patients believe that ingesting their cannabis is a healthier alternative to inhaling it because there is no exposure to carbon-rich smoke.

Some patients, such as those on supplemental oxygen, turn to edibles when smoking is no longer an option. For patients with eating and digestive disorders, edibles are not only a great source of nausea-reducing CBD, but also a vital source of nutrients and calories. The same is true for cancer patients suffering from nausea caused by their treatments, and expecting mothers dealing with hyperemesis (morning sickness).

A few patients choose edibles because they are a more discreet way to medicate, while others simply prefer the effects of ingesting cannabis to the effects of smoking.

What Conditions are Edibles Recommended For

marijuana-edibles

The cooking process, as well as the high levels of THC found in edibles, work together to create the perfect treatment for many disorders.

  • Chronic pain
  • Muscle inflammation and spasms
  • Autoimmune disorders
  • Nervous system disorders
  • Insomnia
  • Nausea

While anyone can enjoy the benefits of edibles, patients suffering from Crohn’s disease, an autoimmune disorder of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract that affects as many as 700,000 Americans, find this method of medicating extremely beneficial. Because Crohn’s Disease occurs in the GI tract, edibles distribute useful active and inactive cannabinoids at the root of the problem, instead of having to rely on the bloodstream to carry them from the lungs.

Does Ingesting Cannabis Affect You Differently Than Smoking?

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Yes, without a doubt. However, exactly what effect edibles will have on you depends on several factors: the type and potency of the edibles you are using, your tolerance, your body chemistry, and even how much you’ve had to eat. Because the effects of eating an edible differ greatly from the effects of smoking, many first time users are caught off guard by the stronger potency and long-lasting effects.

Despite CBD’s anxiety relieving properties, many people experience a heightened sense of anxiety and paranoia when they initially ingest an edible.

When you smoke marijuana you only receive a small amount of the cannabinoids in each hit, although it’s felt instantly. Where as, edibles tend to hit you much more slowly. This allows the cannabinoids to be released in waves, as they are processed by the stomach and digested.

Two Different Types of Edibles

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Though there are untold varieties of edibles available on the market today, they can all be split into three basic categories: those geared towards gastrointestinal uptake (digested through stomach), those geared towards oral uptake (through saliva), and a few that fit into a hybrid category that targets both.

The most common edibles are geared towards gastrointestinal absorption. Any edible where the cannabinoids are absorbed through the stomach, like a brownie, cookie, cashew bar, or crepe falls into this category. These edibles tend to take longer to activate within the body (sometimes as long as two hours), but produce a longer-lasting effect (up to eight hours of relief).

uptakemethods

On the flipside, edibles geared towards oral uptake can affect a patient almost immediately, but tend to wear off faster (within two to three hours). Edibles that you hold in your mouth for an extended period of time like suckers, lozenges, or tincture, fall into this category.

Some items, such as drinks and chocolates fall into a hybrid category, because they are designed to be absorbed in both the mouth and the stomach. These edibles are a middle ground between oral and intestinal absorption, offering fast-acting relief (patients usually feel this type of edible within a half hour) that can last for four hours or more.

> What You Should Know About Ingesting Cannabis | Medical Jane

Properly Attune Your Body & Mind Before Using Psychedelic Plant Medicines

Properly Attune Your Body & Mind Before Using Psychedelic Plant Medicines | Third Monk image 1

Before incorporating the knowledge of advanced plant medicines, properly attuning one’s body and mind through diet and exercise is essential.

What goes into the body determines what the body will be composed of physically, mentally, and spiritually. The vessel must be adequately equipped to handle whatever may occur while in the spiritual realms. Body and mind exist in a symbiotic relationship, where the effects on one reflects on the other. Depending on which plant medicine you use, the intensity and length of body preparation varies accordingly.

Click here for our article on Shroom Consumption.

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Ayahuasca

Many traditional diets share common similarities, but each initiate will know what they need to abstain from to gain the greatest knowledge possible from the experience.

Common themes include abstinence from alcohol, sugar, salt, oils, meat and certain spices. Consumption of raw foods is also highly recommended as processing diminishes the nutritional content of the food. It is also common in some locales for initiates of ayahuasca to stop sexual thoughts and activities during the course of the diet and experience. There are reasons for this abstinence that are highlighted in greater detail here. For plant teachers such as Peyote and Psilocybin, a similar diet should be applied.

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Exercises Before Consumption

A short fast before engaging in any plant medicine is recommended, aim for anywhere from 8-24 hours. Attempting to digest a plant teacher with other foods in the stomach can cause the initiate to undergo physical stress.

It is recommended that initiates disengage from the integration of meat and animal products into their bodies for weeks before, during and after the spiritual journey. It is also recommended that initiates let go of whatever it is they may be struggling with in their lives.

Temporary separation from those attachments which we feel we cannot live without will serve to enlighten us. If one struggles with addictive behavior, one should surrender that behavior before encountering the plant medicine if they wish to maximize their knowledge from the plant.

Anything one can do to purify and cleanse both thoughts and action – before and after the experience – will serve to increase penetration and understanding.

Psychedelic Spirituality Podcast – Proper Diet and Exercise for Spiritual Experience

With Kundalini Yoga Teacher Mehtab Benton

> Ways to Spiritually Cleanse Before Using | Time Wheel Net

Legal Marijuana is Making Streets Safer

Legal Marijuana is Making Streets Safer | Third Monk image 4

Legal Marijuana GIF

During debates over whether or not marijuana should be legalized, safety was one of the biggest talking points on both sides.

From a pro-legalization perspective, advocates noted that full legalization would bring transactions off the streets — often dangerous for many reasons — and into safe, responsibly run retail environments.

From an anti-legalization view, some of the major concerns regarding cannabis included the actual effect of the plant on people’s health, the prospect of people driving under the influence, and of course, what would happen to the children if legislation was allowed to pass.

Won't somebody please think of the children - Legal Marijuana

Well, nearly a year since Colorado initiated legal marijuana sales to the general public, it appears that legalization has indeed made the streets safer. In fact, marijuana use among teenagers has actually dropped in Colorado.

Survey results released by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment indicate that kids of high school age are less likely to view marijuana as risky than they were before, and that overall, the number of teens who have used it has dropped.

One in five high school kids used cannabis within the past 30 days, the survey found. Thirty-day use rates took a drop from 22 percent in 2011 to 20 percent last year, while over the same time lifetime use — which measures how many teens had actually tried marijuana at some point in their lives — dropped from 39 percent to 37 percent. While not a significant shift, it is indeed a drop, instead of the supposed increased many assumed.

Medicinally-Stoned

What About Driving…

One of the other chief concerns about legalization would be that it would encourage drivers to get behind the wheel while under the influence. A worthy concern, yet traffic data from Colorado has proven that traffic fatalities have actually declined since prohibition was ended in Colorado.

Fatalities in Colorado peaked in 2002, one year after Colorado’s medical marijuana law went into effect, and has since dropped by more than a third. Also, since legal sales began in January, traffic fatalities for the year are down as compared to 2013.

While there really can’t ever be anything directly linking legal cannabis to safer roads, the data does show marked improvement. Some experts believe that fewer fatalities and legal cannabis can be linked, as some people may decide to substitute the act of marijuana use in place of drinking.

Legal Marijuana Bong Rip

Ultimately…

For the majority, legal marijuana doesn’t necessarily change their behavior. If they smoked before, they still do. And if the law was the only thing holding them back, chances are they still aren’t smoking now.

For now, it appears that the streets, at least in Colorado, are a bit safer. At the very least, people no longer need to be worried about engaging in sketchy black market drug deals in parking lots, and can instead engage in commerce like adults in retail stores.

Larry David Buys Weed

> Is Legalized Marijuana Making Steets Safer? It Appears So | Wall St. Cheat Sheet

Aldous Huxley on Psychedelics and Creativity (Interview)

Aldous Huxley on Psychedelics and Creativity (Interview) | Third Monk image 1

Huxley_Visionary Huxley on Psychedelics

Aldous Huxley interviewed for The Paris Review (1960), reprinted in Moksha: Aldous Huxley’s Classic Writings on Psychedelics and the Visionary Experience, edited by Michael Horowitz and Cynthia Palmer (Park Street Press, 1999)

PDF version of this document

Huxley on Psychedelics and Creativity

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Interviewers: Do you see any relation between the creative process and the use of such drugs as lysergic acid [diethylamide]?

Huxley: I don’t think there is any generalization one can make on this. Experience has shown that there’s an enormous variation in the way people respond to lysergic acid. Some people probably could get direct aesthetic inspiration for painting or poetry out of it. Others I don’t think could. For most people it’s an extremely significant experience, and I suppose in an indirect way it could help the creative process. But I don’t think one can sit down and say, “I want to write a magnificent poem, and so I’m going to take lysergic acid [diethylamide].” I don’t think it’s by any means certain that you would get the result you wanted — you might get almost any result.

Interviewers: Would the drug give more help to the lyric poet than the novelist?

Huxley: Well, the poet would certainly get an extraordinary view of life which he wouldn’t have had in any other way, and this might help him a great deal. But you see (and this is the most significant thing about the experience), during the experience you’re really not interested in doing anything practical — even writing lyric poetry. If you were having a love affair with a woman, would you be interested in writing about it? Of course not. And during the experience you’re not particularly in words, because the experience transcends words and is quite inexpressible in terms of words. So the whole notion of conceptualizing what is happening seems very silly. After the event, it seems to me quite possible that it might be of great assistance: people would see the universe around them in a very different way and would be inspired, possibly, to write about it.

Interviewers: But is there much carry-over from the experience?

Huxley: Well, there’s always a complete memory of the experience. You remember something extraordinary having happened. And to some extent you can relive the experience, particularly the transformation of the outside world. You get hints of this, you see the world in this transfigured way now and then — not to the same pitch of intensity, but something of the kind. It does help you to look at the world in a new way. And you come to understand very clearly the way that certain specially gifted people have seen the world. You are actually introduced into the kind of world that Van Gogh lived in, or the kind of world that Blake lived in. You begin to have a direct experience of this kind of world while you’re under the drug, and afterwards you can remember and to some slight extent recapture this kind of world, which certain privileged people have moved in and out of, as Blake obviously did all the time.

Interviewers: But the artist’s talents won’t be any different from what they were before he took the drug?

Huxley: I don’t see why they should be different. Some experiments have been made to see what painters can do under the influence of the drug, but most of the examples I have seen are very uninteresting. You could never hope to reproduce to the full extent the quite incredible intensity of color that you get under the influence of the drug. Most of the things I have seen are just rather tiresome bits of expressionism, which correspond hardly at all, I would think, to the actual experience. Maybe an immensely gifted artist — someone like Odilon Redon (who probably saw the world like this all the time anyhow) — maybe such a man could profit by the lysergic acid [diethylamide] experience, could use his visions as models, could reproduce on canvas the external world as it is transfigured by the drug.

Interviewers: Here this afternoon, as in your book, The Doors of Perception, you’ve been talking chiefly about the visual experience under the drug, and about painting. Is there any similar gain in psychological insight?

Huxley: Yes, I think there is. While one is under the drug one has penetrating insights into the people around one, and also into one’s own life. Many people get tremendous recalls of buried material. A process which may take six years of psychoanalysis happens in an hour — and considerably cheaper! And the experience can be very liberating and widening in other ways. It shows that the world one habitually lives in is merely a creation of this conventional, closely conditioned being which one is, and that there are quite other kinds of worlds outside. It’s a very salutary thing to realize that the rather dull universe in which most of us spend most of our time is not the only universe there is. I think it’s healthy that people should have this experience.

> Huxley on LSD and Creativity | MAPS Org

Vinchen: Social Commentary From Ohio’s Best Street Artist (Art Gallery)

Vinchen: Social Commentary From Ohio's Best Street Artist (Art Gallery) | Third Monk image 21

warmthOwners - Vinchen

Vinchen’s street art offers simple insights into supposed complex social issues. It causes us to question the notion of their complexity altogether, leaving you to wonder why we are plagued by social inequities at all.

Asking questions incidently leads to answers, and Vinchen’s street art places the onus back on those looking back. 

Vinchen – Social Commentary Street Art Gallery

notAnotherIpod - Vinchen

newListing - Vinchen

nsfw - Vinchen

marketCorrection - Vinchen

lousySurveillance

liveWithIt

imperialistOlympian

cleanUpYourGod

forYourSafety

highNetWorthLeaving

highNetWorthEntering

hobotel

corporateShelter

capital

cheers

campaignPromise

99PercentStore

africanBlood

buffering

aNationModified

retailIAmNotWorthy

payToRest

povertunity

siamese

speculativeCommodity

stealingLesson

stopShopping

theStartIsNigh

unlimitedSurveillance

whammy

Increase Introspection with Colored Noise (Audio High)

Increase Introspection with Colored Noise (Audio High) | Third Monk

Colored Noise

A consistent flooding of noise in the ears mutes out thoughts and places us into a deeper, introspective state.

Sift through the colored noise below, find a comfortable place, close your eyes, and listen to the static din for an introspective boost.

Click here for more audio highs.

How Colored Noise Works

Though noise is defined as a random signal, it is often classified into areas: environmental noise, industrial noise, occupational noise, etc. It is also further classified into colors.

Engineers originally developed colored noises to use as guides for electric, acoustic, and audio equipment experiments. Each noise was named after the color it most closely resembled in frequency. Different colors vibrate at a different frequencies, which is how the human eye distinguishes them. Interestingly. in the early 1970s, colored noises were used to test for extrasensory perception.

Dr. Charles Honorton, among other parapsychologists, believed white and pink noise played through headphones could mute out the senses and make a person more amenable to subconscious thought. In Ganzfeld Anomalous Information Transfer experiments, extended exposure to white or pink noise was often successful in inducing in subjects hypnagogic and other altered states of consciousness. At a minimum, a few minutes of white or pink noise placed people into a deep state of meditation.

Brown Noise

Pink Noise

Violet Noise

Blue Noise

White Noise

> Audio High | Get High Now

Don’t Believe in Anybody Else’s BS – Robert Anton Wilson (Video)

Don't Believe in Anybody Else's BS - Robert Anton Wilson (Video) | Third Monk

Robert Anton Wilson shares his view on belief systems and offers us a glimpse into the framework of his own.

A must see for anyone who is having trouble harmonizing their expanding beliefs (many of which may be contradictory).

If one can only see things according to one’s own belief system, one is destined to become virtually deaf, dumb, and blind. – Robert Anton Wilson

Omega Point created this video, his youtube page has a number of similarly themed works, featuring luminaries Alan Watts, Terence Mckenna, & Carl Sagan.

truth lies robert anton wilson

Solar Roadways: A Safer Solar Alternative to our Concrete Jungles (Video)

Solar Roadways: A Safer Solar Alternative to our Concrete Jungles (Video) | Third Monk image 1

Solar Roadways have successfully funded their IndieGogo campaign, raising 2 million dollars for their project. 

LEDs - white Solar Roadway

Solar Roadways Claims

– A Nationwide Solar Roadway System could produce more clean renewable energy than a country uses as a whole

– Heating elements to keep roads snow and ice free

– LEDs to make road lines and signage

– Attached cable corridor to store and treat stormwater & provide a “home” for power and data cables

– Electric Vehicles will be able to charge from parking lots and driveways after roadway is in place, mutual induction technology allowing for charging while driving.

They also claim roads will be smarter and safer as a whole.

Sandpoint Sidewalk - Solar Roadway

Safer Roads with Solar Roadways

It sounds too good to be true, and perhaps it is.

I’m a fan of hearing both sides of a story, and the video below takes a critical view of Solar Roadways and its claims.

Solar Roadways, an Expensive Joke?

I’m not sure if Solar Roadways are the answer to the many questions being asked of humanity, but there are a few things we know for sure.

We need new systems that are stable-state, self-sustaining  and will work in concert with the Earth to sustain and enrich its vast web of life.

It’s not too late, and ideas like this, if not perfect, are at least moving us in the right general direction. 

What do you think?

Downtown Sandpoint 2 - Solar Roadway

The 4 Stages of Enlightenment According to Buddhist Scripture

The 4 Stages of Enlightenment According to Buddhist Scripture | Third Monk image 1

Enlightenment - 4 Stages of Enlightenment

As he guided his followers over the 45 years he taught, Buddha recognized four distinct levels of realization, each marked by a deep and unmistakable experience of selflessness, followed by certain changes in outlook and behavior.

The experience generally occurs during intensive meditation, when the attention has become one-pointed, and follows extensive study and understanding of the basic truths of Buddhism (especially the three marks of existence: selflessness, impermanence, and dissatisfaction).

The four stages of enlightenment are Sotapanna, Sakadagami, Anagami and Arahant. The teaching of the four stages is a central element of the early Buddhist schools, including the surviving Theravada school of Buddhism.

The 4 Stages of Enlightenment

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Stream-enterer

The first stage is that of Sotāpanna (Pali; Sanskrit: Srotāpanna), literally meaning “one who enters (āpadyate) the stream (sotas),” with the stream being the Noble Eightfold Path regarded as the highest Dharma.

The stream-enterer is also said to have “opened the eye of the Dharma” and is guaranteed enlightenment after no more than seven successive rebirths, possibly fewer. The stream-enterer can also be sure that he will not be reborn in any of the unhappy states or rebirths (an animal, a preta, or in hell). He can only be reborn as a human being, or in a heaven. The stream-enterer has attained an intuitive grasp of Buddhist doctrine (samyagdṛṣṭi or sammādiṭṭhi, “right view”), has complete confidence or Saddha in the Three Jewels of Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha, and has good moral behaviour (Sila).

When you become a stream-enterer, you can never again believe that you’re really a separate self that lives inside your head and looks through your eyes. Your experience forever eliminates this illusion. When you look within, you can’t find a self anywhere.

In everyday life, however, you may still feel like a separate somebody and may still get caught up by greed, anger, ignorance, and various other negative feelings and patterns. Fortunately, the stage of stream-enterer also brings an unshakable confidence and dedication to the Buddhist spiritual path, so you’re motivated to keep deepening and refining your realization.

I observe treasures of gold and gems as so many bricks and pebbles. I look upon the finest silken robes as tattered rags. – Buddha

gp-tw-tu-Tranquil forest something about this hypnotizing a - oa1776d

 Once Returner

The second stage is that of the Sakadāgāmī (Sanskrit: Sakṛdāgāmin), literally meaning “one who once (sakṛt) comes (āgacchati)”. The once-returner will return to the human world only one more time, and will attain Nirvana in that life.

After you become a stream-enterer, your practice includes reminding yourself of your new realization of “no-self,” as well as paying attention to the ways that you’re still attached and your resistance to life as it unfolds. After a period of time (generally years of devoted practice) in which your concentration gets even stronger and your mind becomes even more tranquil, you have another direct insight into no-self. (Remember, knowing this truth as a concept or memory is one thing, but experiencing it directly, beyond the conceptual mind, is something else entirely.)

This insight (essentially the same as the first but even stronger and clearer) brings a significant reduction in attachment and aversion and the suffering that accompanies these states of mind. For example, occasional irritation and preference replace hatred and greed, which no longer have any hold over the once-returner.

Again, someone who reaches this stage has only one more rebirth before becoming completely enlightened.

I see myriad worlds of the universe as small seeds of fruit, and the greatest lake in India as a drop of oil upon my foot. – Buddha

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Never-returner

The third stage is that of the Anāgāmī (Sanskrit: Anāgāmin), literally meaning “one who does not (an-) come (āgacchati)”. The non-returner does not come back into human existence, or any lower world, after death. Instead, he is reborn in one of the worlds of the Rūpadhātu called the Śuddhāvāsa worlds, or “Pure Abodes”, where he will attain Nirvāṇa; Pāli: Nibbana; some of them are reborn a second time in a higher world of the Pure Abodes, but in no case are born into a lower state.

An Anāgāmī has abandoned the five lower fetters that bind the mind to the cycle of rebirth. An Anāgāmī is thus partially enlightened, and on the way to perfect and complete Enlightenment.

After the experience that signals entry to this stage, all of the worst hindrances, such as hatred, greed, jealousy, and ignorance, completely drop away, but a hint of a self-sense (a “me”) still remains — and with it, the slightest trace of restlessness and dissatisfaction sticks around as well. The experience itself is rarely accompanied by any emotion or excitement, just a clearer recognition of what has already been seen twice before. These people appear to be extremely content, peaceful, and without desire, but the subtlest preference for positive rather than negative experiences remains.

I discern the highest conception of emancipation as a golden brocade in a dream, and view the holy path of the illuminated ones as flowers appearing in one’s eyes. – Buddha

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Arahant

The fourth stage is that of Arahant, a fully enlightened human being who has abandoned all fetters, and who upon decease (Sanskrit: Parinirvāṇa, Pāli: Parinibbāna) will not be reborn in any world, having wholly abandoned saṃsāra.

At this stage, the path bears ultimate fruit in nirvana — any residual trace of a separate self falls away for good. The experience, frequently accompanied by unimaginable bliss, has been compared to falling into the depths of a cloud and disappearing. At this point, the circumstances of life no longer have the slightest hold over you; positive or negative experiences no longer stir even the slightest craving or dissatisfaction. As Buddha said, all that needed to be done has been done. There’s nothing further to realize. The path is complete, and no further rebirths are necessary.

I see meditation as a pillar of a mountain, nirvana as a nightmare of daytime. – Buddha

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> Four Stages of Enlightenment | Tamqui

> Four Stages on the Path to Nirvana | Dummies

> Buddha | Lucid Cafe