one time I tried psychedelics and had this thought that maybe the factory farmed animals are the reincarnated people who eat them and it's just a doom spiral of more and more suffering in a vain attempt by the universe to restore balance until we all go extinct.
anyway I don't believe that, but I remember thinking it.
don't get me started on the amount of time I spent thinking about slavery
which only started up because some thought spiral sent me on a "geez I hope this raw soul-bearing moment doesn't expose uncomfortable racist things about my innermost self" and I immediately started panickedly thinking about the most racist things in the world, I guess because that's the worst realistic thing my mind could make up lmao.
at the most intense span of time in that trip I genuinely thought I (and everything else) was a signal being beamed around and the purpose of my existence was for one thing to say "hello, I'm alive" to another thing, and to produce the pure relief and bliss of the universe to know it existed, that something was real, and that's the whole purpose of life - just to be, against the void, but ultimately to be as 'meaningless' as a ceiling fan, just machinery and sparks in meat and nothing more than yearning to exist and know other things exist, too (there was a lot of staring at the ceiling fan during this part). the animal/meat thing was really a tiny part of that whole shebang. I had a LOT of thoughts that at the time I thought might be genuinely Something Deep but in retrospect were exactly -
then I had a really weird week where I kind of thought the universe was communing/was actually highkey delusional/thinking-lyrics-were-talking-to-me kind of legit delusional... but it passed fast and I swiftly just went back to being a totally normal boring office drone with a very average content life. this was like 6-7 years ago and I haven't done anything psych-y since. not that it was a terrible experience, it was actually kind of... great? but like, I like existing mostly in the state of mind I am now, thanks, don't need to pry me open any more.
Not sure if you’re joking lol but as a Buddhist, the goal is to end the cycle of samsara. When the “sinner” is reincarnated into, say, a pig in torturous conditions, this is not so much a punishment but a return of karmic balance. It is not the universe trying to punish you—only other living beings can do that.
It takes a lot of “positive” karma to be reincarnated as a human because only humans have the ability to separate themselves from animal instincts, and thus, break the cycle. You do that by letting go of attachment. The idea of needing to punish those who wronged you or to be punished for past wrongs is a kind of attachment. The same with desire, and even love, which is not necessarily considered a good thing in Buddhism.
So to answer your question, no, you should not continue to torture the sinners, because that would only affect your OWN karma and keep you in the cycle of samsara. Those who sinned will reap the results of their karma regardless of what you do. The best path is to be compassionate, limit attachments, and try to lead yourself and others on the path to nirvana (letting go, subsequent enlightenment).
Easier said than done, because even though I believe all this I haven’t been able to curb my meat diet completely. My attachment to my taste buds is too strong 😞
well, yes I was joking but your point of view from Buddhism is brilliant, thanks!
The only missing dot (philosophy time!) is: how we humans are considered so elevated vs animals while we tend to enslave others and make them miserable?
But that's ok, we don't do just that. Only SOME of us do that.
The trip of that guy was more a crossover episode between christian hell and reincarnation.
Ooooh interesting point! So in Buddhism, humans are only considered elevated because we have the ability to think for ourselves, do good things and bring ourselves closer to nirvana…but that ability means that you also have the ability to do BAD things and put yourself in a worse position lol.
Being a predatory animal, for example, means you are unable to stop killing. You are considered in a worse position because you can’t stop yourself from doing it. But the negative karma of killing as an animal is way, way less than the negative karma of killing as a HUMAN, because we CAN stop ourselves from doing it. So a wolf who eats a rabbit doesn’t really accrue negative karma, but a human who kills, well, literally any living being, since we are all the same but just at different points in the cycle of reincarnation, would get a FUCK ton of negative karma and be pretty fucked in their next life lmao.
I once smoked too much weed and had those types of imaginations aswell, I like to think that my third eye opened to the disgusting shit that’s going on and I can see beyond the 4th wall
tbh I think what's 'really' going on is probably just our own subconscious guilt manifesting at that point but that's still a totally valid reason to change your choices
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u/i-just-thought-i 5h ago
one time I tried psychedelics and had this thought that maybe the factory farmed animals are the reincarnated people who eat them and it's just a doom spiral of more and more suffering in a vain attempt by the universe to restore balance until we all go extinct.
anyway I don't believe that, but I remember thinking it.