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Beer for Buddhists

Posted December 23rd, 2008 by Michael McAlister

Gerald, over at The Level 8 Buddhist takes on the use of alcohol:

As the Buddha taught, alcohol and intoxicants cause heedlessness. The more you drink, the more heedless you become. It’s not that you become heedless after X number of drinks only, any amount will impair mindfulness and make it harder to practice Buddhism on some degree or another.

While I agree that the abuse of any substance can impair one’s practice, seeing that our attachments to stories surrounding the substance can also inhibit realization. Getting fundamental about abstinence can be an addiction that veils awakening from our sight. In a similar way, knocking back several shots of tequila in order to numb our experience can do exactly the same thing.

This isn’t to say that the use of alcohol should be embraced among otherwise sober Buddhists. Instead each of us should look to see if we’re caught by our use, or non-use, of any intoxicant be it something tangible or intangible; be it a form or a thought. This leads us into an even deeper level of inquiry where we get to ask ourselves questions like: Is this pint of Guiness an abuse of an intoxicant? What is my relationship to it? Or perhaps, is my abstention from alcohol an appropriate response in this moment? Is my vow not to abuse alcohol the same thing as never using it?

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On beer, bottles, and brewing

Posted December 23rd, 2008 by Charles Bowling

 

Hi Michael,
Some years ago i was acting as a moderator for an online texting-based conference, complete with a guest and contributors from various points in cyberspace. After an hour or so of  interesting interchange the guest interrupted the flow and asked me a direct question, "Are you a Buddhist?" "No." I replied. "My inclination is more to Taoism." And then just for the sake of clarity i texted, "But it's hard not to love the Buddha!" All of which is to say that the Buddhists need to speak for themselves about beer, and the use of alcohol.
For me the problem with alcohol is mostly based on a little recognized side effect of this drug; that it tends to interfere with an imbiber's sense of what is enough.  I suggest that this quality is best seen as a depressant and tends to lead to overindulgence, abuse of substance, and worse.
Yet i find a place for beer in my life and practice. For the past 20 years that practice has included the handcrafting of small batches of home brewed beer. At one time this was illegal activity here in the United States; but the Feds changed the law and now permit individual brewers such as myself to craft up to 250 gallons of home brew per year, with this important caveat: it's illegal to sell the stuff. This is why each and every bottle of Fox Valley Premium produced here is labeled with a caveat of my own: "Not for sale at any price!"
Over the years i have developed a rationale for this beer making practice. It's based on two rather simple notions. The first is that on a vegetarian whole grain based diet which i've been on for over four decades, that one or two bottles of beer per day act as an aid to digestion. And second, more than brewing beer what i really get a kick out of is giving the stuff away. Frankly i can't remember the last time i had a complaint. Oh, and as a minor third reason, the brewing is done in an environmentally friendly way; where the bottles are continually reused, and spent grain is added to the compost pile.
Warmly,
Charles
41N58'02" 88W18'28"  

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Emily Dickinson on altered states

Posted December 24th, 2008 by Ruth Henriquez Lyon

I taste a liquor never brewed,
From tankards scooped in pearl;
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an alcohol!

Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.

When landlords turn the drunken bee
Out of the foxglove's door,
When butterflies renounce their drams,
I shall but drink the more!

Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,
To see the little tippler
Leaning against the sun!