Psychadelics and awakening.

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Hi Tommy!

Thanks for weighing in, you've made a lot of excellent points. I would like to echo yours and Kenneth's sentiments; that it is not my intention to promote the use of these substances, to do so would be unwise. Especially considering that we cannot ensure they are used in a responsible and informed manner via the forums. However I do feel that open discussion of the states these psychedelics can induce vs states available through practice can be beneficial.

Since it seems that a significant number of yogi's have had experience with these substances in the past, it could prove useful for them to share their experiences, so that those that come after them can make more informed decisions.

A significant portion of people trying to make sense of their experiences online may have encountered them via psychedelics, helping them make sense of these within the framework of practice can help them integrate the experiences, as well as encourage them to deepen their understanding via practice instead of further use of psychedelics.

This is my intention, even though a lot of people may still feel they want to find out for themselves.. it is the spirit of practice and direct knowledge after all that complements meditation, not just to take peoples word but to do the experiment and see for oneself.

If we can say, look we have explored that route and it is our conclusion that these wonderful, simple practices that kenneth and others have shared with us are tried and proven, more effective and present less risk than messing with these substances, maybe we can help some people to avoid being sidetracked.

In this spirit, I have a few more comments. When I refer to tryptamines, I refer to the whole family indicated here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tryptamines

(cont)

This includes DMT, it's analogues, psilocybin found in mushrooms; indole ring structure compounds of which lsd is a derivative, among others.

"Tryptamine is found in trace amounts in the brains of mammals and is believed to play a role as a neuromodulator or neurotransmitter."

Serotonin, a well known neurotransmitter, is a tryptamine, and is a key component of the mechanism of action of many antidepressants. It is noteworthy that tryptophan, an essential amino acid, is a precursor to our bodies production and regulation of serotonin, one can purchase 5-htp as a health supplement at most major stores over the counter, and it has interesting effects as a possible aid for depression and mood enhancement. 5-htp is the intermediary compound when the body metabolizes tryptophan to serotonin. tryptophan -> 5-htp -> serotonin. I have also found 5-htp has interesting effects for inducing lucid dreams / vivid dreams.

Serotonin plays an important and key role in the regulation of mood. It is currently theorized that most of these compounds effects are via alterations in the regulation of serotonin in the brain.

Our bodies are truly amazing walking pharmaceutical labs, as well as supercomputers!

: )

To sum things up, although I have experimented with various psychedelics in the past, I have made the most consistent and major progress in the past two years by getting my sh*t together, and doing these simple practices with as much dedication as I could, without the aid of any mind altering substances. These practices are truly powerful and work, it is only a matter of time and effort. It is so much more empowering to have access to these states through practices instead of psychedelics, and it is definitely worth the effort.

I'd like to express gratitude for this wonderful community where we can discuss these topics openly!

metta!

Justin

I have never taken psychedelics, but am not adverse to trying it at some point, if the conditions were right.

Sam Harris, the author of The End of Faith, and the primary reason I started Buddhist meditation has a very well-rounded essay on psychedelics and meditation on his blog:

www.samharris.org/blog/item/drugs-and-the-meaning-of-life/

Highly recommended.

I had my share with going thru stage while smoking a lot weed. However, that was not reproducible.

I also want to point you to some good writings:

Psychedelic Experience and Spiritual Practice: A Buddhist Perspective by Jack Kornfield
www.lycaeum.org/~sputnik/Misc/buddhism.html

SPECIAL MEDICINE AND BIG BUSINESS
From Dropping Ashes on the Buddha by Seung Sahn

www.lycaeum.org/~sputnik/Drugs/LSD/LSD.Buddha.html

Hope you enjoy!
Sven

I'll also add a link for Leary, Metzger and Alpert (a.k.a. Ram Dass) with "The Psychedelic Experience"

www.erowid.org/library/books_online/psyc...lic_experience.shtml

There's a fair bit of shoehorning going on in some cases, but it's interesting territory nonetheless.

The dream machine seems like a safer alternative to me.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamachine

Yes, or a floating tank/samadhi tank. I would take more sessions it doesn't always work at the first trial. Have to get used to it. Don't eat but meditate before. Meditation will be very very easy and the visions come naturally and much brighter and vivid than in normal meditation. A bit like lucid dreaming but more powerful.

You may also check out this documentary on LSD:

Maybe this subject could be discussed in more detail through Skyping each other.

My thoughts: If someone has visionary experiences, bliss consciousness, etc. while using entheogens (some scholars felt that Siddhartha Gautama tried this as a youth), and it occurs to them that ingestion of external substances is completely unnecessary, then those people need a bridge to the practice. Altered states of consciousness can be very flashy, and the consentual state very boring by comparison, and to say there is no connection may not be entirely true. Most responsible advocates of entheogens strongly caution against using them in any other setting other than the original shamanic cultural practice. It seems so easy to sit around and speculate about all this but the reality is these drugs can lead to insanity and suicide when used incorrectly. And although not classical addictive drugs they are perhaps the worse examples of some of the patterns that addicts form. As far as what key fits the lock, tryptamine or otherwise, anything that you ingest from the outside merely becomes a cascade for a trigger of what is inside. It's not the drugs that get you high, it is what is built into your nervous system & if you master the meditation discipline you can get stable, reliable, permanent results. DUH

I don't think it's serotonin at all - there are plenty of anti-depressants that jack your serotonin, in fact serotonin poisoning is highly possible & It isn't like psychedelics or meditation. The theory that has the greatest credibility is that the pineal gland stores DMT or something much like it. It suppresses the activity of nor-adrenaline in the thalamus region of the brain which is why there is a loss of learned experience as well as the experiential filters on the senses being removed. Many animals have DMT in their tissues. However if given the choice to awaken the pineal with DMT or meditation I would take the meditation everytime. Meditation is the correct fuel for how the human psychic engine is built.

Not much to contribute here, but I want to express my agreement with Tommy's point about the 3 C's being worth examining in any state, including psychedelic ones.

I had a psychedelic experience about a week ago in context of meditation. (I don't take drugs so meditation was the *only* cause.) It was genuinely weird, with more synaesthesia than is typical for me, rapidly-shifting mental impressions (hundreds or thousands or more per second) beyond normal conceptual categories and description, and some kind of identification with the whole mess (as if 'I' were the source of creation, the swirling madness of these impossible thoughts or impressions out of which everything takes form).

Earlier on in my spiritual practices, I might have thought it was a moment of insight or contact with some kind of deeper truth about things, worth repeating, worth relishing. Now, I just hit it with the vipassana hammer like anything else....and, surprise! The deeper truth is that it was the same sh*t as in any other mode of experience, suffering caused by ignorance.

Bhante G in his book on Mindfulness states that LSD-like states occur. Also if you talk to anyone who has awakened kundalini or kundalini emergency they might liken it to LSD (or other such). Synthesesia is a product of the suppression of the thalamus region in the brain, so we get synthesesia, (except for smell), unfitered raw sensory content (yay!!) and marked unlearning - which is a mixed bag. It goes with out saying that many psychedelic states create a temporary loss of conventional modes of knowledge and learning. Meditation doesn't have this drawback. My theory is that meditation is like a regulator and valve system that allows you to open and close the flow of natural entheogens. You get flooded with doses you can handle naturally (or you can dabble in techniques to drill holes in the dam at your own risk)

Remind me again about the 3-C's - I have been away for awhile?

Tommy mentions his brothers case, a cure for heroin addiction. Leary's pilot project was working with alcoholics, to some success. Albert Hoffman regretted the casual social use of acid as it led to a full ban; he felt that it was a useful adjunct to psychotherapy. The best treatise is John C. Lilly's Programming and Metaprogramming of the Human Biocomputer. It's one text Leary used: www.futurehi.net/docs/Metaprogramming.html

The other major text Leary used is the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Strassmans hypothesis links enthogens to near-death experiences, with considerable lab studies. I mean, if we look for a moral argument that it is beneficial in extreme cases, that is one thing. But I will have to side with those who say that as an adjuct to typical meditation practices it's inadvisable.

h a n s e n

really though, for most of us this is covered in the 5 precepts, which we ignore at our own peril

but some of do (historically) come from the path of entheogens/psychedelics to meditation/yoga etc. which is also a reflection of the journey of the Vedic Aryans, being first a cult of Soma, but then through the dispensation of the Buddha, discovering the True Path, the Middle Way. This was a cultural upheaval, not merely the path of one person. Not everyone gets the 3 C's during trips however, this a a proclivity of the tripper, who is fortunate in that regard. Probably their sitting practice would be sufficient for completing the paths