It seems like a lot of Nexians are meditators, so I thought I'd start a thread about the combination of entheogens and meditation. I'd be interested in hearing about your meditation practice and how it relates to your entheogenic practice!

Personally, I would never have been interested in meditation if it weren't for my first experiences with mushrooms and LSD. This was years ago and for a long time I read a bit here and there about Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, meditation, and a lot here and there about psychedelics and psychedelic culture. For a long time I dabbled in zazen and other Mahayana mindfulness practices, but in retrospect it seems very clear to me that I really didn't understand what meditation was about. What I really wanted to do in meditation was re-create the feelings of egoloss and cosmic unity I'd felt under the influence of psychedelics. I thought the drug experience and the meditative experience were essentially the same.

I no longer hold this view. I've been practicing 1 hour, daily vipassana sittings for one year now, and although I have had VERY powerful experiences that are akin to some high-dose LSD sensations, I now understand that meditation is not really about having an "experience." Meditation is about remaining equanimous in the face of any experience, be it mundane foot pain or cosmic rapture. It's about conditioning your mind, about taming your mind and gaining power over your mind so that you can see the reality at hand with clarity. Whereas psychedelics are all about letting go, about no longer having control of your mind and being shoved into the unknown (of course, experienced psychonauts can learn to navigate the chaos somewhat, but there is always an element of surprise with tripping). Even if the end result of psychedelics is a "seeing" of the reality at hand similar to the "seeing" of meditation, the route getting there is fundamentally different and really meditation is all about the route. Meditation is all about the process, the repeated sitting, over and over again even when your mind and body don't really want to. Meditation is more about procedure than the content of the experience, and psychedelics are almost the other way around. Of course, people can use entheogens with extreme respect and discipline, but it doesn't equal the discipline required to get to the same place via meditation. I realize this has all been said before, but bear with me...

I am essentially Buddhist in world view, but I'm not a Buddhist because I take spiritual guidance in my life from sources outside Buddhism--sources that most Buddhists would probably consider contradictory to a Buddhist practice. Most Buddhists, for example, would not make a distinction between alchohol and psychedelics, although obviously we here at the Nexus know better than that . Personally, I KNOW that psychedelics offer meaningful, life-lasting spiritual awakenings for those who approach them appropriately. But I also have found that psychedelics themselves are not spirituality. Spirituality is not in the "HOLY FUCK" moment of cosmic vision... well, it is, but only insofar as EVERY moment is equally precious moment and open and there. Spirituality, for me, is in mindfulness. Psychedelics turned me on to mindfulness, but for me it could only be developed through the sober will to understand my mind through meditation.

Of course, this is just my experience of both psychedelics and meditation. Others will have different perspectives of both subjects. Sorry for the rambly post... Now let's hear from you!

yeah.

I don't have anything really to offer as to my experience with meditation, I am still a newbie when it comes to the activity. But I wanted to comment on Buddhists and psychadelics.

I can't remember the book or the author unfortunately. This guy went and became a monk in order to write a book about them. One thing he found from doing interviews with the monks was that most of them, the ones not born into it, joined after having an experience on LSD or mushrooms or similiar drug. They had said they had the most spiritual experience in there life and became compelled to join the monastery.

I never finished the book, I think I still have it. Have to dig it out.

"Remaining equanimous" and "letting go" seem like two sides of the same coin to me. Both involve detachment from emotions/thoughts/sensations. Letting go doesn't simply apply to negative experiences either. In the DMT experience, the positive end of things - the rapture - could be easily overwhelming for some and if one cannot surrender to the positivity either, one may find themselves in a boat of trouble if they don't let go.

"Letting go" isn't only for the psychedelic experience. When I go about my day and encounter fear, pain, frustration, etc...I employ the same mental techniques and strategies in regards to letting go, and it can be incredibly effective. Now granted that experiences that are so positively overwhelming don't typically come along in everyday reality that often, and thus positive experiences are typically embraced as opposed to equanimously detached, but then again, I think even for those striving to be equanimous, it's probably much easier said than done to avoid embracing positive emotions. If those on the path of equanimity do embrace certain emotions like thanksgiving, happy to be alive, reverence for the Buddha, etc...then there seems to be something fundamentally misleading and imbalanced in regards to equanimity.

Great point, Global. There is definitely a connection between equanimity and "letting go." One of the seeming "drags" of Buddhism is its wariness toward life and the "embrace" of positive experience. In Buddhism, any attachment, even a simple preference for good experiences over bad (say, preferring eating ice cream to not eating it) is thought to lead to suffering in the end. It's not just letting go of bad experiences that eliminates suffering, but also letting go of positive ones. For me, this was a big obstacle, and it is still one of the reasons I do not call myself a Buddhist-- the extreme wariness toward life is difficult to swallow. However, I am learning the truth of it every day in my meditation practice. Cultivating a non-preference for good experiences DOES in fact, in my experience, lead to increased peace and tranquility.

The big question for me, at this point, has become: Do we really WANT to eliminate suffering? Is that the goal of life? Or is it wiser to embrace life for what it is--joy and suffering and all? I suspect the two (renunciation of experience v. embrace of experience) are actually not as exclusive as they seem. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking

Also, @anrchy: Really interesting! If you find the book/author, please let me know

I'm glad you now know better.

I am very tired of people thinking they can somehow duplicate DMT(or whatever) experience through meditation or somekind of other yoga.
There can be some DMT like visuals(for example before sleep or in deep meditation), but the intensity and the "whole happening" is of totally different nature.