*****Update****** I found this. If you translate it, you will find that the Santo Daime have been doing something very similar, perhaps identical, to what I describe, although I think they don’t emphasize breathe mindfulness as much as I do. And I advise a longer period of time than they do, with a sober daily practice as well.
http://www.mestreirineu.org/artigo3.htm

Based on my experience, I have found that some drugs are helpful for breath mindfulness meditation ("anapanasati" in the traditional canonical Buddhist Pali language), and some drugs are not helpful.

If you want to try meditating on these substances, do it by committing to a full 2 to 3 hours of sitting. Set an alarm, and do not give up until that alarm has gone off, no matter how distracted or frustrated you get.

If you do it long enough it will work. It might take more than one session while on the drugs, and you will definitely have to be meditating for long periods of time while sober on a daily basis, not just doing it while on drugs. But if you do it long enough - it will work.

---Vince Horn from Buddhist Geeks once said that meditating on psychedelics taught him that "everything is meditation" and that "meditating on psychedelics leads to a more 'free form' meditation."

My answer to Vince Horn: you lost the ability to practice while on the drugs. That does not mean stop taking the drugs, it means: try harder, and stop pretending you succeeded when you clearly did not (facepalm).---

If you do not know how to meditate, Google search the "Anapanasati Sutta" for instructions. Personally I keep my eyes closed (this is Theravada tradition), most other forms of Buddhism (Mahayana, Vajrayana) keep the eyes opened.

Meditation is difficult, and psychedelics are hard to meditate on - you have to be pretty good at meditating to master sustained focus during psychedelic experiences. However, doing so will deepen both your meditation and the psychedelic experience. Here is my list.

Helpful:
---Ayahuasca
---Psilocybin Mushrooms
---Caffeine (helps to be alert). Update: Some prefer tea, some prefer coffee. I have spoken with both Zen and Theravada monks who preferred either. I'm a coffee drinker myself.


Probably helpful? Never tried:
---insufflated 5-MeO-DMT
—sublingual 5-HO-DMT

Maybe helpful? Never tried:
---ibogaine
---mescaline


NOT helpful:
---vaporized DMT (getting shot out of a cannon does not help anapanasati)

---vaporized 5-MeO-DMT (getting shot out of a cannon does not help anapanasati)

—vaporized 5-HO-DMT (getting shot out of a cannon does not help anapanasati)

---LSD (too stimulating and scattered - hard to settle down and focus. AWESOME for yoga if you can keep your shit together during a yoga class or if you know your yoga routine well enough to do it on your own though!)

---MDMA (might work for some people, but for me it was too stimulating and just plagued my meditation with a sense of "this is physically bad for me" ).

---Cannabis (might work for some people, but for me it is simply distracting and cloudy in comparison to serotonergic psychedelics).




Dose yourself to whatever extent you're comfortable with. The doses I take on any psychedelic are usually equivalent to 7-10 grams of dried psilocybe cubensis. You may wish to take smaller doses.



************Edit*************
Thought I'd add something:
Helpful for yoga, martial arts, or walking meditation practices:
Potentially all of these substances, except for vaporized DMT/5-MeO-DMT/5-HO-DMT (since you're not in your body anymore, lol). Because these practices involve you being in physical motion, they are helpful if maintaining concentration on something like your breathing is difficult. The physical motion can work as an anchor for your attention - so even a very physically stimulating psychedelic like LSD becomes easier to work with. LSD encourages physical motion, so, if someone wanted to try a meditative practice with it, I would encourage them to try one of these physically active ones.

Oh thy Cha, where art thou ?

Knowing the history of tea and the effects it is sought for, it is surprising not to see it here. Dare I say top of the list, but I haven't done lots of psychoactive meditation so I'll leave it at that - though there has been some nice couple times when the changa would were off and remembrance of shrooms's tales - it wasn't all to serious either.

If one is to find some good brew, and they are plenty with delightfully subtle nuances of the mood it puts you in, the concentration it allows, the void it invits, the sensation it brings forth.

It also has that enchanting quality of making you feel the livefulnes of plants more vividly in your daily routine. Their characters pops out more. Drinking the juice of their soaked leaf might bring some runic memories, if you can jigsaw out of it into the open land of the dragon and its mists.

A poem tells its tail: (Lu Tong's Seven Bowls of Tea 七碗诗 卢仝 - 唐. 790~835)

The first bowl moistens my lips and throat;
一碗喉吻潤，
The second bowl breaks my loneliness;
二碗破孤悶，
The third bowl searches my barren entrails but to find
三碗搜枯腸，
Therein some five thousand scrolls;
惟有文字五千卷，
The fourth bowl raises a slight perspiration
四碗發輕汗，
And all life's inequities pass out through my pores;
平生不平事盡向毛孔散，
The fifth bowl purifies my flesh and bones;
五碗肌骨清，
The sixth bowl calls me to the immortals.
六碗通仙靈，
The seventh bowl could not be drunk,
七碗吃不得也，
only the breath of the cool wind raises in my sleeves.
唯覺兩腋習習清風生。
Where is Penglai Island, Yuchuanzi wishes to ride on this sweet breeze and go back.
蓬萊山﹐在何處，玉川子乘此清風欲歸去。

If you dig a tunnel with your bare hands, you will succeed too...

But do yourself a favour and by the best drill available:

Yates, John: The Mind Illuminated

Interesting stuff.

I think that it is a good idea to ask oneself why one is meditating (taking psychedelics). What are t he goals? What do we want to achieve? Being more mindful? Why? In order to be more healthy? More productive? More resilient to stress? Do you want to achieve insight, or wisdom? Do you want to help other people and the world by what you have learned?

Depending on these question, one might want to choose different paths of meditation. I agree - TMI is not only great, but a significant achievement! But for some, another type of practice may be better.

I do agree that the basis should be a continued meditation practice, as regularly and sustained as possible. After a while, it becomes second nature, and mindfulness / awareness seeps into daily life more and more. One tries to be mindful during doing the dishes, then, when the practice is quite strong, at work, at some point even during an argument. And then, logically, also during a psychedelic experience.

Totally agree with AikyO - tea is an ancient companion of meditation, because it has also calming properties, and not only stimulating effects like coffee. I would not say it's mind-altering per se, even though tea can be very powerful if some circumstances are met.

As for the psychedelics - I have no experience with DMT, but I would not differentiate between Psilocybin, Mescaline and LSD. In low doses, they all can complement actual meditation greatly, if one has established a practice. In higher doses, serious meditation will become difficult, it might be better to go with the flow.

While they certainly all have their own vibe, I found it difficult to say that one is good for situation type A and the other is good for situation type B. Imho, the differences in personality and individual trip are much more important. So, if you say, I want to take a moderate dose of psychedelics, I doubt that it will make too big a difference whether you take a moderate dose of LSD or a moderate dose of psilocybin. Even though, of course, they are not the same.

One will bring the training that the mind has learned in meditation into the substance effect, and a meditation practice will be very helpful for integrating what has happened in a psychedelic journey.

Safe journeys!

You're neglecting to mention harmalas-- they afford a deep, hypnotic serenity that is conducive to deep thinking.

The few times I tried harmala alone, it was actually distracting. Meditation as I practice is supposed to be alert, not hypnotic. People have different practices though, I source mine from descriptions in the Buddhist Pali canon, which explicitly promotes states of high energy. Lethargy (which is what I find harmala alone induces) is described as an obstacle in Pali sources.

1) Thank-you for the reading suggestion. In return, I suggest reading the Pali suttas which (with the exception of the Khuddaka Nikaya) are available in complete translation by Wisdom Publications.

2) You seem to be suggesting this is a pointless exercise, or a needlessly difficult one I could accomplish more easily using a different method. Here is why you are wrong. First, I already meditate while sober for 3 hours every day - so I am not missing anything or suggesting anything be replaced. Second, it is more difficult to meditate on psychedelics because it can be overwhelming, but if you manage to strengthen your concentration enough, you begin to meditate with a far higher degree of mental sensitivity. That sensitivity is what makes it initially difficult, and what makes it eventually yield deeper states of awareness.

I want to be clear: this is completely outside Buddhist tradition. I just suggest using the techniques they record, because they have been helpful to me in this endeavor.

List updated.

Definitely agree here. This is why for MDMA I said people might have different experiences. Meditation on love (or using Buddhist terminology: compassion, good will, or happiness for others) probably has potential here. In my experience I was just too anxious and stimulated for it to be effective.

The answer I give for my personal motivation is: I do not know. The biggest thing I can point to would be the resolution of existential suffering via the realization of selflessness and the subsequent end of craving - but I don't really know what that means. If Zen doctrine is correct, then enlightenment is beyond concepts, and by definition cannot be known, even by those who embody it.



Definitely disagree here. There are 2 points.

1) It is difficult to meditate on high doses - it is not impossible, nor is it better to "go with the flow". That just means you lost your concentration. We talk about how psychedelics are "tools" all the time, without taking stock of what this means. A shaman doesn't "go with the flow", they use carefully crafted techniques, often while being dosed so heavily that regular people could not function at all. It takes hard work to do this, but it is possible, and more desirable than relinquishing your concentration. Trust me. You just go deeper, and deeper, and deeper. Higher doses are better, if you can keep your concentration.

2) I disagree about the psychedelics not being differentiated. LSD is much, much harder to do sitting meditation on than psilocybin. I would love to do it, because I actually prefer LSD over psilocybin - but there is no denying that it is simply more difficult to do one pointed concentration while sitting still on acid. The energy is too high. But that energy loves a workout on yoga, I did a two hour session at a hot yoga studio, it was amazing. When I left the studio, it was qualitatively the clearest acid trip I'd ever taken, like the world was a Pixar animation. Highly recommend.

It is definitely possible to meditate on acid (though it is beyond my current ability), but for most people probably not easier, unless you really have a hard time with psilocybin/ayahuasca vs. LSD (not just prefer one, but have true difficulty with them - i.e. major puking/diarrhea/bad trips). I prefer acid to psilocybin, but psilocybin is definitely easier to sit still on.

P.S. ayahuasca is by far my favorite for this practice, next to caffeine.

Thanks for starting this thread, OneIsEros.

Meditation and psychedelics are great friends and personally offer the best scenario for serious work. I have been meditating for a few years, but have been rigorously practicing Vipassana twice a day for almost a year. Since meditating daily I have done mushrooms, LSD, and smoked Changa a few times each. I find they push the practice into new directions - I gain new perspectives on meditating and what it has to offer. And yes, life is consistently one long meditation . It's about remembering to use this tool in all scenarios (not easy). I love the analogy of life being like a piano and with meditation it allows us to play it in tune.

Peaking on LSD was definitely the hardest to remain "an observer" so to speak, but it did lend itself to the experience in such a positive way. To try run from thoughts can easily end up in a losing battle and cause frustration. Surrendering and sitting with whatever sensations it brings up is key. And for me, surrendering is just another way of viewing equanimity.

This can be hard to remember, but here is no such thing as good or bad meditation. To try aim to get somewhere with it is almost missing the point IMHO, and can be seen as an act of craving. Craving an experience you've had previously, or one you feel you want is tugging on the strings of time. Be present with whatever is. Accept change... everything changes.

Hmm. Yeah, we certainly have different perspectives here. I'd say that concentration is a tool, a precious one, but it is neither the end goal of meditation or of psychedelics.

It certainly is very valuable if one is able to keep their concentration even during high doses, but I'd claim that it also can be the right choice to remove one's own agenda from a trip and go in completely open, just entrusting oneself to the plant spirit and letting the magic do it's work - without any own pre-set ambition or goal, without trying to hold concentration or have a specific outcome. I'm not saying that what you describe can't be a great thing to have. But to claim that it is always better to keep one's concentration seems problematic to me. The spectrum of experiences is just so wide.

One could say the same about meditation - Samatha (concentration) is important, but at a certain point, one needs to let go of it all, and openly observe the mind in order for insight to appear. Even in traditional Vipassana meditation, there is a place for open awareness without the fixed object of concentration. One needs to have trained one's mind with a fixed object, but then, there can be other, more intuitive ways, at least for some of us.
Obviously, Buddhist traditions based on the prajna paramita sutras, Zen being the most prominent of those, will tend to refuse any kind of pre-defined structure anyways. But Vipassana has it's place, and The Mind Illuminated follows thie structure outlined by Pali sources quite closely.





Well, same here. I can only say that my personal experience is different. I found psilocybin actually to be more erratic and impulsive than LSD. But if the dose is moderate, it won't affect my ability to meditate all too strongly.
But, you know, these substances affect people in such an individual degree that I'm reluctant to generalize so widely. But if it works this way for you, fine!

Please, I hope that you understand me correctly: I'm not saying that you're wrong. But it is my impression that what you say is very generalized, perhaps a bit too much so. The spectrum of experiences is so vast, I found it difficult to make statements that general.



P.S.: Do you guys know the book Zig Zag Zen? It's a really great source on the subject.

Perhaps. Your perspective sounds like it is informed by Zen. I like Zen, when it is highly disciplined. I intensely dislike Zen when it is not. Disciplined Zen is unparalleled in discipline. Undisciplined Zen is more like Dudeism.

I'll confess I am probably being excessively narrow minded. My only intention is to convey that this takes discipline. If anybody is going to try this, that is the one piece of advice I would offer more than any other: be disciplined. It should feel like you are carving your mind with a knife a lot of the time. Not all of the time, but if it does not feel like that some of the time (and in the beginning, a lot of the time, maybe most of the time), I do not think you are doing this properly. Bold statement, but I'll stand by it.

Re: psilocybin vs. LSD: you may be right. There is no denying that LSD stimulates physical energy in a way that psilocybin does not, but - yeah. YMMV.

Thank you for your kind response.



Yes, that's true. Even though, for quite a while, I've been practising Vipassana meditation as well. But Zen is certainly my foundation, and I recognize that both approaches have their own advantages and drawbacks.
And yes, the direct, paradoxical approach of Zen can be used by imposters to hide their ignorance. Discipline is at the heart of it, agreed.




That's certainly a good idea. The thing is that some people mistake discipline for rigidness. I know that this is not what you mean, it's just a problem that I observe in regular intervals.




Very interesting statement. Thank you for sharing this. It's not a metaphor I'd ever would have come up with, which doesn't surprise me, since we come from somewhat different directions. But there are many perspectives, and many ways of describing these experiences. I believe we both know how slippery words are here, so I absolutely don't intend to disagree.
For me, it's most of the time been a going in, entrusting myself to the plant spirit (or, if you prefer a more rational description, the subconscious dynamic) to take me where I probably should be going. But that's just me!

My best regards!

It probably depends on how experienced you are with meditation as well. The brains of experienced meditators produce more high frequency gamma-waves than the average human brain.

LSD also causes the brain to produce more of these gamma waves. It could help experienced meditators to more easily reach the gamma state of higher awareness, while being more of a barrier for the less experienced meditators.

My approach is generally similar, in the sense that I do not try to grab onto any of the experience. Ideally (and this is part of the discipline for me), I shouldn't be doing anything, except one thing, which is paying singular attention to breathing. Occasionally something might happen spontaneously (a pained muscle or bone might snap/pop into place, for example), but it happens and it gets let go. As focus on breathing becomes deeper and deeper (this is anapanasati I am describing, not Zen, which is more slippery - Zen uses anapanasati but only provisionally) - the visions become more and more luminous and significant.

There is a lot that goes on, and I have nothing to do with it. It all happens of its own accord. My task is to remain with a singular focus on the breath, and let the rest sort itself out. Given how spectacular the visions can become, the old McKenna phrase "don't give in to astonishment" becomes relevant - don't grab it, don't do anything with it. In this context, that would be killing the goose that lays the eggs in an attempt at getting more eggs.

I have rarely encountered reports of people doing their meditation practice and maintaining focus successfully throughout the entire duration of a psychedelic experience, and I'm just trying to get the message out that it is 1) possible (even at very high doses), 2) worthwhile, and 3) very difficult - which is why I think it is not reported very commonly, in spite of how interested in meditation the psychedelic community is. My message is just that this can be done, with discipline.

The Santo Daime actually have something kind of similar, one of their practices is to sit in silent "concentrations", which they say needs "firmness" (along with all their other practices) because of how long they need to do it. I'm trying to stress that anapanasati techniques will transform the experience, if there is sufficient "firmness" behind your practice.

I don't think this is markedly different from many other practices that are labelled "shamanic", though it is questionable whether this is "shamanic". Sustained, focused, simple repetition over a very long period of time seems to be the key to unlocking psychedelic depths, with or without drugs. Drumming, singing, dancing, breathing, yoga - it all seems to revolve around sustained, focused, simple repetition over long periods of time. The more disciplined, the more effective. I personally like anapanasati because it is very simple and accessible.

Dragonrider: Interesting subject about the gamma waves. I'll look into this!


OneIsEros: Thanks again for your thoughtful reply. I hope that it has been as rewarding for you as it has for me.
While I have almost no knowledge about what shamanic approaches are, I totally agree with everything else you said. And yes, I'd also say that most Zen practice doesn't reinforce a focus on the breath as Theravada-based breath meditation does - not beyond the further stages. Of course, there are many schools and approaches.

What you describe sounds like a fascinating approach, I actually will try and to this on a moderate dose next time! Will be a while until then, but I'll report back!

Meanwhile, I'd be happy to see reports about this kind of approach if you have any. Do you know "Zig Zag Zen"? I'll look into it later, there should be something about this combination in it, I'd assume, since it's about Buddhism and Psychedelics

I've looked at Zig Zag Zen, and another book called Altered States: Buddhism and Psychedelic Spirituality. It's been a long time, but if I remember correctly there actually was not much in either book about this practice, except I think one section in the Altered States book about a person who used peyote in meditation, which sounded kind of similar to what I've done, which surprised me. There really doesn't seem to be much out there, whether in Altered States, Zig Zag Zen, or from Vince Horn, who does an entire podcast entitled "Meditating on Psychedelics", which from what I've listened to seems to be a huge misnomer. Even Stan Grof's "holotropic breathwork" isn't really "anapanasati", it's a practice of controlled hyperventilation, which Grof actually recommends one not do on psychedelics, only while sober to replicate psychedelic states.

If there are any resources detailing this kind of work I'd love to hear about it! I've definitely searched for it, but I've basically had to discover everything alone. That little bit about "firmness" in the silent "concentrations" that the Santo Daime talk about is the most information I've gotten, and I don't think what they're doing is quite the same.

As for a report, I'll give a bit of one, more of an overview than a report.

When I started doing this practice, I was lucky that I stuck with it. It took a couple hours before something "changed". It happened because when I was thinking "why don't I just give up and enjoy the trip by listening to music, perhaps with a blindfold...", blah blah blah, I instead thought, "or, you can sit here and keep trying until the ayahuasca wears off". I stared directly at that impulse to give up trying, that sense of "boredom" which is really just the intensity of aversion disguising itself as something more innocuous than it is. The discomfort from experiencing that impulse grew, it burned, it felt like I was burning my mind or carving it like wood. I smiled at it, at the intensity it had grown to in being mindfully resisted, knowing this meant I had stumbled on an insight, that it was revealing itself for what it was, and as I looked at it, this fierce impulse to avoid and be apathetic, I waited for it to die... and it withered away. And then everything changed.

This has been my experience almost every time I do this, but now I know what to look for. When I do this, maintaining concentration on the breath becomes much easier and very pleasurable, and I start to have visions. It is different every time. Jewelled palaces, cathedrals with stained glass windows made out of light. Sometimes I spontaneously burst into speaking in tongues when the visionary light reaches a peak. Other times I plumb the depths of my psyche and purify the darkness by simply breathing, aware. Sometimes I see "rips" inside the geometric light patterns in my mind. I once entered a tiny little rip, and I shrunk and entered it, or it grew and engulfed me, and what was small before was my entire environment, and I worked inside it and repaired the damage, merely by continuing my awareness of it, not by actively grabbing at it. Sustained awareness is enough, it all does everything else by itself.

On one particularly memorable occasion, it was the night before the Spring equinox, the last night of winter (though I did not know this until the next day). I began passing through "darkness", it had the kind of vibe that a leafless branch blowing in an October night wind has. Spooky. But it was not at all scary. I trusted my practice completely, and only found it intriguing. I remained with my practice of following the breath, and suddenly there was only darkness... and slowly, "fading in" to the black abyss, a door appeared, with a raven or a crow sitting on it... and then it vanished, and the trip was abruptly over. "Cool", I thought, and stood up to exit my bedroom. My room mate was coming up the stairs. He was a rationalist neuroscience major and a linebacker football player who never did psychs. He asked me how my trip had went, I started describing the part about the door and the raven... and he interrupted and said he had to sit down, that he was about to black out. He of course ascribed it to coincidence because anything that smacks of the supernatural is odious to his sensibilities, but in my opinion he basically got blasted with the energy of what that was, without any preparation. I don't know what the vision meant. Maybe something to do with confronting death.

Every time I do this, afterward I feel like the opposite of how the aftermath of an MDMA experience feels. Like if MDMA is sabotaging my neurochemistry, this practice is nourishing and strengthening my nervous system. Meditation in general does this, but doing it on ayahuasca in particular feels ah-may-zing. As in, amazingly healthy. I feel stronger, more confident, more mature, happier, with wiser emotional depth, with the power of... love, I guess. I've struggled with depression before, and I believe this has not only cured but in many ways immunized me to it. And it greatly inspired me to meditate more and more while sober, because my sober meditation is definitely deeper and more focused as well.

If you take up this practice, I hope this has helped, and I would love to hear how your experience with it plays out.

I found this. If you translate it, you will find that the Santo Daime have been doing something very similar, perhaps identical, to what I describe, although I think they don’t emphasize breathe mindfulness as much as I do. And I advise a longer period of time than they do, with a sober daily practice as well.
http://www.mestreirineu.org/artigo3.htm

Cannabis needs to be bumped up to the main list and off the "maybe" section. Mix your favorite Sativa, Indica, and Hybrid together in equal proportions. Then smoke A LOT in an intentional ceremonial setting. You'll get there.

Yes, cannabis works for some. When I was very young (14 years old), I did use cannabis in breath work, and I was able to attain a state of whole-body-orgasm for about 5 or 10 minutes at a time. That was cool. Somewhere along the way I lost that ability though.

In my adult experience (and I have tried it - I worked at one of the top dispensaries in Canada ) --- cannabis was not helpful. I tried it at yoga, I tried it in meditation, I tried it at martial arts - it was a hindrance each time. Acid at yoga/martial arts? Hell yeah. Ayahuasca/shrooms in meditation/yoga/martial arts practice? Hell yeah. Cannabis just isn't for me in these contexts.

That said, I have spoken to Jiu Jitsu practicioners who worked with me at the dispensary who used our edibles in the dojo, and apparently their skills were greatly heightened. For me personally, only classic serotonergic psychedelics accomplish meditative/yogic/martial enhancement. Cannabis is merely an intoxicant for me, though it is my favorite incense when I am on psychedelics. My first "mystical" psychedelic experience was triggered when someone next to me sparked a joint while I was on 600 ug of orange sunshine! But, actually consuming it tends to throw me off course, lol.