Tonight at 5pm Pacific, 8pm Eastern I’m a guest at a webinar on the topic of psychedelics and Buddhism hosted by Allan Badiner, author of the book Zig Zag Zen. I contributed to the new edition of the book, although I have not received my copy yet.
Those of you who have read Hardcore Zen may recall that I did not speak very highly of Zig Zag Zen in that book. Actually, I remember thinking the book itself was kind of cool in terms of its graphics and what-not. But far too many of the essays contained within it were written by people who imagined that a Buddhist “enlightenment experience” and an acid trip were pretty much the same thing.
I’ve taken LSD four times. All four of those times I took it in the spirit of consciousness exploration that the many of the people who wrote essays in Zig Zag Zen talk about. I did not do acid for recreation or to escape boredom. I was serious, man!
Here’s my take on it.
We are living in reality. Yet our bodies and minds can’t perceive or conceive of the fullness of that reality. So our brains take already degraded sensory input and organize it into a conceptual framework that serves most of us well enough to get by. We learn to align our conceptual picture of reality with that of those around us by listening to their descriptions of their lives and comparing them to our own. Through a process of sharing with each other what we imagine is going on, we refine and reinforce that conceptual picture. We define adulthood as the age at which the majority of people get some kind of reality picture together that fits the consensus well enough that they can cope with other people without a whole lot of assistance.
This consensus way of looking at reality is not the only possible way to look at it. If you go to other countries, you’ll find they have a different consensus that works for them. But you also find that there is a larger consensus view held by most human beings no matter where they come from. Most of us stop there and figure that consensus view is reality.
But it’s not. If you ingest certain substances, these substances can change the chemical balance in your brain and you end up seeing things differently. Reality remains as real as ever, you’re just processing it differently. By processing it differently you may end up noticing aspects of reality that you normally do not. The change from one way of looking at things to the other when brought about by a chemical substance is very abrupt and shocking, which can lead you to believe that you have had a very amazing revelation.
Meditation does not work this way.
Nobody really knows yet precisely what happens in the brains of long-time meditators. I’ve seen some theories that say chemical changes take place and that some of these are like the changes that occur when you do drugs. I’ve never done a chemical analysis on my own brain but I can tell you what it felt like.
Around ten to fifteen years into my life as a daily meditator, I began to notice that the world was starting to look different. I’m not using the word “look” in the conceptual sense, as in the sentence, “Things look different when you know all the facts.” I mean that things really looked different, as in, “Things look different when you wipe off the cream pie that Moe just smashed in your face.”
Colors were brighter. My visual perception was sharper. The same was true of other senses as well. I heard more clearly, smelled more smelly-ly, tasted more tastefully and I could feel stuff I never felt before. I mean “feel” in both the sense of emotional-type feeling and the physical sense of touch. It was kind of like I’d been living my whole life with a burlap bag over my entire body and somehow that bag had been removed.
The only other time in my life when something like that had happened before was when I was on LSD.
Yet in every other possible way it was entirely different from being high on acid. I didn’t see trails everywhere. I could still drive a car or go to a business meeting and not giggle the whole time. What’s even better, I was not scared out of my fucking mind the way I was the last time I had tripped. It also did not go away 6-8 hours after it started.
My understanding of time was also, in some ways, like it had been when I was on LSD. Now seemed infinite. The past and future were clearly unreal. But, unlike when I was on acid, I could still make sense out of what people said about the past and future. I could, for example, figure out when I needed to be at the dentist. If you’d asked me to do something like that while high on LSD, I could not have made any sense at all of the question.
I don’t regret my acid experimentation. I think the LSD explosion of the 60s and 70s had more positive than negative effects overall – Revolver is a great record! I am glad things have loosened up such that researchers can once again legally work with these substances. I hear that LSD is very effective on cluster headaches, and as a sometime sufferer of those myself (though not in a while, thank God), I welcome anything that can help.
But psychedelic explorers who make great claims for what they’ve learned about reality while stoned do not impress me at all. They get way too excited, for one thing. Which is an effect of how drugs work. They shoot you off into the stratosphere without a parachute and that’s pretty exciting. But it’s too fast and it’s over too quickly for anyone to get much of a sense of what’s going on. And if you have to depend on a drug to make this stuff happen, well that’s just lame and lazy. Sorry. But it really is, kids.
I’m unimpressed by druggies for many of the same reasons I’m unimpressed by those who seek out so-called “enlightenment experiences” and then make great claims for them. It’s too exciting and unusual.
I like exciting and unusual things as much as most people. But in the end, that’s not where my main interest lies. I find the supposedly mundane and ordinary world too endlessly fascinating.
Why the hell are we here at all? What is this? The very fact that I’m sitting here at an apartment in the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles typing this on a laptop… that’s a-may-zing. Brushing my teeth on a random Thursday morning is an incredible, improbable, weird, wild event.
Nothing is ever boring at all if you start paying attention.
UPCOMING EVENTS
August 14-16, 2015 Munich, Germany 3 DAY ZEN RETREAT
August 19, 2015 Munich, Germany LECTURE
August 24-29, 2015 Felsentor, Switzerland 5-DAY RETREAT AT STIFTUNG FELSENTOR
August 30-September 4, 2015 Holzkirchen, Germany 5-DAY RETREAT AT BENEDIKTUSHOF MONASTERY
September 4, 2015 Hamburg, Germany LECTURE
September 6, 2015 Hamburg, Germany ZEN DAY
September 10-13, 2015 Finland 4-DAY RETREAT
September 16-19, 20015 Hebden Bridge, England 4-DAY RETREAT
September 20, 2015 London, England THE ART OF SITTING DOWN & SHUTTING UP
September 21-25, 2015 Belfast, Northern Ireland SPECIFIC DATES TO BE DETERMINED
September 26-27, 2015 Glastonbury, England 2-DAY RETREAT
October 26-27 Cincinnati, Ohio Concert:Nova
November 6-8, 2015 Mt. Baldy, CA 3-DAY RETREAT
April 23, 2016 Long Island, New York Molloy College “Spring Awakening 2016”
ONGOING EVENTS
Every Monday at 8pm there’s zazen at Silverlake Yoga Studio 2 located at 2810 Glendale Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90039. All are welcome!
Every Saturday at 9:30 there’s zazen at the Veteran’s Memorial Complex located at 4117 Overland Blvd., Culver City, CA 90230. All are welcome!
Plenty more info is available on the Dogen Sangha Los Angeles website, dsla.info
* * *
If you send a donation it will not be spent on drugs. I appreciate your on-going support!
i often forget, but sometimes I remember, that _this_ is the point. Whatever we are doing. The boring and banal. I still spend way too much of my life trying to escape it. But sometimes I remember. I don’t do LSD, but I do a lot of other things that promise the same sort of thing, as far as heightened senses and emotions. Anyway.
The problem with the “druggies” is they fail to realize that the boring, mundane, banal shit IS THE REALLY GOOD SHIT, PRECISELY.
Sit down. Eat your soup and wash your bowl. Then empty your bowels. Then you go to sleep. On a really good day, you make love to the woman you love.
If you don’t get truly excited by such things without external interventions (such as the use of hallucinogens), then I have difficulty taking your drug-induced revelations seriously.
Not that my opinions on the matter are consequential. I’m not looking down on people. But if one doesn’t realize the illusion that the “daily” grind isn’t the most spiritual act of all doesn’t really get “it” as far as I’m concerned.
Every experience is an enlightenment experience.
You don’t need to be far out: waving’s better than drowning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo-KEjS0BK0
Hi Brad
Why did you remove the Alan Watts link? Just listening to it now…seems pretty relevant…
I dunno. I just thought it didn’t really fit. Maybe I can find it again and put it back. Thanks for noticing.
you might like this short bit from Watts on LSD use, chimed with what you were saying
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l90LMpSJM4
But first… are you experienced? Have you ever been experienced? Not necessarily manouche, but beautiful…
I’ve read your accounts of your experiences on LSD here and in Hardcore Zen, and I’ve done acid a couple times myself. The thing is that when I did acid, I got all the crazy shit and none of the good things happened. But the first time I did ecstasy and a few times after that, something really, really weird happened.
The first time I took ecstasy I was at a rave on the Queen Mary in Long Beach. My friend Sam bought me a pill and it was my first time ever doing anything harder than pot or alcohol or salvia. So I popped this pill and barely felt much for about an hour. Then we walked outside and it was raining and I remember how amazing it felt to be outside in the very late night mist. We drove back home and the whole time I was sitting in the backseat I just felt happy to be there in the backseat of my friend’s crappy car that he delivered pizzas with.
I got home that night and laid down in bed and it felt great to lay there in bed. I fall asleep pretty quick and when I woke up, the world had changed completely. I felt like I had been living my whole life drowning under two inches of water, and someone had grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me out and I could finally breathe. For the first time, this was real, I was in reality, my bedroom was reality, the bathroom was reality, breakfast was reality, this is the real world, this is it.
For like two months after that I was fully in the moment, totally here and everything felt great. My memory started to improve, I was more motivated than I ever had been in my life, I saw everything from this totally different perspective. I didn’t take ecstasy again for a while, and I didn’t know exactly what the hell had happened, but it seemed like the tumblers in my brain had finally clicked into place and I was seeing the world as it actually is, instead of seeing it through all the messed up distortion that was in my head.
That faded after two months, and I ended up taking ecstasy a number of times again after that. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, and it never worked as well as it did the first time. But when it did, it felt like I had my feet firmly planted in the real world. I didn’t see any patterns or colors or anything like that, just the world without all that distortion that I didn’t even realize was there until that first pill.
A year or so after that first pill I bought The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Buddhism, then some books on posture and meditation and then I found Hardcore Zen and I started sitting. I haven’t done psychedelics in a while, and I don’t really plan on it anymore since I’ve got a daily sitting schedule down.
I haven’t had anything happen in zazen like that first pill, but I’m confident that if I keep sitting every single day, gradually things will lighten up. But to this day I’m really glad for that first roll. It changed my whole outlook on life and made me a better person. I mean, I’m still a total jerk most of the time, but I learned how to maybe not be so much of one all the time.
And if it hadn’t been for that night on the Queen Mary, I probably never would have picked up those books about Buddhism, and my life right now would be way different.
Dropping acid is heavy neurochemical distortion of the ego, but it isn’t the same as not being ( in ) the ego, kensho or dropping the body-mind.
Ecstasy effects the dopamine and norepinephrine systems as well as serotonin, but I don’t know how it would lead to a profound alteration in consciousness and the experience of reality without distortion which it did for intokyo.
I don’t think that you are dropping the body mind, but “it” is dropping the you.
I know someone with borderline personality disorder, abuse and anxiety issues, etc, and her ecstacy experiences were life-changing like yours. For her it was like being able to perceive basic reality for the first time, and enjoy being alive. She also felt loved and cared for by her close friends in a way she hadn’t before.
My friend still benefits today from the experience. Even though she doesn’t feel the same way, for her it’s like understanding that her mind is getting in between her and this reality in a way she didn’t get before.
intokyo – hate to rain on your parade…
“That faded after two months, and I ended up taking ecstasy a number of times again after that. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, and it never worked as well as it did the first time.”
Okay, there’s a term for this. It’s called chasing the dragon. Well, yeah, technically that’s for opium but the principal is the same. It sounds like you’re pursuing meditation in order to recapture that “feeling” you got the first time you did ex, but which the drug can no longer supply. That’s the way drugs work. And by “feeling” I mean the feeling of being high.
Because that’s what that is. You use a controlled substance, it “alters reality” in a way you find pleasant… that’s not a spiritual experience. That’s intoxication.
What I’m wondering is – when meditation fails to supply that feeling in a timely or reliable fashion, then what? Is it back to the chemicals? I assure you that the fallout from that will be anything but amazing.
(side note – I’m a little surprised to hear Brad is contributing to the revised edition of a book he absolutely castigated in Hardcore Zen. Not that his position has changed fundamentally, judging from this post… but he’s certainly expressing that position more diplomatically. Not sure how I feel about all that.)
shade —
I’m familiar with the term “chasing the dragon” and yeah, I’ve thought about it a lot in that way, that that’s what I might be doing. You don’t get into drug culture and not hear that term.
I’m also done with psychedelics, and I’ve heard about the dangers of getting into meditation in order to get something out of it. Anyway, your reply has given me something to think about — if nothing happens, what then?
The drug can change the way that the you engages with reality which is a good thing.
The just sitting can change the way reality engages with a you. Or a nothing happening and a then what.
I really don’t understand the second part here, could you clarify further?
Just ignore Fred. It’s not worth it.
38,41,44,47,50,53,56,59.
And I should probably clarify a little bit – what happened is that I woke up the next day with the ability to kind of stop paying attention to all the noise in my head and finally pay attention to the real world – all the stuff I had been ignoring while constantly chasing the thoughts in my head around. I stopped seeing just my projections on reality and saw what was there before I had the chance to project an image onto it.
I might be “chasing the dragon”, but I’m very happy that that trip led to buying books on Buddhism led to sitting with a group led to whatever happens next. That’s not to say some really negative shit didn’t happen because of my drug use – it did. And that’s why I don’t plan on doing anymore.
Just one more – I’ve had that experience a couple of times without using ecstasy. They were really brief, but it’s the same thing – all those thoughts kind of just die away and you’re left with what was already here in the first place. They usually happen when I’m around friends, or in love, or someone makes a real huge impact just by being themselves. That’s what happened the first time I met Leslie James.
I’ve heard of “peak experiences”, and I’m also aware that that’s not what Zen is about – from what I understand so far, the moments when you’re not in the moment, when you’re struggling and when things are shit, are equally as important as the clear moments, and the shitty moments might even be more valuable. “Real Zen is hard work”, which is something Brad said.
There’s a line in a Bright Eyes song that goes, “but I’d rather be workin’ for a paycheck than waiting to win the lottery”, and that seems to fit Soto Zen, or what I understand of it so far.
“A mystic is therefore someone who, already concerned with religious questions, has a strong peak-experience. This experience can be described as a ‘primitive experience in which there is a radical transformation of the experiential self sense and radical axiological and existential grounding’. It may very well have all the characteristics traditionally associated with mystical experiences: ineffability, noetic quality, transiency, and passivity. Based on his or her religious preconceptions, the mystic then interprets this as an experience of a force or an agent conceived as absolute rather than as the result of some ordinary cause such as food, drink, sleep, a joyful occasion, or the like.
The experience turns into a conversion only when it triggers a mystical quest. The mystic wishes the state glimpsed so briefly to become accessible at will and eventually be the permanent reality of his or her mind. With the help of a variety of practices — such as fasting, austerities, meditations, and trances — old feelings and emotions, ideas and conceptions are cleared away, and the new state is attained. First only induced once in a rare while, it ultimately becomes permanent. The personality of the individual, disrupted by the experience of something interpreted as higher and greater, is reintegrated on a higher and greater level.
In the end, the individual loses all sense of personal consciousness; he or she feels at one with the absolute agent or force, believed to be first glimpsed in the intense peak-experience. The old self is gone; a cosmic self is found. The mystic who has maintained seclusion from other human beings for the time of transformation returns to society, a cosmic and universal spirit in human guise.”
— Livia Kohn, Early Chinese Mysticism: Philosophy and Soteriology in the Taoist Tradition
“The mystic wishes the state glimpsed so briefly to become accessible at will and eventually be the permanent reality of his or her mind.”
The mystic does not necessarily wish for anything, nor does he/she seek a state or a permanent reality of his/her mind. An ego might desire that. To be a ” mystic ” is to already be beyond that.
“With the help of a variety of practices — such as fasting, austerities, meditations, and trances — old feelings and emotions, ideas and conceptions are cleared away, and the new state is attained.”
In the description of the Buddha’s life, he said that fasting and austerities were the wrong practice. As for trances that the self-ego finds itself in, how is it helpful? A trance is two steps away from the direct experience of reality.
Is Livia Kohn a scholar living in words or ideas, or has she lived as a mystic?
Also, be careful not to confuse a “peak experience” with a “state of excitement”. It might be more useful to think of it as an “optimum” or “optimized” experience of whatever your current state is, including states of boredom, sadness, etc.
A peak experience was the new psychology that Maslow coined in the 60’s and 70’s.
Fred
“The just sitting can change the way reality engages with a you. Or a nothing happening and a then what.”
Intokyo
“I really don’t understand the second part here, could you clarify further?”
Kobun
“You go to the other side of nothing, and you are held by the hand of the absolute.”
Dogen
“When we find this way, this action is inevitably the realized Universe”
“Just one more — I’ve had that experience a couple of times without using ecstasy. They were really brief, but it’s the same thing — all those thoughts kind of just die away and you’re left with what was already here in the first place.”
The action of a realized Universe breaking through the portal of delusional I.
“The action of a realized Universe breaking through the portal of delusional I.”
– Fraudulent Fred
The sound of a delusional poser breaking wind through the portal of his prolapsed rectum.
Well, any quoting of Bright Eyes songs wins, in my opinion (though I have to admit kind of losing track of Conor over the past few years).
Wins, indeed, Yoshiyahu. The last thing he did that scored for me was this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arkndXvxGag
I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again. Taking psychedelics led to taking up the practice of Zen. So I’m grateful for that. But I don’t recommend it as a lifestyle.
Taking LSD is like plugging your brain into a Fender amp, and turning all the nobs all the way up. POW!! Sometimes this can lead to an “ego death” experience, although this has never happened to me. What did happen was that I realized two things: that the “self” I thought of as “me” could not be found anywhere, and that what I thought I knew about Zen was mostly bullshit.
So I have picked up the practice of Zen. And guess what I’ve learned so far! The self that I think of as “me” cannot be found anywhere, and whatever I think I know about Zen is mostly bullshit.
So much for great realizations.
I have a friend who has a 2*12 Fender DeVille and that thing gets scary when turned up past five. I might add that psychedelics don’t nessarily have to be this big thing where your firing up the trans-warp drive to 10 or 11. Sometimes its nice to just take a gram or two of shrooms and go see a Morcheeba or Peter Gabriel show. Certainly one doesn’t need drugs to get turned on to the nature of selflessness.
“Chasing the Dragon” as a metaphor for chasing that (allegedly) elusive first high? While that might fit some people’s experience – or some people’s assumptions about some other people’s experience – I don’t believe that’s the origin of the phrase.
“Chasing the Dragon” describes the action of a heroin smoker as s/he follows and inhales, through a tube, the plume of smoke emitted by molten powdered heroin on (preferably aluminium) foil. The heroin is first made molten by the heat of a flame held under the foil, directed at the spot where the heroin powder sits. If the foil is then inclined at a downward sloping angle and the flame remains aligned under the molten heroin, the blob will roll down the foil continuing to emit smoke. As the user chases after the smoke with her/his inhaling tube s/he is said to be “chasing the dragon”.
Don’t say I never help you guys out.
I’ve other thoughts about drugs – particularly psychedelics – and insights, but I don’t think posting them here would make a blind bit of difference to anyone or anything.
I’m reliably informed that hip junkies these days say “chasing the beetle”. The dragon is soooo last century.
Also, the aluminium from the foil ends up in your bones and brain, and gives you dementia.
Also, I know a couple of lifelong opiate fiends who got into smack to calm themselves down after bad acid experiences. Just say no folks 😉
[End of public service broadcast]
I have dropped body and mind. You will never understand. I have been meditating for 50 years and I am beyond even being beyond. I am even beyond being beyond being beyond. In fact, I am even beyond beyond beyond being beyond beyond being beyond.
Here are some quotes to prove my position of attainment and ultimate wisdom.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/dogen.html
I told you so.
Of course! It’s turtles all the way down! Dang it, I shoulda knowed that.
You? Please. . .
The empty hand grasps the hoe handle
Walking along, I ride the ox
The ox crosses the wooden bridge
The bridge is flowing, the water is still
Oh come on you’re just being mean now. If there’s something you don’t like about Fred try to find it in yourself. I’ve been mean like you before. It sucks all around.
Yeah, Fr3d? Well you ain’t got nothin’ on that Grand Chasm feller. He’s the one that’s got it all figured out. 😉
At this point I’m not really tempted to try entheogens again. My heart, I feel, is a little fragile. Nevertheless, I enjoyed your description, intokyo, and it seemed familiar.
Lately I’ve been experiencing something very similar to what you describe, on the cushion, and walking around. I start out with a lot of chatter, and then I come around to the senses involved in my feeling for where I am at the moment, and the reciprocal activity of my posture around a slight pressure in the fluid ball of the abdomen.
Ride, Sally, ride:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKCUOI9xYLs
I get happy when all I have to do is comprehend the nature of one movement of breath, but the flip side is a close encounter with the jerk, the mashed potato, and the twist. Good thing I like to dance.
Sometimes I get tired just smilin’.
http://chromatism.net/current/images/checkereddemon.jpg
Nice review, Mumbles!
Why thanks, Mark!
Hey Sri, I really liked this…
“The self that I think of as “me” cannot be found anywhere, and whatever I think I know about Zen is mostly bullshit.”
Pretty much whatever I think about ANYTHING is mostly bullshit…Like this:
Dope, etc. it’s all entertainment, and I seem to be content to entertain myself to death.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGBoP70A7Q0
I have a friend whose mother used to tell him, “Go to your room- you’re having too much fun”.
Ok. I’ll go soon.
“‘The millstone turns but the mind does not turn.’
… the turning of the millstone is a metaphor for the turning of the waist. The mind not turning is the central equalibrium resulting from the sinking of ch’i to the tan-t’ien.
‘The millstone turns but the mind does not turn’ is an oral teaching within a family transmission. It is similar to two expressions in the T’ai-chi ch’uan classics which compare the waist to an axle or a banner. This is especially noteworthy. After learning this concept my art made rapid progress.”
(“Master Cheng’s Thirteen Chapters on T’ai Chi Ch’uan”, by Cheng Man-ching, trans. Douglas Wile, pg 67)
It’s my understanding that the Chinese word now translated as “mind” was once translated as “heart-mind”. If I turn the light around, and I don’t see the place associated with my awareness, what do I see?
The eyes can reset the location associated with my awareness. Sitting in a train in a station, if the train next to my train pulls out, I may feel that I am physically moving backwards. Why is that? That’s because my eyes have a tight connection with my sense of place. I can experience my eyes affecting my sense of place, and I can free my sense of place to move in spite of the connection with my eyes.
Where am I going with this?- platform 9 3/4. If my heart-mind does not sink to the tan-t’ien after relaxing the entire body, then, says Cheng, relax the chest. Sounds like maybe ecstasy and an open mind might be helpful, but I think turning the light around and letting the location of my awareness move even when I myself do not move is more direct.
Now I find that, like a bagpiper whose activity works the bag while he walks, my activity supports the fluid ball of the abdomen, and the location of my awareness responds as I comprehend the long or short of the inhalation or exhalation at the moment.
Sometimes that activity of support for the fluid ball feels like this:
The empty hand grasps the hoe-handle
Walking along, I ride the ox
The ox crosses the wooden bridge
The bridge is flowing, the water is still
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-jDhJhSNKI
Rotating Chair Experiment
The empty hand grasps the hoe-handleWalking along, I ride the ox
The ox crosses the wooden bridge
The bridge is flowing, the water is still
– Bizarro Dogen
But when the drugs wear off…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRqYpRv6ILU
Point of order:
“Chasing the Dragon” as a metaphor for chasing an (allegedly) elusive first high? While that might fit some people’s experience – or some people’s assumptions about some other people’s experience – I don’t believe that’s the origin of the phrase.
“Chasing the Dragon” describes the action of a heroin smoker as s/he follows and inhales, through a tube, the smoke emitted by heroin powder heated on foil (preferably aluminium). The heroin is first made molten by a flame held under the foil directed at the spot where the heroin powder has been placed. Once molten, the foil is held at a downward incline and, as long as the flame remains aligned under the molten heroin, the heroin will slowly slide down the foil emitting smoke. As the user chases after the curling plume, inhaling with her/his tube, s/he is said to be “chasing the dragon”.
Don’t say I never help you guys out.
I have had thoughts about psychedelic drugs and so-called “enlightenment experiences”, but not many. I don’t think posting them would make a blind bit of difference to anyone or anything.
Oops. I’ve just noticed this comment has already appeared (July 21 @ 9.49am). I spent far too long yesterday evening trying to post it. Either nothing at all happened (ie, no sign of the comment when the page reloaded) or I got the “Duplicate….you’ve already said this” thing. I left a message for Brad and tech and went to bed. I tried again just now and all was back to normal. So if anyone did anything to address the problem – thanks.
I’ll leave this one up. It’s worded slightly differently. Which one do you prefer?
Thanks for sharing that Mal. It’s real.
I prefer the real experience , rather than the proxy for reality.
Acid isn’t biochemically addicting, I guess because it doesn’t lead to dopamine release in the limbic system.
You’re welcome, Fred.
I know nothing worth knowing about the biochemistry of addictive drugs, but I’d be prepared to wager £5 that your guess might be right.
The empty Fred grasps at dead words of dogma,
fails to understand them,
clings to his misunderstanding,
and believes it is Nirvana.
dead words of dogma
like flatulence
escaping from a
grand gaping orifice.
a dead canyon
for trolls
and the pungent, putrid
vapour of words.
Donkey cross over.
Horse cross over.
Cross over!
Cross over!
I took LSD three times. The last time (spring 1982) scared and scarred me. However, I credit it for causing a mental breakdown, which made me go to the local library and try to cure myself. In the psychology section of the library I found a book by Alan Watts called The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. That led me to Watts’ The Way of Zen and that set me on my path.
Altering one’s perception seems to be useful. There are lots of ways to alter one’s perception. Sometimes when I travel away from home I return home seeing everything in a new way. I notice patterns in my old routines, and that gives me an opportunity to make changes. Traveling is often expensive though.
As others have mentioned, with any perception-altering experience there is always the danger of “chasing the dragon”. People get addicted to traveling, running, finding new music, skydiving, eating junk food, and pretty much anything that feels good. Addiction to pleasurable activities seems to be innate.
Sitting quietly seems to have few drawbacks. Sometimes it allows the muddy water of my mind to clear.
Hi earDRUM,
Included in your interesting comment was this: ‘As others have mentioned, with any perception-altering experience there is always the danger of “chasing the dragon”.’
I guess whether or not people misunderstand the meaning of junkie lingo as used by junkies only matters to junkies, pedants and pedantic linguists. Nevertheless, may I take the liberty of drawing your attention to an earlier comment of mine? You’ll find it just a few comments up, at 2.15am. My comment corrects the erroneous meaning attached to the phrase “chasing the dragon” by some and explains the original, junkie-approved, meaning.
As I pedantically replied to the first version of your duplicated comment, the junkie-approved term is now “chasing the beetle”. This terminological amendment is intended to defend the righteous countercultural smack-chic of the junkball community’s patois, as the “dragon” term has been assimilated by straighthead hipsters and entheogen buffs. Please keep up 😉
Chasing the cessation of suffering:
“The desensitization mechanism involves changes in the physiology of the opioid receptors. These receptors belong to the family of G protein–coupled receptors (GPCRs). When the opioid is bound to the receptor, the associated G protein becomes “activated.” Activation of G proteins eventually leads to decreasing excitability along the cell membranes of neurons in the pain pathways. This action occurs through a reduction in cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP), leading to a suppression of Na+ and Ca+ channels and resulting in analgesia (Figure 2). Over time, alterations in the G protein–mediated mechanism can lead to decreased analgesia through opioid receptor desensitization (Ferguson et al 1998, Luttrell & Lefkowitz 2002, Perry & Lefkowitz 2002, Raehal & Bohn 2005, Shen & Crain 1990,”
Abandoning the cessation of suffering…
“The ‘enlightenment’ mechanism occurs about 3 days into a Zen retreat. The subject has been held in an anatomically infeasible posture, combined with unpredictable assaults with a zen-stick, and partial sensory deprivation. The unpredictability of the stick leads to excess secretion of dopamine and epinephrine – causing a state of vigilance and enhanced sensory awareness. Although no physical coercion is used, the subject continues to participate in the experiment – due to imagined peer pressure, psychological transference involving a ‘Zen Master’, and a mad belief that the present distress will somehow lead to a cessation or transcendence of suffering. Eventually, the subject has exhausted all possibilities of escape or lessening of the distress. Endorphins are released en masse, flooding subject’s opioid receptors – just like they would if subject had broken his leg, instead of just twisting it. Subject now experiences peace and oneness, nearly as good as heroin, stops suffering (temporarily), and forms a delusion of being Buddha (Ohara & Freud 1995, Ohara & Milgram 2004, Ohara & Kardashian 2013)”
“Ohara & Freud 1995, Ohara & Milgram 2004, Ohara & Kardashian 2013”
Hahaha
Well I never. Junk ain’t what it used to be.
Dementia, you say? Oh dear.
New research on dementia is promising. Probably too late for us old x-junkies.
http://neurophage.com/about/
deferoxamine is the drug of choice for getting rid of that pesky aluminum, apparently…
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/165315-overview
I really enjoy reading a good dharma book on LSD, looking at Hubble pics or watching a good movie or science documentary is really fun too. It might just be a super samsaric escape or whatever, but if you take it for what it is I don’t see a big problem.
Grand Canyon, how do you know that Fred doesn’t understand? What’s your understanding?
Fr3d, will you be my Zen guru, pleeeeez?
The empty hand grasps the hoe handle
Walking along, I ride the ox
The ox crosses the wooden bridge
The bridge is flowing, the water is still
Gassho _/\_
I had read those lines before, but never saw their true meaning until typed by you, Fr3d Dai-osho. Thanks to you, I have turned off, tuned out, and dropped off dropping off the dropped off body/mind. May I offer a handjob?
Gassho _/\_
There is no hand that can be jobbed
Nor grasping hoes that can enlight
_/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_ _/\_