xss27 said:
OneIsEros said:
Do you have any thoughts on any way or ways to approach psychedelics?
Of course. Obviously it depends on the person; who are they, what are they trying to achieve, previous experience etc. But in the more general sense, and in my opinion, I don't see the value of repeated use of psychedelics.. you get diminishing returns vs increased risk of harm - once you get the message, hang up the phone. I really do think they only need be experienced a handful of times at most, just enough to give a point of comparison and get a person thinking, and that relying on them as a crutch under the guise of 'spiritual' or 'medicine' is detrimental to the health of the individual.
I'm not anti-psychedelics, but I do have a lot of reservations about the culture surrounding them.
You are under the impression of a European cultural notion about psychedelics, which is rooted in that culture's ignorance of techniques for using psychedelics.
Indigenous cultures view psychedelics as requiring sophisticated techniques for proper use - which means there must be training, which means there must be repeated use, in an intentional way with technique. An ayahuasquero who only did ayahuasca a handful of times would not be an ayahuasquero.
Do you see the Eurocentricity of Allan Watts' "hang up the phone" metaphor? That metaphor only makes sense if you are imbibing these substances in a passive way while hoping for an epiphany. If that's your approach, power to you, but it's not mine. Hang up the phone doesn't make sense in the context of what I'm describing, because what I'm describing isn't passively hoping for epiphanies. It's yoga. Epiphanies might come, but the greater emphasis is on achieving deeper states of unity.
You seem to have a bit of background in Zen. I do too, but I prefer Pali suttas to Zen literature. Eyes are closed in Theravada, by the way, and the Pali suttas say nothing about eyes open or closed. I only open my eyes if I'm drowsy. The Pali suttas describe increasingly unified states of fabricated consciousness until you reach the un-fabricated, Nibbana. These states are pleasurable and healing, and the Buddha in the Pali sources encourages meditators to seek these "pleasant abodes", because achieving them encourages further practice. The approach is different from what Zen describes. So, that's another difference between us.
Jumping back to psychedelics: the techniques shamans use are varied. The general thread that binds them together is sustained, repetitive, often simple action, for very long periods of time - percussion/dancing/singing being the most common, with inflections bringing different, repeatable results. This can be done sober or with psychedelic drugs, but in these cultures psychedelic drugs are not done without these techniques.
Not feeling particularly skilled as a drummer or a dancer or a singer, I decided to use my meditation practice as a focus point. It is simple, sustained, and repetitive, and I found that after some hours of doing it, it qualitatively changed the experience in a way I had never experienced before, in a way that is repeatable and predictable, though always with new content as it seems to just go deeper, and deeper, and deeper. I do not trip any other way now. The Santo Daime church has a similar practice. My point of departure from the Daime is the emphasis on breath awareness and the need to do the practice on a daily basis while sober as well.
Finally: if you have not done this, you do not know what it offers. Taking a psychedelic does not mean you know what it can do. Shamans seem to report quite a lot more than I in my humble practice have yet encountered. I just know that in my humble practice I have encountered far more than I ever did prior to practicing, back when I, like many other trippers, just passively waited for epiphanies. You do not drop your practice when you take the psychedelic. A shaman doesn’t go, “Oh Lord, I’m too fucked up to keep drumming.” They drum as the technique. They should be doing it while they trip. What is the value in that? Read what they say, or try it yourself, and find out : ) Hint: it might be an epiphany, but it will probably be something more interesting. An ability, a healing, etc.
