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new to meditation
i've tried meditating. i've also tried meditating under the influence of psilocybin (magic mushrooms). the time i was on magic mushrooms was insanely awesome. it was like i could turn on a light in my heart. i could also just contemplate things with powerful insight. it felt like i had excellent control of my awareness, i felt like my awareness was a muscle, and i could flex it at will and in addition select its target without distraction. it was crazy. but when i try to meditate now, nothing awesome happens, my mood barely changes, i don't have any revelations, i have a hard time grasping the concept of self or the concept of egolessness. it's just a boring, unproductive experience. i'm assuming i am doing it wrong.
so my question is, what is a good place to START learning about meditation? i've seen videos on youtube and a couple random web pages, they all say things about meditation, but i feel like there has to be something that would help me learn the practical basics.
does anyone know a reputable begginner's advice source?
so my question is, what is a good place to START learning about meditation? i've seen videos on youtube and a couple random web pages, they all say things about meditation, but i feel like there has to be something that would help me learn the practical basics.
does anyone know a reputable begginner's advice source?
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However, the lack of peak experiences do not imply that you're doing it wrong. You can expect it to be pretty boring. When that happens, it's interesting to look at the boredom...
To meditate properly you dont take them at all, any experience with hallucigenics is nothing more then a hallucination.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serotonin
i don't know enough yet to be sure, so this is kind of a guess, but maybe serotonin is a chemical that serves as a mulitpurpose catalyst of mental processes. assuming that point of view, i would say marijuana and mushrooms differ in that with marijuana you have less control over which mental processes occur. but if you guys are into observing the mind and how it works, i hope you don't have a reason to NOT try these drugs. I think they are amazing and useful and could help you if you desire to know more about the mind.
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As long as you're just doing the video game version, you'll never know the difference.
i got high today (marijuana) and wrote all this down:
on marijuana, i observe my senses.
if while on marijuana, you manage to focus the intensity of only your contemplative sense, you can contemplate very effectively without chasing after sensory pleasure.
or maybe i'm wrong, because i was thinking yesterday, every idea is false. the very nature of an idea is a "simplification", less than the actual subject of the idea. maybe having an idea or "understanding" of things IS a pleasure.
i'm very confused about many things still. i want to reach enlightenment goddamnit!
There is a part of our self, which we have grown estranged from. Some people call it our Buddha Nature.
When we sit down to meditate; that is the part of us that we are looking to become reacquainted with.
Buddha Nature is very unassuming and gentle, and lives in stillness and satisfaction. We are starving to be reacquainted with it. It is that hollowness you feel inside.
Perhaps that is why, no matter what we normally do in our daily life, we cannot seem to fill this emptiness in us. Simply because mind is not the right tool, and leads us in the wrong direction.
One of the reasons that we have lost touch with our Buddha Nature is because, our mind is so boisterous and noisy, and constantly demanding of center stage, that we have trouble seeing around it. Mind constantly seduces us with pleasure (bells and whistles), and when we grow tired of the temporary pleasures that it offers, it then distracts us with pain.
Mind is not a bad fellow. He just has an over estimation of his own importance and capacity. ; ^ )
When we sit down to meditate this “dog and pony show” doesn’t just stop, immediately. The mind screams “I’m bored!” and “Where are the bells and whistles?”
But given time, I guarantee you, that you will come to feel the richness beyond mind, and it (at last) will fill you up.
Keep on trucking,
S9
You make the false assumption that I dont know the experience to which you refer. My generation was the "hippy generation". I tried every type of drugs, including the mushrooms.
I had been meditating from childhood and had, after years, come to the point where I sometimes had some pretty incredible meditations.
So when my peer group started to experiment, so did I. I never did any drugs more than once ... because the drug-experiences were so bland and one-dimensional compared to some of my meditation experiences. Now, if I hadnt had those meditation experiences, I would have been blown away by the drug experiences.
the experience you receive from a drug depends on many things. I decided to try a kind of meditation i had seen a video about on youtube. focus on nothing but energy flowing from your heart or whatever. when i'm sober and try to meditate i can't stop focusing on random things that pop up but on the mushrooms i was able to control my focus with great ease.
S9, i will keep on trucking. the other day i sat down for a few minutes and though i didn't feel anything extraordinary, i definitely had much less mental noise than the last time i had tried it.
Yes, when the mental noise quiets down, to a dull roar, your life will also become more enriched in many little ways.
You will notice more, and deal with things/people more peacefully. Life will become more pleasant as a whole. Not as exciting as a mushroom trip, perhaps, but certainly worth perusing.
And, that is just entry level.
S9
No, I never meditated when I tried drugs.
I fully understand about random things popping up while trying to meditate ... this is a universal experience. Learn to concentrate, to focus ... this is the mind-training purpose of meditation. The goal is to learn how to control your mind ... using drugs to achieve focus is no more learning how to control your mind yourself than using a wheelchair is learning how to walk.
As far as "peak experiences" from meditation, as satisfying and pleasant as they are ... we are told that they are not the goal of meditation, nor even indication of spiritual progress. Being impermanent in nature, they are not the Truth because the Truth cannot be impermanent.
Training the mind requires effort and it sounds like you're expending the least possible amount of effort when you're meditating on shrooms.
See what we mean, Jellybean?
When you first start meditating and notice all of the mind chatter, that is not a failure on your part. Noticing all of the chatter is the first lesson.
Most people have no idea how crazy monkey-mind is.
The next step is to be gently persistent about bringing yourself back from getting lost in the chatter. So that in a way, the second lesson is to learn not to be too hard on yourself when you do wander, to forgive this, and simply to persist.
We all traveled this way in the beginning. There is nothing innately wrong with you. This IS the process.
Loving wishes to you,
S9
I'm not saying anything bad about psychedelics or marijuana, if you want to go to a concert and enjoy them or hang out with friends and do them, that's fine in infrequent moderation(not smoking weed every day mind you!). But you must realize that it's not going to lead to any spiritual progress whatsoever! You'll be irritable and worse off than when you started once the marijuana runs out. It is pretty well known that marijuana will cause you to accept the things that come up in your mind uncritically. This is why a lot of creative people smoke marijuana. Their self-critics are numbed while stoned, but those ideas and visions are perfectly attainable and more clearly understood when you aren't stoned. Marijuana or mushrooms doesn't "give" you any ideas, it simply "unlocks" them. You can unlock them on your own, and you should practice unlocking them on your own if you want to make any lasting progress.
All that is is creative thinking, though. Meditation is not simply a practice of creative thinking or relaxtion.
It is an exercise of the mind, and a direct experience of non-duality. Any ideas that come up from them should be examined critically. You shouldn't just think "well if I thought it, it must be right." Everything needs to be critically examined, and marijuana and mushrooms detracts from your ability to do that.
The fact that you were bored and irritated when you tried meditation for real is a GOOD thing. That is how it should be. You can't expect enlightenment after meditation for a week, or a month, or even a year. And you shouldn't be expecting it at all. Just like you can't expect to bench press 250lbs if you just started going the gym a month ago.
"When the God's want to punish someone, first they take them up to heaven and then send them back to earth."
Warm Regards,
S9
I'm just trying to help him because I too was a daily toker as well as a harder drug user, and tripped on many occasions, so I can totally understand where he's coming from. The dharma is much more profound and worthwhile than chasing a buzz my friend!
Your description of the awareness as a muscle that you have control of is inacurate in my opinion. Thats one point. Contrast this with prajnaparamita in which the giver is undifferentiated from the receiver (in giving) or the meditator drops away and is pure awareness (in samadhi). Both of those are my guesses as a noob. I am not a guru teacher lama. But I tend to doubt that enlightenment is as simple as a drug.
For one thing enlightenment is partially about getting past this illusory idea of a self and an other. You have stated that in order to have an enlightening experience a self must ingest a mushroom. That means that your experience of enlightenment is conditional upon a substance (and thereby a state of mind). The sutras state that nirvana is unconditional. Meaning nirvana can be anywhere. Any body. In any state of mind. Any beliefs. Any realm. You can find nirvana in your boredom as easily as in expansive euphoric states.
Then the gods must not have wanted to punish me. Coming back to earth was great, as it is for many ingesters of the mushroom.
[quote=Johns Hopkins researchers]In the study, more than 60 percent of subjects described the effects of psilocybin in ways that met criteria for a “full mystical experience” as measured by established psychological scales. One third said the experience was the single most spiritually significant of their lifetimes; and more than two-thirds rated it among their five most meaningful and spiritually significant. Griffiths says subjects liken it to the importance of the birth of their first child or the death of a parent.
Two months later, 79 percent of subjects reported moderately or greatly increased well-being or life satisfaction compared with those given a placebo at the same test session. A majority said their mood, attitudes and behaviors had changed for the better. Structured interviews with family members, friends and co-workers generally confirmed the subjects’ remarks. Results of a year-long followup are being readied for publication.
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I did not state that. That would be denying that one could have an "enlightening" experience any other way. I was simply saying that my mushroom trip was super cool.
You guys do make some valid points, I am simply addressing the ones I think are invalid.
1. Yes! lol I agree that you get crazy rushing thoughts, and lots of interesting things happen, but that type of mental activity is not the point of meditation. Especially when you are just starting to meditate. What makes you think that the rushing thoughts from a mushroom experience are any more valid than the rushing thoughts you get from a cocaine or amphetamine or ecstasy experience? I've seen people who use mushrooms several times a month every month. Their brains are in just as much disarray as any heroin or cocaine addict I've seen.
2.Yes, but I wasn't specifically referring to a mushroom trip when I said that coming back to earth was hellish. I know full well about the after-glow of a psychedelic experience, and I am more talking about just being high in general, especially if you are used to getting high habitually. You can't deny that you get irritable and uncomfortable if you are used to smoking weed every day and then supply runs out. When you are faced with life on life's own terms you realize that you haven't gained anything from getting high all those times. The hellish part is being addicted to any substance, either physically or psychologically. It's really really easy to be psychologically addicted to marijuana, that's why I warn against it.
Like I said, I have nothing against drug use as a purely recreational activity every know and then(I personally have not taken any vows of abstinence, and plan to continue being a layman for a while), but it's dangerous to think that they should be used as tools to aid in meditation as that doesn't strengthen or discipline the mind at all. I'm not saying you shouldn't try to meditate on drugs, but I'm saying that you shouldn't use drugs as a crutch for meditation. If you find yourself tripping and then feel like meditating GO FOR IT! There are way worse things you could be doing during your trip (like thinking you could fly or are invincible or some other dumb stuff druggies have been known to think), but just realize that any "realizations" you get should be examined critically and carefully when you sober up, and then their true value can be assessed. Often I've found that psychedelics lead to nothing more than overly abstract thoughts and ideas that are either totally obvious or totally nonsensical to a non-tripping person.
Just know this, I consider myself to be quite the hippie and I have done about every psychoactive substance I ever got my hands on, I was even addicted to a few of them. It's not drugs that allows a person to expand their mind though, it's their mindfulness, openness, and compassion. It doesn't require drugs to cultivate these states of mind though. This is where disciplined mediation helps us. I'm just trying to let you know the potential pitfalls of carelessness in this regard.
I've never heard about fivebells' method. That's a pretty interesting concept. Using the negative hangover from a drug experience to create extra mental stress to work though. Interesting indeed. That sounds like a form of asceticism though. I don't see the need for it, but I've never tried that so I can't really say anything about it.
I see meditation as a tool for going beyond the mind, for finding the Reality (Liberation from mind) that is so often hidden from our confusions (Right View) by thoughts and conceptions, and going ons. We are looking for the "Eternal Here and Now."
This "Eternal Here and Now" is right in front of your face constantly, but because the mind prefers complications, drama, and stimulation, you often 'over look' this most subtle of experiences.
If, on the other hand, you drop some mushrooms, and you are whizzing through the cosmos on wings made out of diamonds, or you are watching your face melt in the mirror, (did that 2nd one), there is a fat chance that you will notice the Ultimate and Eternal Truth, which is meek (or self effacing) in comparison. You’ll be thinking, “Where are the bells and whistles?”
Suffering is often found in comparisons. Mind is all about comparison. Living life in its usual flat fashion (at least in comparison with something drug induced) is bound to be less fun, if nothing else. You will be left with yourself and that won't be enough. Isn't that why you took the drugs to begin with?
Sooner or later, like a child that outgrows the roller coaster rides, which the mind can offer, you are going to want more, a True Satisfaction, ("Peace beyond all understanding"...Christain) The True Satisfaction of Liberation never goes away. You have discovered the "Always Was and Always Will Be"
Don’t settle for less,
S9
I like what fivebells just said. In my words, it is like running while tethered to a pole, you might think you are running freely but you are just running in circles that decrease in area with each step.
Even coffee can become dangerous! (as has been my experience)
@questionful;- I have read some studies done on psychodelic drugs and it all seems quite interesting, but these "alternate states" are artificial, chemically indused and don't last. Yes, meditation is very hard work, and can take many years to get anywhere, but it's the real thing and it lasts.
No I haven't had experience with drugs so maybe I'm not "qualified" to give any advice, but many of the other posters here have and have given some great advice.
Someone said something to me last night... "the more you learn, the less you realise you know".
Nios.
Hi !
I've just visited this forum. Happy to get acquainted with you. Thanks.
Many people here are giving good advice. Do not be too quick to dismiss their claims as ignorant to the psychedelic experience. Many of us have been there.
When I first discovered mushrooms I was in a similar situation as you. I was sure that I was on to something...enlightenment...or the true nature of the universe...or something. i just KNEW i was about to figure it all out thanks to psylocybin.
But after several months of delving deeper and deeper, I eventually realized that I wasn't really getting anywhere. More questions always arise. And it's disconcerning when you go into a trip expecting to gain valuable new insight and then realize that it's just more of the same. If you haven't reached that point yet, you will.
There certainly is something special about mushrooms. Take the experience as it comes, but then let it go.
I do think the mushroom experience is an excellent opportunity for some people, sometimes, because it can teach us that there is more than one way to look at this world. It kind/of breaks through our habitual mind causing a few cracks to form in what we stubbornly thought we knew, that this material world was WAY solid.
But like you say, it won’t take you the whole way, and like anything in the mind it is fleeting.
Warm Regards,
S9
I hear ya. And I agree completely.