Favorite Quotes and Entheogens

Past, Present, Future:  “Mind is always now.  There is really no before and after for Mind.  There is only a now that includes memories and expectations.” -  Schroedinger

Like the empty sky it has no boundaries.  Yet it is right here, ever serene and clear.   When you seek to attain it, you cannot see it.  You cannot take hold of it.  But neither can you lose it. -  Yung-chia

But sitting is not something we do for a year or two with the idea of mastering it.  Sitting is something we do for a lifetime.  There is no end to the opening up that is possible for a human     being.  Eventually we see we are the limitless, boundless ground of the universe.  Having more and more contact with this reality always brings compassion for others and changes our daily life.  We live differently, work differently, relate to people differently.  It isn’t just sitting on a cushion for thirty or forty minutes a day.  Our whole life becomes a practice, twenty-four hours a day.  -  Charlotte Joko Beck (Now Zen)

All of us are apprenticed to the same teacher that the religious institutions worked with:  reality.  It is as hard to get the children onto the school bus as it is to (meditate).  One move is not better than the other, each can be quite boring...wiping noses, going to meetings, picking up around the house, washing the dishes...don’t let yourself think these are distracting you from your more serious pursuits.  Such a round of chores is not a set of difficulties we hope to escape from so that we may do our “practice” which will put us on a “path”---it is our path. -  Gary Snyder (The Practice of the Wild)

There is no such thing as a person. There are only restrictions and limitations. The sum total of these defines the person. You think you know yourself when you know what you are. But you never know who you are. The person merely appears to be, like the space within the pot appears to have the shape and volume and smell of the pot. See that you are not what you believe yourself to be. Fight with all the strength at your disposal against the idea that you are nameable and describable. You are not. Refuse to think of yourself in terms of this or that. There is no other way out of misery, which you have created for yourself through blind acceptance without investigation. Suffering is a call for enquiry, all pain needs investigation. Don’t be too lazy to think. -  Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (I Am That)

Why are you unhappy?  Because 99.9 per cent of everything you think, and everything you do, is for yourself – And there isn’t one. – Wei Wu Wei (Ask the Awakened)

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Meditation is useful to understand how to be here and now.  You are not trying to achieve anything.  This is often not an easy path. 

You ascend on the ladder of consciousness, even if only for a moment.  But, in that moment you establish the beginings of a “groove” in your brain.  You actually change the structure of your brain. 

The more moments, and longer moments, you spend at those higher levels, the deeper the groove becomes.  With time, a more stable state of higher conciousness is established.  Again, that state is always already present.  The ego covers this up. 

In meditation, often with that first taste, the ego kicks in and wants more of that feeling.  Which chases away that state of conciousness.  Hard stuff in the beginning. 

Many of us children of the 60’s had our first experiences of altered states of conciousness using psychedelics.  A better, and perhaps more useful, label are “entheogens,” drugs that give you an experience of being one with the universe.  (OMG, he used illegal drugs!) 

Drugs can be an easier way to access that state compared to years of meditation.  But, ultimately, depending on these drugs is much less useful than developing your natural access to those states. 

Some still get caught in this spiritual bypass of continued use of these drugs.  A similar problem can be seen with dependency on a guru.  The true guru allows you to receive limbic resonance from their presence.  Then as you become more awake, he throws you out, so that you can develop your access to these states on your own. 

For me, the experience of these drugs led to a deeper appreciation of the world, and my mind in relationship to the world.  Later, I understood that the drugs were not needed.  My mind is powerful enough to generate these states of conciousness on its own. 

Hmmm, generating a state of consiousness by letting go.  Clearly demonstrates the problem with using words to attempt to describe the ineffable. 

For many of us, those experiences allowed us to later search for better ways to access those states of conciousness, without the use of drugs, usually experimenting with various forms of meditation. 

These entheogens may be the way to “kick start” the brains of individuals who would not be able to begin with meditation.  We lost 50 years of research because the hedonists adopted these drugs for recreation, and the government in its finite wisdom criminalized their use.  (Heretic!) 

Reseach into entheogens is slowly being explored once again.  There is data on their beneficial use at the end of life, in addiction, and in chronic pain. 

Let the use of these drugs be fully explored, in safe, well supervised investigations.  We will all benefit from a society with more insightful, compassionate, and connected beings.