"Insight, Peak Experience and the Supernatural"

I don't know if anyone else here ever reads Jayarava's blog, where he writes about, I guess, Buddhism, science, Pali, meditation and other interesting stuff (I don't read many Buddhist blogs, but his is one that I made a point to follow).

He's just put up a fascinating article about 'peak experiences' which touches on a lot of relevant material for pragmatic dharma, etc types, including discussion of
scientific/materialist explanations for peak experiences
the question of whether insight is actually insight into a 'truer apprehension of reality'
the relationship between mystical experiences induced by drugs or magnets and by meditation or physical damage or austerities
the thorny issue of how we describe and interpret such experiences
and the question of 'big openings' and the long-term transformative impact of meditation.

Personally I disagree with most of the arguments here because I'm not a scientific materialist (though I do have a copy of Metzinger's Ego Tunnel next to my bed which I've been vaguely intending to properly read) - and also because my experience of drug-induced 'altered states' is qualitatively completely different to 'peak experiences' in meditation - but I found it very thought-provoking.

Insight, Peak Experience and the Supernatural

every3rdthought wrote: Personally I disagree with most of the arguments here because I'm not a scientific materialist (though I do have a copy of Metzinger's Ego Tunnel next to my bed which I've been vaguely intending to properly read) - and also because my experience of drug-induced 'altered states' is qualitatively completely different to 'peak experiences' in meditation - but I found it very thought-provoking.

I personally find the experience of psychedelic peak experience to be very, very similar to meditative peak experience. In many cases the intensity and distortion are turned up a bit more with the drug experience, but I do find that the territory of a good hard 2nd jhana A&P is basically the same, whether arrived at with or without chemical assistance. It may be that I have some proclivity to an occasional "big" experience. If I had not had those big experiences, I'm not sure I would be able to respond in the same way. The drugs never evoked a big experience for me until after I had crossed the A&P, so for me meditation seems part and parcel of the whole deal.

From a materialistic standpoint, the research of Brewer, Griffiths, and Carhart-Harris at least begins to point to an overlap of sorts between meditation and the psychedelic drugs.

I'm not philosophically opposed to the used of mind altering substances in general. I haven't used anything psychedelic, and I'm not a regular user of anything except for alcohol; mostly beer and wine.

I don't doubt there are similarities between states induced by meditation and states induced by drugs. That said, I'm not sold on the idea of the use of substances for regular spiritual practice. The behaviorist in me is weary of needing something external to change my internal states (to use an outdated dichotomy). Not only does it lead to abuse in some cases, but also dependence, whether soft or hard.

Also, I don't really think trippy experiences are all that transformative in most cases. It might change one's thoughts about the world, but it hardly ever results in the kinds of changes we'd like our respective practices to lead to. I know there are a lot of people who think, "If I just had the right experience, a switch would be flipped and I'd never be the same again!" I'm not falling for that one anymore

By the way, I picked up "The Ego Tunnel" as well, and just started reading the introduction. I'm not sure about Metzinger's writing style, but I'm hopeful the information will prove interesting.

What seems intriguing about this subject is that many spiritual practices are full of mystical experiences - they may be spontaneously arising, they may be induced by dance, trance, drugs, ritual, austerities, etc. And those experiences are given great weight - they are inspiring, motivating, captivating. They may be incorporated into the teaching or mythology (or not, depending on the tradition). And yet the deeper awakening goes, the more everything becomes profoundly ordinary and engaged with "normal" reality. Even the concept of awakening itself begins to fall away, which is rather odd and surprising.

"And yet the deeper awakening goes, the more everything becomes profoundly ordinary and engaged with 'normal' reality. Even the concept of awakening itself begins to fall away, which is rather odd and surprising."

Yes. The latter point is intresting to me for a number of reasons. I'm not sure whether this falling away of the awakening concept is actually a part of the awakening process, or rather the result of coming to terms with the fact that we'll never stop being human beings; that we'll never be "perfect" by any traditional sense of that word.

Besides, "perfection" tends to be romantically reframed as what and who we already are. I think that's a stretch, and I'd rather drop the perfection idea all together. It's more hyperbole than reality, as far as I'm concerned.

My gut is it's part of the process - after all, one can be attached to being awake, or attached to certain forms of perception or experience as representing awakeness or other variants... and all attachment seems to be self-undermining in the long run, so it just keeps undermining and undermining itself... (unless one clings really really hard, which seems like it can stifle things or slow things down).

My current thoughts anyway.

"... It's hard to run with a chain of lead.
I don't know but I've been told,
it's just as hard with a chain of gold."

That's the Grateful Dead version of a kind of commonplace of spiritual practice: if integration is the goal, there have to stop being precious, special states, experiences, and persona. "Specialness" gets to be an intolerable limitation.

Jackson Wilshire wrote: I'm not philosophically opposed to the used of mind altering substances in general. I haven't used anything psychedelic, and I'm not a regular user of anything except for alcohol; mostly beer and wine.

I don't doubt there are similarities between states induced by meditation and states induced by drugs. That said, I'm not sold on the idea of the use of substances for regular spiritual practice. The behaviorist in me is weary of needing something external to change my internal states (to use an outdated dichotomy). Not only does it lead to abuse in some cases, but also dependence, whether soft or hard.

Also, I don't really think trippy experiences are all that transformative in most cases. It might change one's thoughts about the world, but it hardly ever results in the kinds of changes we'd like our respective practices to lead to. I know there are a lot of people who think, "If I just had the right experience, a switch would be flipped and I'd never be the same again!" I'm not falling for that one anymore

Sounds pretty reasonable. In a way, I kind of hate to recommend them, knowing that some people will do them in less than ideal circumstances. I would hope people reading this would have their psychology in a healthy place, a nice safe set and setting, reasonable dose, etc.

Psilocybin was highly, highly transformative for me, sample of one, but much of that transformation was indeed on the psychological side, so perhaps yes, this was merely changing my thoughts about the world (BTW I think the potential there is nearly unimaginable - Grof et al were on to something).

It's a path that is potentially fraught with peril, so maybe not for everyone. Kind of like if you had to go on a long trek thru some unmapped dense jungle, and there existed a completely bizarre option to say, base jump over the territory and get the lay of the land, to scout out the important features and a path beforehand. Certainly that would be extreme and dangerous, but you could potentially save a lot of time if you could just get a quick peek. You would know in what direction to incline one's efforts. Sure, you could hoof it thru the jungle blind, trailbusting your way, that would work, eventually. Wish I had a better analogy, but basically the idea is that things could be easily seen or pointed out that might take a very long time to stumble upon by oneself.

As far as the kinds of "kinds of changes we'd like our respective practices to lead to," for me, ego-death, so many insights, and so many jhanic factors were first pointed out with fungi. At any rate, it seems you still have to walk the walk and come back and pick up on those things without the drug. For me personally, I'm not sure I would be anywhere near as far along, but who knows. I would also say that most of this was post A&P and then post path. My experiences before that were "kind of" insightful but I'm not sure those made lasting contributions.

I would also say that I'm not talking about high doses. I'm not saying that can't be valuable, but seeing an alien world or whatever is not really what I'm talking about. I get a lot out of what most people would consider 1/20 - 1/40 of a beginner dose. Not looking for distortion, but rather for the openness, creativity and interconnectivity - It's like a gym or dojo for insight. It's fun.

A lot of folks on this board are a bit further along the path. It will be interesting to see what my views are on this in a couple of years. As I believe I said on another board, it will also be interesting to see the upcoming research from Griffiths on this subject.