Consilience

Perhaps. ? Right just a few. Ive considered this too. @Leo Gura Im not looking for an argument. Only to plant seeds in the minds open enough to consider. The authenticity of my writing will either come across or it wont.

Ive had one on one conversations with Shinzen where he described his 5-MeO experiences. He explained that it was just a really really really deep meditation state, and that while he was impressed, it wasn’t a substitute for practice. This was a very recent conversation, and a very recent set of experiences for Shinzen. Last time I smoked NN-DMT, first time doing a serious psychedelic in months, I was shocked at how little the context of my experience shifted. Ie even though perceptive field did a 180 degree turn out of reality, consciousness was still just as much consciousness before and after ingestion. I went in with a awareness of God while sober, and nothing about that awareness changed while high. Even though egoic self referential thought was terrified, memory structures completely collapsing, surrendering, in awe, the background context out of which the experience arose and passed was completely unchanged. The most powerful part was I was still conscious of that unchanged quality. These are not bullshit ideas. Im actually out there doing the work to verify this. The fact that you think this possibility is bullshit speaks to a blind spot you’ve created out of this work and is incredibly unfortunate given how many people follow and are deeply influenced by your work. I very much used to be in the camp that these spiritual teachers must be full of shit, especially since many don’t have serious experience with psychedelics, and you know what? I bet many of them are full of shit. But people like Ralston or Shinzen speaking to the necessity and profundity of manual practice aren’t. Both have experience with psychedelics. You might argue that these teachers just need to experiment more, and ok maybe. Or maybe they’ve realized something so fundamental about the nature of reality, no particular state, experience, perception, alteration of mind, or shift in experience at all could change. What is a more powerful vision for life? Always needing another hit of a psychedelic to truly see God in its totality, or being able to access it at any time? Id say for 99% the latter is more powerful. But the only way that would be possible is to drop any beliefs about what is or isnt possible while sober and get serious about the work. Edit: please understand I say all this with immense gratitude and compassion for you and others on this site series about the work.

But Leeooo..!

Until you’ve committed to a hardcore spiritual practice for 15 years you really have no idea what you’re talking about with this. You’re reifying a very limiting *belief* taken on as an ego position that is not based in direct experience.

So much this. Btw @Enlightenment Eric Helms and the coaching group he works with, 3DMJ, is one of the highest quality sources of information on the internet about building muscle and losing fat and all things bodybuilding without steroids. I'd highly, highly highly recommend even if you're not interested in bodybuilding.

@Adamq8 @Raptorsin7 @Alysssa ?

Additionally to the above comments, when one sufficiently trains the mind to access high states of mindfulness our perceptive experience starts to break apart into spacious flow, which could also be described as vibratory. Quite literally, as one deeply pays attention to experience, experience is perceived as energetic, vibratory, spacious, fluid, paper-thin, pixel like, rapidly transient.

Ok I'm actually impressed. I see him

This. In Buddhism, it's taught that ALL things lack inherent existence, in other-words anything and everything appearing in the world of form are all completely empty of substance. How this is so is some pretty heavy philosophy not for the faint of heart, but a great book to understand the metaphysics of Absolute Emptiness is "Seeing That Frees" by Rob Burbea (he doesn't use the term "Absolute Emptiness" only "Emptiness"). Long story short, you can deconstruct reality literally into nothing analytically through logic and reason as well as experientially through deep meditation. This applies to space, time, self, non-self, other, world, all mind states, all dualities, all forms of intellectualization and understanding, absolutely everything. Even Emptiness. As far as materialism, it should be recognized is that physical reality in your direct experience is built out of a belief and interpretive filter from the mind, and once you recognize physical reality is not any way inherent in the nature of one's direct experiential perceptive field, all that's left is perception. One realizes that physical reality was only a belief super-imposed on top of one's direct experience of perception. And when perception is all that's left, you can start deconstructing perception all the way down into Emptiness, i.e. God. If this materialism deconstruction feels unavailable, start with studying quantum mechanics seriously. Then take seriously the philosophical implications of what these experiments have observed about the nature of reality. Even if there was a physical substance to reality, the nature of that physical substance is WILDLY different than mainstream understanding in both society and science. The default metaphysical view of 'the way things are' we were programmed with through language, up-bringing, and eduction is radically incorrect. Radically incorrect both in terms of what quantum mechanics experiments have found, in terms of deep philosophical analysis of one's direct experience, and in terms of what one observes from deep meditation.

Sounds like it will be amazing, but just curious why wouldn’t you be going for enlightenment while you’re there? That‘s what Buddhism is all about.

Perhaps long term. If we define the aim of meditation as the training of attentional skills, or mindfulness, coffee can help with paying attention. However, if we’re defining the aim of meditation to be with the way things are independent of state, not such a good idea. Ironically this second point can also be defined as a quality of mindfulness. Meditation without supplementation of any kind is certainly helpful in some contexts.

Coffee + Lions Mane + L-Theanine + meditation = psychedelic Have to be careful not to overdue it on caffeine though because it can and has created an over fried CNS in the past off of relatively small amounts. 1 cup of coffee per day is the max I try and stick around. As one becomes more conscious via meditation, the sensitivity of drugs seems to increase.

+1 Freedom feels like a nice pointer though.

??‍♂️Enlightenment happens when I drops. Nope. Self activity remains just as it remained before enlightenment. There is literally no-thing to drop. Cessation of self activity is not enlightenment. Cessation of self activity is just another transient (impermanent) state.

This is where you’re lost. All experience, the ‘isness’ of whatever is appearing, IS absolute truth as what is. The next step is becoming conscious of its true nature, it is experiencing ‘isness’ so directly you experience its empty nature.

What experiences enlightenment? A rhetorical question. Fantasy. There was never a you to end. Nothing disappears, nothing appears, nothing changes. What is true was already true. Something disappearing is more duality, another ego story. Good luck ?

Strong determination sitting Rules: 1. Don't harm the physical body 2. Don't move unless to prevent harm from the physical body Facing pain and suffering head on is one of the fastest ways to understand deep compassion and love for all sentient beings. Impossible to bullshit yourself when you're basking in massive amounts of discomfort. You either have wide open equanimity (Love) or you don't.

Even in the darkness, there is only light. Even in silence, there is only sound. No need to go seek darkness or silence when darkness and silence are always present. If you think reality isn't real as what your post seems to suggest: You haven't gone all the way. But is that actually what you've experienced? That there is no such thing as reality?

This is not an experience, this an interpretation of experience. In Zen, just sitting is complete reality. This is not an experience, this is an interpretation of experience. This depends on your definition of real. Real is what is ACTUALLY going on, experientially, directly, as it IS. THIS. In this way, all experiences are equally real. By recognizing when the mind is interpreting reality vs. directly observing reality. Direct observation = truth/real. Their actuality is profoundly real. The way one interprets the experiences and builds metaphysical models is relative. Look into this concept from Janism, "Anekantavada"

And tbh this is a completely fair criticism. The number of psychedelic users who pursue enlightenment is a low percentage of the psychedelic community. The success rate of psychedelic users who pursue enlightenment (whether with psychedelics or not) is low. The number of enlightened masters who are interested in psychedelics is even lower. By the time one is enlightened, the need to chase states to experience God is non-existent.

I'd keep going with your contemplation. This is when the Zen master would hit you with a stick! For me personally, a vipassana retreat was what shattered my entire metaphysics and let me step into a direct experience of the nature of reality, given perception = actuality = being = reality. (Some hints: impermanence, not me not mine, unsatisfactory, boundless space, compassion, infinite interconnectivity, God, Love)

How can you trust your experiences within the sober as real? It seems like more than a bit of a leap to build a whole metaphysics around any state of mind. Why? Precisely because of the infinite range of possible mind states there are. So how are we gauging which ones are better, more accurate, more indicative of reality than others? The mistake of the mainstream science is to place so much authority on the sober state of mind, as though somehow the natural state we've all been given is 'the state' to make metaphysical conclusions about reality. Moreover, we then have to consider how much un-cognized mind state activities are influencing the ways we interpret and build stories around whatever perceptive experience is taking place, whether sober or tripping. This is why have a strong epistemological basis is critical for any kind of contemplative work, whether psychonautic or not. This is all to say, great that you're questioning, but make sure to apply that same skepticism to the sober mind. Point the questioning to the structure of mind itself, not one slice of content within all possible mind states, in my opinion.

Perhaps this is a description of enlightenment. What is reality?

Which specific playlist is this apart of?

^ Mindfulness Microdosing mushrooms would be fun too. They’d teach you how to dance while simultaneously allowing you to go way meta.