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You can reach the same insight by doing enough vipassana meditation. If someone posted an article about a new supersonic jet that takes you from New York to S

• orasis 14y ago
  A minor nit: Many people can reach deep insight by meditating intensely for a week or less, not a lifetime. Testimonies of Deep Insight or Knowledge of the Arising and Passing - http://thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com/2010/12/if-this-is-indeed-a-p-congratulation.html http://thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com/2010/12/if-this-is-in... To reach the end of seeking and seeing that everything is already non-dual, many people can accomplish this in 18 months to 2 years.
  • 001sky 14y ago
    vipassana meditation == another nit: the first word is a useless adjective.
    • hosh 14y ago
      People have all sorts of notions about meditation. I'm writing for people who have become intrigued by the potential insights gained by psychedelics -- who may even be seeking relief from existential anxiety right now -- but may still have some doubts about using psychedelics. These folk are unlikely to to know what "vipassana" is, or that it is a meditation, or that there are lots of other things people call "meditation", and most importantly, a Google keyword to look through. If you know enough to nitpick this, then you probably didn't need the information :-D
      • deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
      • 001sky 14y ago
        This is a useful, and thoughtful, qualification.
        • hosh 14y ago
          Thanks :-)
  • Alex3917 14y ago
    The 10-day guides for achieving stream entry on that site are designed for people who already have 5+ years of experience. Similarly, the Buddha became an arahant within one 10-day sit, but not without many years of previous training.
    • hosh 14y ago
      I point out vipassana for these reasons: (1) You don't have to do this with psychedelics. (2) You can gain the insights without psychedelics, meaning that it is within the normal operating parameters of the human brain to gain these insights. (3) You can trip and get high when you meditate. Don't be afraid when it happens. (4) You can trip and get high when you meditate. It's another attachment. (5) It's less of taking a "shortcut" with psychedelics and more about being initiated. Having tasted it and knowing that vipassana will also get you there invites you to have a regular practice. Peak experiences come and go. (6) The universe is a bigger place than we thought.
      • molsongolden 14y ago
        Can you provide any advice for getting started or learning more about vipassana?
        • yor 14y ago
          98% of Mindfulness in Plain English is great. Just ignore the parts where they talk about psychic powers. The description of vipassana technique is very well done. I'd suggest starting with the book Unlearning Meditation instead of any particular traditional technique, but that's just me.
        • hosh 14y ago
          As @yor said, Mindfulness in Plain English is good. You can find a copy free at: http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html I never heard of Unlearning Meditation but I do know that there were a lot of things I thought I knew about meditation and it was ... not exactly like that. Anne Wise's book, High Performance Mind gets into some of the technical details. I like Daniel Ingram's book, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha but a lot of people don't. It's not exactly a beginner's book, but it's something to keep in mind if you ever start getting some weird experiences that you have difficulty framing. I say vipassana to mean the specific practice of experiencing reality, every little bit. It's not the only modality, and you'll find this particular practice in other traditions (and I mean, in Western traditions as well. There's not much you can tack on to "experience reality"). I have also been (slowly) translating the Tao Te Ching from the perspective that it is a book to guide you in your practice, not necessarily a book stating a philosophy. For example, the famous "The journey of a thousand miles begin with the first step" when put into this context actually means, let go of the thought/emotion/sensation at the beginning rather than when it becomes a full-blown train wreck that you have to ride out. I'm a bit stuck with the translation because I'm hitting the parts that resemble more of a trip with psychedelics, and the audience was originally intended for people who may not have those experiences. Having said that, I noticed that Brian Browne Walker's translation is in that particular spirit. Sometimes, just sitting there and getting in touch with reality is difficult. So there are other practices that can lead up to doing this. If you are still interested in this, but find Mindfulness in Plain English intimidating, I suggest Dan Millman's The Way of the Peaceful Warrior and followup with his Everyday Enlightenment.
• hosh 14y ago
  There is something interesting in the Taoist canon, though I imagine many teachers in other traditions know of this. People don't know why they should be practicing mindfulness. And then for whatever reason they gain insight -- be that practice, or ritual, or psychedelics -- they get it. A lot of things open up. There's a whole layer of meaning in textual traditions that opens up, and you realize a lot of people have been trying to say the same things. And you wonder how you missed it? And then you want to go back. Now you jump into the practice diligently, to try to get back to that peak experience. The thing is, peak experiences are just that. Like all things, they come and go. Coming through the psychedelics, it is easy to spend a lot of time taking hit after hit to get back to that peak experience. It was part of why people who have not been initiated into this fear it. They see people drifting out from the real world, and these people then say crazy things like, "well, reality is much bigger than you think." The thing is, this happens in any mystical traditions. Someone who realized these insights while sitting on a cushion starts become uninterested in anything but sitting on that cushion. Which is ironic because all of this is about experiencing reality, not escaping from it. That is another reason I pointed out the connection with vipassana. The point is to experience reality, something that seems counterintuitive when people talk about psychedelics. Usually, you have a sangha -- people who are cultivating with you, whatever the modality -- helps you stay grounded. Generally speaking, once you had some psychedelic experience, you'd find meditating much easier. It's the journey, not the destination. Of course :-)
  • rooker 14y ago
    It's funny that you say all of this, because I think it's completely true. I've never tried mushrooms, LSD, or any sort of hallucinogen beyond MDMA. MDMA alone changed my life, but what followed was how I utilized that moment of awareness that I experienced. I started meditating, read The Power of Now by Tolle, and having had enough of a philosophical and meditative foundation for understanding what Tolle was saying, I can occasionally enter a realm of understanding far beyond the shallow experiences I had lived in my life up to that point. It's so true when you say that reality is so much bigger than you think, because once you realize the ridiculous amount of depth that goes into every single thing around you (even the room your in contains materials built by dozens of people from across the world - think of how long it takes you to cook breakfast in the morning) then everything in your life begins to take on a sense of perspective. That said, I really want to try mushrooms/acid because I feel like I'm at this midway point, bobbing back and forth between the awareness of meditation and the power of the present and slipping back into old thought habits and anxieties. I feel like a pokemon evolving, flashing between my old form and my new form and my ego keeps wanting to hit B to stop the evolution. :P