There is a lot of exciting research into psychedelics happening right now. Depression, end of life care, PTSD are just a few areas where psychedelics may have a big positive impact.
YouTube link – Roshi Joan Halifax, Michael Pollan, Dacher Keltner: The Power of Awe
Both the podcast and the video are excellent. Check them out.
In the summer of 1978 I lived near the beach on Phuket in Thailand. In those days the island had not been developed yet and there was only one hotel. I never looked at the hotel because I found something I liked better. For $1.50/night I stayed in a hut by the beach for several weeks. Several people I met told me to order a mushroom omelet at the little cafe on the beach. They smiled when they suggested this. One morning I decided to order this mystery omelet. The rest of that day I spent on a rock in the surf and in my hut, meditating. It didn’t occur to me that I had taken a drug because to me, after three years of daily meditation, it didn’t feel different.
Recently, neuroscience has confirmed a connection between meditation and psychedelics in that MRI brain scans taken of people meditating and of people taking psychedelics look very, very similar.
In fact I felt that the trip was simply an extension of my meditation practice. What I mean by that is that the experience was somewhat like riding an e-bike. I am still riding the bike and I am still pedaling, but the e-motor helps me get up to speed quicker and makes the climb a little easier. And it is true that many, many people turned to meditation after such a psychedelic experience. In fact, American Buddhism might not have happened without people who, after psychedelic experiences in the 60s and 70s, traveled to Asia to learn meditation and brought back what became Western Buddhism. Or take Dr. Alpert as an example, who became Baba Ram Dass. In any case, that day I laughed so much that my whole mouth was tired the next morning. Smiling so much can wear you out… :-)
Here is a quote by Michael Pollan – from the above-linked video.
I mean the two biggest problems we face as a civilization I would say are the environmental crisis and tribalism. Both come from the objectifying of the other and therefore the willingness to exploit the other whether the other is people of a different faith, people of a different race, or nature, and so a solvent for this kind of thinking is exactly what the culture needs right now.
The cat stretches itself into a long line, then sits up. It appears to look into space, relaxed and unconcerned. Does it see ghosts? Does it dream with open eyes? I think it is practicing the Hunter Meditation.
I believe that a long time ago, perhaps tens of thousands of years ago, hunters discovered this form of mediation, different from what we today know as Yoga or Zen or Vipassana meditation, but perhaps different only in its goal. While most meditation practiced today aims to calm the person, to quiet or focus the mind, the Hunter Meditation had the simple goal of putting food on the table… and probably had interesting side effects other people eventually observed.
When tracking trophy a hunter might scan the horizon with his eyes, looking for the animal they want to kill. When looking for food a hunter, human or beast, doesn’t want to miss the nearby rabbit just because they are busy scanning the horizon. So, I imagine, the hunter sat quietly and opened their eyes to everything in their view, from one corner of the eye to the other. Most animals don’t see that which doesn’t move, and so the hunter’s stillness is better than the movement of searching. Keeping the head still and the eyes open, but not staring, not scanning, the hunter waits for any prey’s movement. The hunter’s breathing slows naturally, their eyes are soft but alert, and they become one with their surroundings.
Overcast with rain now and then. Dug a hole for the little three foot tree that was a gift from the school we did the benefit concert at the Lensic in June for. The soil around here is mostly sand and rocks and digging even one to two feet down takes a lot of effort. Well, it’s got a new home now and the drizzle-rain gave it the perfect welcome.
Went back to the Canyon Preserve and took a few photos. Colors looked incredible in the muted light of the overcast sky.
Minimal Mac I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do. — Leonardo da Vinci
In the evening I made dinner for Roshi Joan Halifax, who I had not seen since we met in Soho, Manhattan, in May (((we were playing at the Blue Note, she was doing something at the U.N.))). Interestingly we knew that we were both in Manhattan via Twitter.
From the New Yorker. This is the article, but you need to subscribe to read all of it.
Molchanova uses a technique that she refers to as “attention deconcentration.” (“They get it from the military,” Ericson said.) Molchanova told me, “It means distribution to the whole field of attention – you try to feel everything simultaneously. This condition creates an empty consciousness, so the bad thoughts don’t exist.”
“Is it difficult to learn?” “Yes, it is difficult. I teach it in my university. It’s a technique from ancient warriors-it was used by the samurai-but it was developed by a Russian scientist, Oleg Bakhtiyarov, as a psychological-state-management technique for people who do very monotonous jobs.”
That’s hardly a new technique or something invented by the Russian military. In Zen, this is called just sitting, or shikantaza. In fact, I think it was preceded by a hunting technique that may be thousands of years old, whereby hunters learned to sit still and use panoramic attention, that is, attention that is distributed all around the body instead of focused on one particular spot.
It is curious that I started practicing this technique on my own as a child. I would sit down somewhere and just de-focus. I would hear everything around me, I would see things that moved in the field of my vision, and my awareness was just like a spehere radiating from where I sat. It was just a game I played by myself.
What bored engineers can do with an automated console:
I usually sit in the afternoon or late at night, but today I sat zazen at 08:00. They say one should not sit zazen with closed eyes unless one has at least 15 years of zazen experience. I have practiced zazen for 5 years but have been meditating for 35, and so I allow myself to close my eyes about half of the 40 minutes I sit every day. I only do it when I am wide awake, so I don’t fall asleep. When the conditions are good, meaning that I am relaxed and yet alert, I will close my eyes and sometimes that’s just pure bliss. Mind, calm like a lake without wind and yet ready for any splash in the water. Timeless.
William Gibson A MILLION SECONDS IS 11 DAYS
A billion seconds is 32 years.
A trillion seconds is 32,000 years.
I have crossed the 1,500,000,000 second threshhold. It looks like a lot and it feels like nothing.
Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly.
Suddenly I awoke.
Now, I do not know whether I was then
a man dreaming I was a butterfly,
or whether I am now a butterfly
dreaming that I am a man.
– Chuang Tzu (c.360 BC – c. 275 BC)
I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke.
Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly,
or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?
I rode my fixie to Downtown Subscription for a green chile croissant and a coffee. Must ask David @ Mellow Velo about getting a slightly larger cog, maybe just +1T.
More time-lapse photography. I am hunting moving shadows around the house. The camera takes one photo every 9 seconds. Odd noise to have around.
The first seven chapters of the text, often called the Inner Chapters, are generally attributed to Zhuang Zhou (Chuang Chou), who, according to legend, lived in what is now known as Honan from approximately 370-286 BC. The rest of the text is often understood to contain fragments of material, some of which are sometimes attributed to the same author as the Inner Chapters, some of which are attributed to other authors, including representatives of the Yangzhu (Yang Chu) tradition. For the sake of convenience, this article will refer to the author and/or authors of the text simply as Zhuangzi.
The Long Now Blog » We are programmed to be interrupted. Wired has a great interview with an author named Maggie Jackson who has written a book about the neurobiological basis of attention and how it is affected by all the “lovely distractions” modern society provides. Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age describes three types of attention – orientation, a general sense of awareness, and executive. Her concern is that our modern technological culture is constantly distracting us – and that we like it. Scientific American just ran an article about a study with similar findings:
