Franois Pontvianne MACS Research Essay May 2014

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PSYCHEDELICS AND BUDDHISM:
INTER-RELATIONSHIP & ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

INTRODUCTION
In the 1950's, new substances came to the attention of western science: psychedelics. Among them:
peyote ca, whose effects upon Aldous Huxley, a highly sensible individual (incidentally interested in
Buddhism prior to his experience), were described in his famous essay "The Doors of Perception"; LSD
discovered by Albert Hoffman in Switzerland; psilocybin mushrooms discovered by Gordon & Valentina
Wasson; and more recently ayahuasca (with DiMethylTryptamine aka DMT as the psychoactive compound)
which is a very powerful brew from the Amazon basin. At the same time, China invaded Tibet. Several
cultural and Buddhist sites were vandalized by Red Guards, as a consequence of the Cultural Revolution.
Relationships between Buddhists and China were tensed, and eventually the situation led many Buddhists,
including the Dalai Lama, to leave the secluded area of Tibet, hence creating the Tibetan diaspora. This
ultimately made Tibetan Buddhism, and Buddhism in general, more accessible to the rest of the world,
Buddhist teachers sprouting all around the globe.
Both Buddhism and psychedelics came to the attention of the western world at the same time, and
the practice of psychedelics was since their discovery related to Buddhism. Some may speak of
synchronicity rather than coincidence. Aldous Huxley studied Buddhism and meditation prior to his peyote
experience, Alan Watts studied the mystical experience in Eastern Religions and using psychedelics, and
the bible of the 1960's psychonauts, "The Psychedelic Experience : a manual based on the Tibetan book of
the Dead" was also inspired from Buddhism. All these examples point to a relationship between
psychedelics and Buddhism, and it is this relationship which we are going to explore in this essay.
In order to put the reader at ease, we will first of all clarify the terms and contextualize them in an
historical perspective. What are psychedelics and what kind of experience do they induce? What is the gist
of Buddhist philosophy, and were psychedelics related to Buddhism prior to the twentieth century? We
will then ask why the intersection between the two is a relevant topic to study.
To answer this question we will study the present state of psychedelic use in Buddhist culture, we
will review the different opinions among Buddhists as to the use of Psychedelics in Buddhist practice, and
we will then study the Buddhist doctrines relating to psychedelic use. These steps will introduce what kind
of psychedelic uses can be compatible with the Buddhist teachings, which is the topic which we will explore
next.
Indeed, Buddhism is concerned with the use of psychedelics as a spiritual practice. We will see how
Buddhist practice can be used for psychedelic use, and reciprocally how psychedelic use can be integrated
into Buddhist practice. Is there a method for safe use of psychedelics?
This subject will lead us to question drug policies from a Buddhist perspective, which will constitute
one of the topics from the last part of the report, concerned with the ethical considerations arising from
psychedelic and Buddhist philosophy. We will also study the roots of the ecological crisis and how
Buddhism and psychedelics might play a role as to solve it.
Franois Pontvianne MACS Research Essay May 2014
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PSYCHEDELICS, ENTHEOGENS & THE MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE

The word Psychedelic comes from the Greek root psykhe, or "mind" and deloun or delos "to make
visible or clear," they are 'mind manifesting.' Completing the process of purification of the mind is the
essence of the Buddha's Way. They are plants, mushrooms or chemicals such as Cannabis, Amanita
Muscaria or MDMA (ecstasy). The focus of this essay will be on entheogens (etymologically 'generating
the divine within') which are defined as psychoactive plants, mushrooms or chemicals used in a religious
context and/or providing a feeling of sacredness, such as LSD, mescaline, psilocin and psilocybin
mushrooms, or ayahuasca. These compounds can help generate mystical experiences (also called state
of unitive consciousness, primary religious experience, peak experience, intense conversion experience,
sacred oneness, gratuitous grace, and many other names). The University of John Hopkins found that
"Psilocybin produced a range of acute perceptual changes, subjective experiences, and labile moods
including anxiety. Psilocybin also increased measures of mystical experience. At 2 months [and one year
follow-up], the volunteers rated the psilocybin experience as having substantial personal meaning and
spiritual significance and attributed to the experience sustained positive changes in attitudes and
behaviour". They concluded that psilocybin occasioned mystical experiences similar to spontaneously
occurring ones under supportive conditions. (Griffiths, Richards, McCann, Jesse. 268-283)
Mystical experiences resulting from drug use are not readily accepted by Western society. In the
words of Alan Watts : "Western culture has, historically, a particular fascination with the value and virtue
of man as an individual, self-determining, responsible ego, controlling himself and his world by the power
of conscious effort and will. Nothing, then, could be more repugnant to this cultural tradition than the
notion of spiritual or psychological growth through the use of drugs. A "drugged" person is by definition
dimmed in consciousness, fogged in judgment, and deprived of will. But not all psychotropic
(consciousness-changing) chemicals are narcotic and soporific, as are alcohol, opiates, and barbiturates.
The effects of what are now called psychedelic (mind-manifesting) chemicals differ from those of alcohol
as laughter differs from rage, or delight from depression. There is really no analogy between being "high"
on LSD and "drunk" on bourbon. True, no one in either state should drive a car, but neither should one
drive while reading a book, playing a violin, or making love." ((Watts, 1968) Furthermore, the mystical
experience on drugs is said not to be genuine and to be illusory. But what does genuine and illusory mean?
Neurologically speaking, the experience will be felt if the right neurotransmitters enter the brain. The body
will not discriminate between the neurotransmitters coming from his glands or coming from the
environment, indeed the drugs/neurotransmitters coming from the environment become the organism
once ingested. Dennis McKenna makes this point clear: "I'm here to tell you that all experience is a drug
experience. We're all on drugs all the time, largely because we are MADE of drugs".
There is another reason why mystical experiences from drug use is taboo in our society, and that is
because the idea itself of mystical experience and consciousness change is misunderstood. In the absence
of psychedelic use or contemplative practice, it is hard to imagine how varied states of consciousness can.
In the words of the psychologist of religion William James : "our normal waking consciousness, rational
consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by
the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through
life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are there in all
their completeness, definite types of mentality which probably somewhere have their field of application
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and adaptation. No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of
consciousness quite disregarded. How to regard them is the question,-for they are so discontinuous with
ordinary consciousness. Yet they may determine attitudes though they cannot furnish formulas, and open
a region though they fail to give a map. At any rate, they forbid a premature closing of our accounts with
reality."
It is impossible to describe what the mystical experience really is, as the mystical experience lies
beyond words. The mystical experience is a unifying experience in which the organism feels itself to be as
one with the rest of the fabric of existence. In this kind of state, consciousness doesn't see life in words, it
doesn't process it with thought, because in order to think you have to "thing" the world, which is to make
distinctions. But the truth is: there are no distinctions. Words are just small mouth noises which don't have
a meaning apart from the one we decide to ascribe to them. They have no ground in physical reality in the
sense that the word water will never quench one's thirst, or the word "money" won't help you buy
anything. The mystical experience is then an experience of ultimate truth, in which the web of inter-
relationships is revealed to the experiencer, maybe a bad way to phrase it since, in that state, there is no
difference between the experience and the experiencer. There is only, as Buddhist call it, the mind.
Let's try to define the effects of the mystical experience further. Following his mystical experiences
using LSD, peyote and psilocybin, Alan Watts enumerates four great characteristics which can be ascribed
to the mystical experience:
The first characteristic is a slowing down of time, a concentration in the present. One's normally
compulsive concern for the future decreases, and one becomes aware of the enormous importance and
interest of what is happening at the moment. Other people, going about their business on the streets,
seem to be slightly crazy, failing to realize that the whole point of life is to be fully aware of it as it happens.
One therefore relaxes, almost luxuriously, into studying the colours in a glass of water, or in listening to
the now highly articulate vibration of every note played on an oboe or sung by a voice.
The second characteristic I will call awareness of polarity. This is the vivid realization that states, things,
and events that we ordinarily call opposite are interdependent, like back and front, or the poles of a
magnet. By polar awareness one sees that things which are explicitly different are implicitly one: self and
other, subject and object, left and right, male and female-and then, a little more surprisingly, solid and
space, figure and background, pulse and interval, saints and sinners, police and criminals, in-groups and
out-groups. Each is definable only in terms of the other, and they go together transactionally, like buying
and selling, for there is no sale without a purchase, and no purchase without a sale. As this awareness
becomes increasingly intense, you feel that you yourself are polarized with the external universe in such a
way that you imply each other. Your push is its pull, and its push is your pull-as when you move the steering
wheel of a car. Are you pushing it or pulling it?
The third characteristic, arising from the second, is awareness of relativity. I see that I am a link in an infinite
hierarchy of processes and beings, ranging from molecules through bacteria and insects to human beings,
and, maybe, to angels and gods-a hierarchy in which every level is in effect the same situation. For example,
the poor man worries about money while the rich man worries about his health: the worry is the same, but
the difference is in its substance or dimension. I realize that fruit flies must think of themselves as people,
because, like ourselves, they find themselves in the middle of their own world-with immeasurably greater
things above and smaller things below. To us, they all look alike and seem to have no personality-as do the
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Chinese when we have not lived among them. Yet fruit flies must see just as many subtle distinctions among
themselves as we among ourselves.
The fourth characteristic is awareness of eternal energy, often in the form of intense white light, which
seems to be both the current in your nerves and that mysterious e which equals mc2. This may sound like
megalomania or delusion of grandeur-but one sees quite clearly that all existence is a single energy, and
that this energy is one's own being. Of course there is death as well as life, because energy is a pulsation,
and just as waves must have both crests and troughs, the experience of existing must go on and off.
Basically, therefore, there is simply nothing to worry about, because you yourself are the eternal energy of
the universe playing hide-and-seek (off-and-on) with itself." (Watts, 1968)
One of the most fundamental Buddhist insight revealed by the mystical experience is that there is
no self, only the illusion of one, as during the mystical experience, the self just melts away into ecstasy. To
describe the experience, "we reach for metaphors of up and down to explain these feelings. We talk about
being uplifted or elevated." He goes on to take the metaphor of a staircase for the mystical experience
taking us from the experience of life as profane or ordinary upwards to the experience of life as sacred, or
deeply interconnected He argues that the mystical experience could be an evolutive adaptation rather than
a bug in consciousness, following Durkheim's homo duplex theory and Darwin's multilevel selection theory.
If so the implications are profound, because it would mean humans evolved to be religious. "Indeed, isnt
religion above all -before it is doctrine and morality, rites and institutions, religious experience? And isnt
religious experience in its highest form mystical experience?" (Kung, 1986). As Graham Hancock says, "it
appears to be a natural human urge, as deep-rooted as our urges for food, sex, and nurturing relationships,
to seek out and explore such altered states of consciousness. ".
Yet, the mystical experience is not just an altered state of consciousness. Its repercussions echo
long after the drugs have been evacuated by the body. The insights from the experience have to be
grounded in "normal waking consciousness" as William James calls it. Alan Watts challenges the notion
that drugs would have no spiritual validity because they would be "escapes from reality: "this criticism
assumes unjustly that the mystical experiences themselves are escapist or unreal. LSD, in particular, is by
no means a soft and cushy escape from reality. It can very easily be an experience in which you have to
test your soul against all the devils in hell. For me, it has been at times an experience in which I was at once
completely lost in the corridors of the mind and yet relating that very lostness to the exact order of logic
and language, simultaneously very mad and very sane. But beyond these occasional lost and insane
episodes, there are the experiences of the world as a system of total harmony and glory, and the discipline
of relating these to the order of logic and language must somehow explain how what William Blake called
that "energy which is eternal delight" can consist with the misery and suffering of everyday life."(Watts,
1968) This idea of suffering is linked to the first of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism which recognizes
the presence of suffering in life. We will now clarify what Buddhism is, and how it's been related to
psychedelics historically.

Franois Pontvianne MACS Research Essay May 2014
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BUDDHISM: MAIN IDEAS AND HISTORICAL RELATIONSHIP TO PSYCHEDELICS

The word "Buddhism" is maybe a misleading description for the body of knowledge left behind by
Siddhartha Gautama, said to be the first Buddha, as it implies a conventional religion with a God figure and
its worshippers. Surely, the Pali canon, the earliest records of what the Buddha taught suggests that
Buddha was not a Buddhist, or teaching Buddhism, that he was always discouraging any fixed views, he
urged students to think for themselves and even question his own teachings. He was unwilling to be
worshipped and forbade any representation of himself: statues, drawings and the like; a request that was
honoured for up to a hundred years after his death. The term Buddhism is a Western and relatively modern
name: for was otherwise known as the Buddha Dharma, the teachings of the Buddhas, that is those who
achieved perfect wisdom clear.
The core of the teachings: are about waking up to the end suffering. They are referred to as the
Four Noble Truths: life entails suffering, selfish desires that cannot be secure by the cause, the cessation
of suffering is attainable and there is a path for its attainment. The Eight fold path offers practical guidelines
for ethical and mental development, with the goal of freeing oneself from attachments and delusions.
Great emphasis is put on practice in the real world. Living according to the Eightfold Path is not easy and
goes against the current, as Buddha put it. For example it is often just those things that we are sure will
make us happy, that in fact contribute to our suffering. Each component of the path should be understood
as highly interdependent.
The Eight Fold path calls for appropriate view, intention, speech, and action. It asks to be careful:
about how we support ourselves, to make greater great effort, to be self-disciplined, to actively observe
and control the way thought arises, and to cultivate one pointedness of mind. The path is presented in
three sections: Prajna, mind purifying wisdom, Sila, ethical wholesome behaviour, and Samadhi: deep
concentration or meditation. By avoiding behaviours which cause : internal ethical confusion or anxiety,
one is able to calm the mind and the emotions, still one's intention and truly notice the basic conditions of
reality in the arising and passing of phenomena. These conditions touch all phenomena and they are the
three marks of existence shared by all sentient beings, namely: impermanence, constant flux (anicca);
suffering or unsatisfactoriness (dukkha); non-self or no-separate-self (Anatta). The Buddha asserted that
one who sees condition arising, sees the Dharma. This is of course a vastly over simplified summary of the
Eight Fold Path, which the Buddha called the stream. But as one enters the stream, three obstacles are
completely abandoned: belief is self, intractable scepticism, and clinging to rites and rituals. Seven more
obstacles will need to be abandoned to achieve perfecthood. Perhaps under under-emphasized and left
and unmentioned by many teachers is that the action of being relaxed in the present, and aware,
concurrently with following an ethical path of harmless, is highly pleasurable.
The Five Precepts constitute the basic Buddhist code of ethics, undertaken by lay followers of the
Buddha Gautama in the Theravadan as well as in Mahayanan traditions. The precepts in both traditions are
essentially identical and are commitments to abstain from harming living beings, stealing, sexual
misconduct, lying and intoxication.
Obviously Buddhism has a lot to do with psychedelics if we compare it to what we said in the first
part: in the psychedelic experience, existence is felt without suffering, and therefore shows that the end
of suffering is attainable. It also recognizes the existence of suffering (Dukkha); it recognizes impermanence
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and constant flux (anicca) through a concentration of the experience in the present, and it can give a
mystical experience in which all things are realized to be inter-related, fundamentally one system of energy,
revealing the no-self or no-separate-concept (Anatta). But, as the religious historian Huston Smith said:
"while psychedelic use is all about altered states, Buddhism is all about altered traits, and one does not
necessarily lead to the other [although it often does]." But it seems that psychedelics may have been used
historically as a part of Buddhist practice, this is what we will inquire next.
As Buddhist teachings spread, they adapted to be understood in different cultures. "Initially
practiced only by monks and nuns, a major upheaval came in the 1st century with the advent of the
Mahayana ("greater vehicle"), a movement which opened the religion to laymen. The Mahayana advocated
a doctrine of ultimate altruism in which the ideal is to work for the enlightenment of others and the earlier
attitude of selfishly seeking one's own salvation was termed, somewhat dismissively, as the hina-yana
("lesser vehicle").
"In the 6th century we began to see evidence of a secret society (guhya samaja) within Buddhism.
It may have existed for many years before "coming out" possibly as far back as the Indus Valley civilization
or beyond. One reason for the secrecy could be that this society, open to all castes, practiced rituals that
were the sole prerogative of the highest caste of all - the Brahmin priests. One such was the Vedic fire ritual
during which, in Hindu tradition, the Brahmins prepare a psychoactive potion from a plant, pour a little
onto the flames and drink the remainder. This entheogenic drink was at the heart of an underground
movement which affected both Hinduism and Buddhism. In Hinduism, the secret society became known
as tantra, from the name of class of scriptures. In Buddhism the movement called itself the guhya-mantra-
yana ("secret mantra vehicle") or vajra-yana ("thunderbolt vehicle"), placing itself on a par with the
Hinyana and Mahayana and asserting itself as a successor to both.
"[...] But whether they aligned themselves as Hindu or Buddhist, the central element of the secret societies
was the entheogenic drink imbibed in initiations and at regular meetings. This drink had various names in
Hinduism, including soma; Buddhists called it amrita. [...] What was amrita? The oldest texts of Hinduism
speak of amrita as being synonymous with soma, the psychoactive drink of the gods. Wasson proposed
that soma was a decoction of the Amanita muscaria mushroom and, as we shall see, there is evidence for
this in Buddhism. On the other hand, there is also evidence for several other drugs, including cannabis,
datura, camphor, betel and [at least in most instances] Psilocybin mushrooms. [...] (Crowley). Parker
supports this view stating that when sources are taken together, "their combined weight leaves little room
for doubt that Vajrayana has had a well-documented tradition of making use of entheogenic plants
(especially datura and cannabis) for magico-religious and psychospiritual purposes. While this use may
never have been particularly widespread, it is certainly significant."
Tibetan Buddhism was also heavily influenced by shamanism according to Ray, although he doesn't
provide evidence of the use of psychedelics. Bon, a syncretic religion that arose in Tibet and Nepal during
the 10th and 11th centuries, with strong shamanistic and animistic traditions is sometimes regarded as a
substrate of Buddhism by scholars, although it is not a branch of Buddhism, and it's been associated with
the shamanistic use of plants in sacred texts. (Brown) Brown ponders his argument, saying that "however,
the history of Bon is obscured, as the earliest surviving documents referring to the religion come from the
9th and 10th centuries, which is well after Buddhist fundamentalists began to suppress indigenous
practices and beliefs." Nonetheless, there is a strong connection between Buddhism and psychedelic drugs
in the present day and that is the topic which we are going to explore next.
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BUDDHISM AND PSYCHEDELICS IN THE PRESENT DAY

As we have seen, and since a few decades, some attention has been given to a connection between
the contemporary practice of Buddhism and the use of psychedelic substances. In a survey conducted in
1996 by the popular Buddhist magazine, Tricycle, 89% of the 1454 respondents indicated that they were
engaged in Buddhist practice and 83% admitted they had taken psychedelics. 40% claimed that their
interest in Buddhism was sparked by psychedelics and 24% said they were currently taking psychedelics.
In a more recent monograph (J. W. Coleman, The New Buddhism, Oxford UP, 2002: 201), 62% of Western
Buddhists surveyed confessed that they had used psychedelics (this number was 80% among practitioners
of Tibetan Buddhism). These numbers are significantly higher than the 8% among the general public who
admit to psychedelic use in the United States according to U.S. government surveys (Coleman 2002).From
the 1996 issue of Tricycle and a more recent collection of essays published in the book Zig Zag Zen:
Buddhism and Psychedelics (2002), it is clear that there exists a subculture of American Buddhists that
continue to use psychoactive substances, possibly for religious reasons.
These numbers clearly show that American Buddhism is heavily influenced by psychedelic use.
Interest in Buddhism in America has known a great success, and Buddhism itself has not been greater since
it was first introduced to China where it proceeded to grow steadily for 500 years, and in the recent years,
the serious and thoughtful use of psychedelics has been making a resurgence, perhaps more profoundly
than in the Sixties. (Badiner) The psychedelic renaissance which is happening nowadays is due to a
reintroduction of psychedelics in the scientific discourse. Once again, lie in the early days of psychedelics
in America, psychedelics are the private preserve of scientists. Allan Hunt Badiner points out that most of
the teachers and researchers who have become well known in the psychedelic movement are also
experienced in the philosophy and practices of Buddhism. He then points to the different attitudes towards
psychedelics among Buddhist teachers: "Meanwhile, psychedelics lurk in the personal histories of almost
all first-generation Buddhist teachers in Europe and America, although today we find many teachers
advising against pursuing a path they once travelled. Few Buddhists make the claim that psychedelic use is
a path itself -- some maintain that it is a legitimate gateway, and others feel Buddhism and psychedelics
don't mix at all.
People who do not favour the mixing of psychedelics with psychedelics often invoke the 5th precept
of the Gautama Buddha in order to justify their position, although they may sometimes have other reasons.
The 5th precept is part of the Buddhist code of ethics and asks to undertake the training rule of abstaining
from intoxicants that cause heedlessness, carelessness. But psychedelics are not intoxicants. In the words
of Timothy Leary: "What are these substances? Medicines, or drugs, or sacramental foods? It is easier to
sat what they are not. They are not narcotics, nor intoxicants, nor energizers, nor anaesthetics, nor
tranquilizers. They are rather, biochemical keys which unlock experiences shatteringly new to most
Westerners". But it can be indeed argued that they can cause harm and therefore shouldn't be used in the
practice of Buddhism. According to me, what it really says is that if psychedelics are to be used, they should
be used in a context that minimizes the possibility of harm and careless action, to oneself or to others.
What's more, the fifth precept exists in different versions and is sometimes explicitly concerned with
alcoholic beverages, which are much more likely to cause heedlessness and carelessness than psychedelics.
In fact, it doesn't matter what the precept is directed to. Indeed, one of the Dharma's most
treasured elements is the suggestion to "come and see", or Ehipassiko in Pali, if the teachings work for you
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personally. Ehipassiko consists in an open invitation to investigate, to scrutinize, and if need be even
criticize the Dharma, before accepting it. No miracles, no divine messengers, no texts written in stone, no
coercion, no fanaticism and no bigotry. The practice of Buddha Dharma is a first-person endeavour. You
are called to use your own life as a lens, or light in a laboratory. The beauty of this principle is that it dignifies
and empowers each individual and honours their own ability to discern clearly whether the practice works
or not. (Badiner) This understanding is further expanded in the Kalama Sutta. Story is told of how the
residents of a village asked the Buddha how to determine whose teachings to follow, as many spiritual
leaders had visited them, expanding their teachings and criticizing the messages of others. Paraphrasing
his reply, he said --: dont follow something just because you hear it all the time, nor because you read it
in a book [or on a website], dont base your spiritual life upon surmise, or axiom, or bias, nor because a
person in holy robes says it is so, even if it's your teacher. Instead, call upon the direct knowledge grounded
in your own experience. Truth is in life. So take into account words of the wise, although not passively -but,
rather, through constant questioning and personal testing to identify those truths which you are able to
demonstrate to yourself actually reduce your own stress or misery. If you thus find something of value,
effective in your own life, by all means, take it to heart. I think we can apply the principle of Ehipassiko to
the question we're focusing on in this essay. If Buddhism itself must pass the test of personal experience
to have clarity, and to be of value, so then it follows that the issue whether psychedelics can be part of
one's Buddhist practice must also be open to personal experimentation and experience.
Alan Watts considered both Buddhism and psychedelics to be part of an ideal individual
philosophical quest. He was not interested in Buddhism to be studied and defined in such a way that mixing
it up with other interests and disciplines such as quantum theory or Gestalt psychology or aesthetics or
most certainly psychedelics. One time, when Alan wants was giving a seminar at the Esalen Institute, one
seminarian asked him: "what do you think is the best path to enlightenment? A lot of meditation or taking
psychedelics?" He chuckled thoughtfully and said: "well, I don't know about a best way but perhaps you
could think about it like this: you can fly on a jet plane to New York, or you can walk.
And indeed it seems that many Buddhists practitioners have made the choice to "come and see"
what psychedelics are about, to take the plane. Allan Hunt Badiner reports: "In September of 2009,
Shambhala Sun ran a poll on their blog called: Heres my stance on drugs and alcohol. Readers were
asked to make a selection for what was true for them among the following choices: non-Buddhists that
dont use, use a little, or use more than a little, and Buddhists that dont use, use a little, or use more than
a little. Predictably, the non-Buddhist numbers were just 18% of respondents and among them there were
more than twice as many people who used than not. Among Buddhists 16% said they did not use, while
52% said they use a little, and another 14% of Buddhists said they use more than a little. Evidence is ample
that in practice there is much more overlap than what is formally acknowledged"
After all, the psychedelics are out of the bag and aren't going back in. Badiner expands:"
Psychedelics in relation to Dharma will be of increasing relevance and interest in the larger context of
Buddhist Studies for the duration. Just as therapy has become increasingly medicalised, we live in a culture
that rewards fast transitions, and not just in the U.S." This rewarding of fast transition is reminiscent of
Vajrayana. As discussed earlier, the thunderbolt vehicle, was originally a way of attaining enlightenment
using entheogens as catalysts for spiritual growth. Robert Thurman says that the issue of psychedelics
must be understood by anyone concerned about the future of Buddhist practice. The New York Times
published a widely circulated article called: Hallucinogens Have Doctors Tuning in Again.
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Recent studies have indicated that beneficially reframing death anxiety can occur with psilocybin,
and that MDMA-assisted psychotherapy can reduce post-traumatic stress disorder. Other clinical trials
suggest psychedelics can be very helpful with obsessive-compulsive disorder, neuroses and psychoses,
depression, alcoholism and addiction (particularly in the case of entheogens such as ibogaine, LSD,
psilocybin, and DMT which have been studied to alleviate alcohol, cocaine and heroin addiction). (Badiner)
Nevertheless psychedelics can be said to instil in people a thirst for more experiences.
Jack Kornfield considers that this thirst as two sides. One is negative because craving for a mystical
experience, which is an attitude of grasping and attachment to this transitory phenomenon, induces
suffering. On the other hand, speaking from his personal experience: "psychedelics awakened in people
not just a thirst, but a sense of the possibilities in exploring the mind and body, and living in a different
way. Then they began to have those sensitivities and those visions without repeatedly taking psychedelics,
by undertaking some spiritual discipline, yoga, or meditation. People began to see what was necessary was
to take care with their speech, with their relationships, with their family, with their actions in the social
community and the political world, in a way that was non-harming and that was conscious. So we have
gone backwards in a way to discover that the roots of fundamental change has to do with our physical
body, with our behaviour, and with all those things that are called "virtue," followed by a systematic
discipline. Those are the supports for long lasting or genuine access to these transformative experiences. I
would not say this is true for everyone. There may be people who actually have used psychedelics as a
sadhana, as a practice. But I have been around a lot and it is really rare."
As Allan Badiner points out, "in any event, do we care about just Buddhists, or are we not also
interested in young people who could potentially use Buddhist practice to enhance their lives?" And this is
a very good question, since it is not at all uncommon in America or Western Europe for young people to
psychedelics before they even finish highschool. Maybe a change in how we communicate about
psychedelics should occur. Instead of the "just say no" argument, psychedelics could be recommended, if
chosen to be taken, to be part of a spiritual practice. All the shamanic cultures out of which most of the
psychedelics come from have a deep respect for these plants and mushrooms. Psychedelic use is
considered for sacred purposes, not for recreational ones. Maybe communication about the issue of the
use of psychedelics in a spiritual practice could help users to make informed decisions about their use, and
use them so as to maximize benefit and minimize harm.
What harm could there be ? According to Vanja Palmers, a Zen practitioner in Switzerland, there
can be dangers: "They are very powerful sacraments, or medicine, and they have to be approached with
the utmost respect, preferably under the guidance of an experienced friend. The fears most commonly
voiced are damage to body and brain as well as dangerous behaviour and addiction. The classic
psychedelics, unlike substances such as heroin, cocaine, and alcohol, have virtually no organic toxicity in
the quantities in which they are ingested. Their addictive risk is too small to be measured when used in
ceremonial settings. Psychedelic traditions from the Vedic dawn to Eleusis to the Native American Church
have succeeded in creating ritual contexts in which hazardous acting-out is virtually unknown". Myron
Stolaroff, in his review of Zig Zag Zen, also pointed out that psychedelics can induce pain: "Successful
outcomes, which can be dramatic and profound, require deep intention and a willingness to encounter and
resolve repressed material, which can often be painful. However, resolving such unconscious material
results in substantial liberation, permitting greater clarity and understanding, freeing intuition,
substantially enhanced well-being, and improving the ability to reach deeply into the core of the Real Self,
providing the most fulfilling realization of which people are capable."
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THE ENTHEOGEN VEHICLE & SPIRITUAL PRACTICE

Concerned about the large number of people who could benefit from fruitful meditation practice
but must still be occupied in the world by earning a living and raising a family, such people leading busy
lives and probably having no time to devote to perfecting a practice that will lead to significant freedom,
Myron J. Stolaroff developed a guideline for the use of psychedelics in a psychedelic context. His paper,
entitled "Are Psychedelics Useful in the Practice of Buddhism?" is recognized by many Buddhists to be a
reference in how psychedelics should be taken, if they are to be taken. Stolaroff believes informed use of
psychedelics can be helpful in more rapidly reaching the level of accomplishment at which practice
becomes self-sustaining: "The ultimate achievement of liberation must occur through interior
development that does not depend on the use of a plant or a chemical, although these may help in
discovering the way he says. Having not found divergent positions from Stolaroff's, we will be looking at
his advice assuming it represents the best presently available guideline to using psychedelics in a Buddhist
context.
He first identifies several key factors to consider in evaluating whether the use of psychedelics can be
personally fruitful. :
the legal status : the bad effect of using drugs is that it can lead to being jailed;
The methodology: psychedelics users should be fully informed of appropriate procedures, the
personality of the user and the guide should be taken into account as well as set and setting. Set
refers to the state of mind going into the experience and the intention of the user in terms of what
kind of results the experience is intended to produce. Preparing oneself spiritually for a psychedelic
experience might include reading from the words of inspiring teachers, meditation, yoga, fasting
etc. Making the effort to articulate an intention is extremely helpful. Setting refers to the physical
environment within which we have to choose to have the experience including other people, if any,
we choose to be in the company of. If one is inexperienced with the use of psychedelics, it may be
a good idea to have what is called a sitter. Someone you trust, cares about you to be a companion
to protect you and tend to your needs that you may have: water, pillows, reminders to breathe,
etc... Factors that contribute to an optimum setting may include familiarity, comfort, physical
beauty, safety, privacy and proximity to nature;
Low doses: "Many who have experimented with psychedelics have used high doses of substance to
assure penetration into the very rewarding transpersonal levels of experience. Such experiences
can be awesome, compelling, and extremely rewarding. Yet, it is often the case that these
experiences fade away in time unless there are diligent efforts to make the changes indicated. In
profound experiences, the layers of conditioning that, in ordinary states, hold one away from
liberation are transcended and from the lofty view of the transcendental state, personal
conditioning seems unimportant and often unrecognized. Yet after the experience, old habits and
patterns re-establish themselves and often there is no alteration in behaviour. The use of low doses
often can be much more effective in dealing with our "psychic garbage." " (Stolaroff)
Different compounds: Some compounds may be more suitable for developing meditation practice
than are others.
As well as Freeing deeply occluded areas, judicious spacing of psychedelic experiences, honouring
the experience and looking at the historical precedence.
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The key factors need to be considered, because unlike the allopathic medical perception of drugs, in
which the results are attributed to the particular action of the drug in the body, with psychedelics what
transpires depends far more on the characteristics of the participant ingesting the drug and the
circumstances of its use. If after looking at the key factors the choice is to use psychedelics, then Stolaroff
proposes advice regarding their use in a meditative practice. Indeed meditation and psychedelics, even
though they are very different lineages, they are pointing in the same direction i.e. the investigation of our
inner being, as Vanja Palmers points out. Therefore they should be compatible. Here is Stolaroff's point of
view on how they could be combined:
1. ETHICAL FRAMEWORK. Committing one to a suitable ethical framework, such as the Buddhist eight-
fold path, is essential. This is an important part of the mental set and also provides help in integrating
psychedelic experiences.
2. PREPARATION. The participant should have a thorough understanding of psychedelics including the
types of experience that may be expected, factors affecting experience, how to handle various kinds of
experiences and how to follow them up, and the importance of set and setting as described above. It is
important to have first undergone a high-dose experience with a qualified guide that has resulted in
reaching transpersonal levels. This will put the entire process into perspective.
3. EMPLOYING A CORRECT SUBSTANCE AT THE CORRECT DOSE LEVEL (Described above.)
4. DEVELOPING MENTAL STABILITY. This application is probably the most fruitful for employing psychedelic
substances. A practice focusing on the breath is particularly appropriate. With proper substance and dose,
one will note several possible developments. First, distractions may be more intense than in ordinary
practice because the action of the chemical releases more material from the unconscious. At the same
time, the enhanced awareness resulting from the action of the psychedelic allows one to notice in greater
detail how various attitudes, thoughts, and actions affect the ability to hold one's focus steady. From this,
one learns to hold the mind in the position of maximum effectiveness for becoming free of distractions and
for holding mental focus stable. One then experiences the deepening of the practice, more readily avoiding
distractions and moving into areas of peace, calm, and growing euphoria. With continuing practice, one
finds it easier to enter the numinous levels that one ultimately is seeking. Furthermore, the volition gained
in developing this practice under the influence of a psychedelic carries on into day-to-day practice during
which the same level of achievement becomes accessible. The outcome that I personally have found most
satisfying is the ability to hold the mind perfectly still, a state that makes access to previously unrevealed
regions of the mind available, including the direct contact with one's essence or divinity.
5. DEEPENING THE MEDITATION PRACTICE. One's daily practice may be strengthened by using the
discoveries made under the influence of psychedelics. I recommend working to obtain maximum benefit
from one psychedelic experience before proceeding with another. When experiences are spaced
judiciously in this manner, one learns under the influence to go deeper into the contact with the numinous.
As the ability to hold the mind steady grows, it becomes possible to focus more directly on the contact with
the inner teacher--our deepest self, our Buddha nature, or however one chooses to call the wise, guiding
entity within us. Maintaining this focus leads to what seems to me to be the most valuable, fulfilling
experiences possible. From such experiences, combined with daily practice, grows the ability to achieve
similar results in ordinary practice, until eventually the use of the psychedelic substance is no longer
required. At this point, the faculty for achieving optimum results has been developed within us. I like to
call this "developing a God muscle." (Stolaroff)
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Stolaroff states it is possible to develop the characteristics of the trained user as previously
described, when the mind can be held perfectly still so as to reveal other aspects of reality: "With continued
practice, the aspiring seeker increasingly learns how to focus the experience, learn trust, and develop
motivation and courage for deeper exploration. This practice will yield deeper and deeper penetration into
unknown areas of existence, with the possibility of bringing back ever new treasures. I therefore hope that
Buddhists and others will approach these substances with an open mind and, as a minimum, not stand in
the way of efforts to learn more about them and the most appropriate ways of employing them."
Havens adds other methods which could help the psychedelic user on the spiritual path: "the
Dzogchen systems of meditation can lend an especially interesting approach to psychedelic experience
because of its advanced methods of working with visionary experience. Other western psychological
approaches like Harm Reduction Therapy could also inform spiritual practitioners interested in using
substances as supporting conditions for personal growth" (2010)
We have now reviewed how psychedelics and Buddhism were inter-related from contemporary,
historical, philosophical, and methodological standpoints. Now we are going to discuss social change from
the perspective of the Buddhist and Psychedelic cultures.


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ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR SOCIAL AND PLANETARY CHANGE

In this last part we will consider the ethical considerations coming from Buddhism and the
psychedelic culture regarding social change. We will focus our attention on two social issues: the war on
drugs and the ecological crisis, but first of all we will look at why the entheogenic experience and Buddhism
are concerned with ethics and social change.
Psychedelics can lead to reflexions about ethics due to the fact that they can help induce a mystical
experience. Among the predictable consequences of mystical experiences that accompany responsible
work with non-ordinary states of consciousness are a deep reverence for life, ecological awareness, and a
desire to establish a new, more harmonious relationship with nature and with other human beings. "There
is a corresponding renunciation of the various forms of self-seeking, including the ethos of manipulation
and control." (Wulff, 1997) This constitutes the ethics of psychedelic users as well as Buddhists.
Buddhism has been associated with social change since its birth, indeed the Buddha himself was an
activist. He took on the challenge of what is essentially a reformation of Brahmanism and of the religious
establishment at the time. But there is found in the texts a great deal of wisdom about the nature of and
limits to Buddhist activism: the problem of being impassioned about beliefs, confusing one's convictions
with identity, the fact that we do not exist in an isolated independent way from all others, and the need to
keep the over-arching goal in sight: the purification of one's own mind. (Badiner) This gives us the
opportunity to plunge into the social issues if the present, and we will start with the so-called war on drugs.
Following the social unrest of the 1960's and 1970's, psychedelics were banned almost all over the
world. The United States seem to have had a big influence on global drug policies and they classed most of
these substances in the category one, meaning these substances have no value, even medicinally speaking.
All over the world, including in Western Europe, such unjust policies have been applied. Therefore the
consequences for possession and traffic are very severe. As a comparison, cocaine is a category three drug
because it can be used for because it is sometimes uses in surgical procedures. This means that the
entheogens we have been speaking about so far, these sacred compounds that can lead us to an
enrichment of ourselves, these plant teachers that have roamed the earth since time immemorial and still
survive in indigenous cultures all over the globe; have their healing value denied. Perhaps the most
outrageous example is cannabis. Modern science has proved many times that this plant was near to
unharmful and that it was in fact one of the plants with the most medicinal properties known to man.
Policymakers and governments do not follow the science in order to make their policies objectively
adequate. Then if policymakers and governments do not follow the agenda of science, what is their
agenda? Perhaps the best answer is from the psychedelic storyteller Terence McKenna: "Now, what do
psychedelics do and why are they such social dynamite? The answer is, it's not a health issue, it's not an
addiction issue, I mean, that's preposterous, it's about boundary dissolution. Every society from the classic
Maya to Fujiwara, Japan, to the France of the Bourbons, every society establishes a set of boundaries which
it then calls reality and woe betide you if you go across the boundary, because then you are outcast,
outclassed, outlandish, and the full fury of the community can be turned against you."
Rick Fields, in his essay in Zig Zag Zen, shows the desolate situation that has resulted from the ban
of these substances: "the war on at least one drug, the psychedelic variety, has been won. In place of the
alchemicals that reigned supreme for a momentarily eternal moment, young would be mind explorers now
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take their way through a fractioned marketplace of pot, coke, weak acid, heroin, cocaine, 'ludes, Ecstasy,
speed, crack Set and setting? The set is the fresh curious wary jumpy insecure brain of a bright young kid,
fourteen, twelve, ten, the age keeps dropping, and the setting is the school yard, the street corner, the stall
in the boys' or girls' room before homeroom. Or maybe (at best?) it's a tribal merge at a thumping, flashing
rave or a Grateful Dead concert. Always a buzzing swarm. But still hardly the contemplative gardens or
paisley candlelit retreats of the first psychedelic illuminati. The heady halcyon days and nights of
psychedelia, which once led so many to Buddhist practice, have been efficiently eliminated, reduced to
retrofashion. The young now turn on in a world in which the sacred has been trivialized into the
recreational. "
This essay, written in 1996, is in my opinion too grim to characterize the present situation. The
internet has helped many users to get informed and use responsibly, and sometimes even to find good
quality drugs. In the European Union for instance, it is possible to order psilocybin sclerota, produced in
controlled conditions, thanks to free exchange of people and goods between countries. However, as
Badiner reveals, the situation is still grim: "The drug war leads to cynicism and apathy and, of course, blights
thousands of lives. Profits from the illegal drug trade fuel organized crime and enhance the power of the
cartels to corrupt police, judges, and government officials. The newest casualties in the failed war on drugs
are our personal liberties. A society that actively banishes personal exploration with all psychedelic plants
will need to closely monitor its citizens. All our communications, transactions, and expressions are under
increasing surveillance by a growing and expensive bureaucracy of control and repression. None of this is
conducive to the peaceful and free contemplation of strategies for our personal liberation and fulfilment.
In reality, this ceases to be a war on drugs, but rather becomes a war on consciousness, war on free exercise
of that most precious of gifts bestowed on a human being."
We see, then, the mistreatment of psychedelic users, who are otherwise generally law abiding
citizens. There is a Buddhist response to this ongoing war on drugs which is in fact a war on people, and
that is great compassion. It is indeed a war on people, because people are not allowed access to this
compounds that let them explore consciousness. As Graham Hancock pointed out: "At the deepest level,
our consciousness is what we are. To the extent that we are not sovereign over our own consciousness
then we cannot in any meaningful sense be sovereign over anything else either." The war on drug is then
a war on consciousness, and therefore a war on personal freedom. Watts describes how and why the
psychedelics shouldn't be criminalized: "The undoubted mystical and religious intent of most users of the
psychedelics, even if some of these substances should be proved injurious to physical health, requires that
their free and responsible use be exempt from legal restraint in any republic that maintains a constitutional
separation of church and state. To the extent that mystical experience conforms to the tradition of genuine
religious involvement, and to the extent that psychedelics induce that experience, users are entitled to
some constitutional protection." (Watts, 1968)
As we have said before what psychedelics and Buddhist practice do is they dissolve boundaries,
and, in the words of Terence McKenna, "in the presence of dissolved boundaries, one cannot continue to
close one's eyes to the ruination of the earth, the poisoning of the seas, and the consequences of two
thousand years of unchallenged dominator culture, based on monotheism, hatred of nature, suppression
of the female, and so forth and so on." Terence McKenna points to the ongoing, disastrous, ecological crisis.
He hints at how the ecological crisis is also a crisis in culture and conditioning, whereby most people under
the dominator culture have severed their connection to nature. In the 1960's, psychedelics, Buddhism and
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an interest in ecology arised in Western culture in synchronicity. We said earlier that entheogens and
Buddhist practice can induce ecological awareness, but what is ecology?
The science of ecology is one in which the models tend not to fit reality very well. This is because
ecology, unlike most other fields including the revered one of physics, doesn't study phenomena isolated
from external inputs. On the contrary, ecology is the study of relationships, and this is why it is so uncertain.
What ecology teaches us is that an organism cannot be fully described without describing the environment
in which he behaves and evolves; what ecology teaches us is that even though the organism and the
environment (including the cultural environment in the case of humans) are explicitly different, they are
implicitly one.
We know this to be true scientifically, and yet most of us have never felt it. In fact, most westerners
don't even consider that such oneness could be felt. Western culture, arguably the main force shaping
human destiny, inherits its metaphysics from Christianity, in which we have a monarchical universe, where
only one human being, Jesus Christ, got to be one with God, the rest of the followers being pre-empted
from this mystical experience. As a result, the mystical experience became a taboo in our society even
though it is a quite common phenomenon, which can even happen following a heart attack. In western
cultures, people were mostly unaware they could be more than their ego, that is their image of themselves;
unaware that, actually, each human being is neurologically hardwired to be able to experience states of
consciousness in which he feels himself to be one with the rest of existence.
This situation of taboo is a sad state of affairs for, as stated Alan Watts, "Inability to accept the
mystical experience is more than an intellectual handicap. Lack of awareness of the basic unity of organism
and environment is a serious and dangerous hallucination. For in a civilization equipped with immense
technological power, the sense of alienation between man and nature leads to the use of technology in a
hostile spirit---to the "conquest" of nature instead of intelligent co-operation with nature."
According to Lynn White Jr. too, the roots of our ecological crisis are religious and so the solution
must also be religious, even if not called by that name. (1967) And, "isn't religion above all - before it is
doctrine and morality, rites and institutions - religious experience? ... And isn't religious experience in its
highest form mystical experience...? (Kung, 1986) Not only could insights from the mystical experience
be of considerable importance for our collective evolution, it is also fundamental to our personal desires
of ecstasy and self-transcendence. Psychedelics and Buddhism will both be of great importance for the
change in consciousness that needs to occur in order to save ourselves (and incidentally also the other
living beings who share this Earth with us) and wake up from the ecological crisis.

Franois Pontvianne MACS Research Essay May 2014
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CONCLUSION

I will end this essay with a quote from the Buddhist scholar Alan Watts which gives the essence of
what this essay was about:
"Is it possible, then, that Western science could provide a medicine which would at least give the human
organism a start in releasing itself from its chronic self-contradiction? The medicine might indeed have to
be supported by other procedures-psychotherapy, spiritual" disciplines, and basic changes in one's
pattern of life-but every diseased person seems to need some kind of initial lift to set him on the way to
health. The question is by no means absurd if it is true that what afflicts us is a sickness not just of the mind
but of the organism, of the very functioning of the nervous system and the brain. Is there, in short, a
medicine which can give us temporarily the sensation of being integrated, of being fully one with ourselves
and with nature as the biologist knows us, theoretically, to be? If so, the experience might offer clues to
whatever else must be done to bring about full and continuous integration. It might be at least the tip of
an Ariadne's thread to lead us out of the maze in which all of us are lost from our infancy. Relatively recent
research suggests that there are at least three such medicines, though none is an infallible "specific." They
work with some people, and much depends upon the social and psychological context in which they are
given. Occasionally their effects may be harmful, but such limitations do not deter us from using penicillin-
often a far more dangerous chemical than any of these three. I am speaking, of course, of mescaline (the
active ingredient of the peyote cactus), lysergic acid diethyl-amide (a modified ergot alkaloid), and
psilocybin (a derivative of the mushroom psilocybe mexicana)." (1968)


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