Question
Hello, and thank you for this great opportunity.
My name is John Paul Gramiere, and I am an anthropology student. I am interested in altered states of consciousness.
My question concerns shamans’ use of hallucinogenic drugs. After researching shamanic journeys, I found many similarities with what is experienced during deep Zen meditation. The main experience these two disciplines seem to share is a profound awareness of spiritual existence and a reinforcement of the idea that the physical world is not a “true” reality.
Do you believe these assumptions are valid?
If so, do you believe using hallucinogens is a valid path toward spiritual awakening? It seems other cultures have achieved detachment from the physical world through hallucinogens, such as various groups of South American Indians, Indigenous Americans of the Southwest, and cultures in Siberia or Africa. Although these cultures are radically different, they all seem to share—along with Zen—a similar view of our spiritual nature.
John Paul Gramiere
Answer from Master Kosen
What people who do not truly know zazen fail to understand is that it cannot be compared with anything at all, for the simple reason that zazen contains all things and therefore cannot be described as a particular state. It is at the center of all phenomena through its very form and its stillness. So it is neither hallucinogenic nor nonhallucinogenic. If you take a drug, however powerful, and have the physical energy to take the posture and thereby drop body and mind, the drug’s effects will be transcended, and you will automatically return to the original condition of the Buddhas. Only the drug’s chemical effects will remain, but the reactions it causes in your consciousness will disappear after a certain time. Although hallucinogenic drugs open consciousness to the relativity of what we believe to be reality and can thus open an important, though dangerous, door for us, they cannot lead us to the source of all things if we have no experience of zazen. There is no other way to discover this essential consciousness than to take the Buddhas’ posture with your body.
Kosen