Nature of Mind Practice
Nature of mind practice is the training in nonduality. Psychedelic meditation is nature of mind training. A daily nature of mind practice will bring nondual awareness into life as a stable realization that lasts all day. Nature of mind practice itself is effortless. It is a simple looking and seeing.
Psychedelic meditation is a fully integrated practice that places nature-of-mind practice with psychedelics within the context of a daily nature-of-mind practice. This combination can land the profound but temporary psychedelic experiences of nonduality into our lives as the stable all-day realization of nonduality. The vital connection is that the practice of recognizing our nature as empty luminosity is identical with and without psychedelics. Since the practice is identical, progress in recognizing our nature with psychedelics translates directly into progress in recognizing our nature without psychedelics and vice versa.
The four introductions to the nature of mind come from the Mahamudra tradition. They are different modes of recognizing the nature of mind. Sometimes, one approach works well; sometimes, another method feels fresher. It is good to be familiar with all of them.
Psychedelic meditation sessions use all four of these introductions to the nature of mind. They may seem somewhat abstract just reading about them, but they will spring to life and become vividly relevant and very useful during psychedelic meditation sessions. They are worth studying so that you can recognize them in your psychedelic experiences when you need them. Understanding these four introductions is the most effective method of avoiding confusion, fear, and suffering during psychedelic experiences. Understanding nature of mind practice transforms psychedelic experiences into profound and blissful experiences of limitless primordial wisdom.
1. All Phenomena Come From Mind
Our connection with the outer world comes to us through the five senses. The five senses are the only way to experience and know what is happening around us. When we see a chair, we see our perception of the chair, which comes to us through our visual consciousness. The visual consciousness is our awareness painting visual forms in real time. Our perception of a chair is our awareness of the chair. The chair is the radiance of awareness, a beautiful arising of the visual consciousness. There is no need to say that physical chairs and tables do not exist or that our mind is creating physical objects. Meditators notice a more subtle point: our perception of outer objects is awareness. In this very specific experiential sense, all phenomena come from the mind. This understanding allows us to see through the mistaken perception of subject-object duality. There is no place for duality when we see everything as arisings within a single sphere of awareness.
LSD and other psychedelics can clarify that all phenomena come from mind. When taking LSD, the entire environment can transform into a semi-transparent tapestry of light. The tapestry of light is the visual system at work, constructing reality as a three-dimensional holographic image composed of awareness. Our lived experience is a controlled hallucination, a mental model of reality constructed by our brains. Since appearances are so obviously composed of awareness, it is clear that the dualistic perception of an external world separate from awareness is just a sloppy and mistaken habit.
Anything can appear in the mirror of awareness, including the mistaken perception of duality. Once the false perception of duality takes hold, it persists stubbornly, a closed loop of confusion feeding back into itself. Psychedelics can temporarily facilitate seeing right through the dualistic perception and help us realize that appearances are mind. As important as this is, the nature of mind still needs to be recognized.
2. Mind is Emptiness
Awareness looks at itself and does not see anything concrete or identifiable. This lack of any “thing” is emptiness. Awareness is empty of any observable characteristic. Looking and not seeing is recognizing the emptiness aspect of mind’s nature, clarity-emptiness. Looking and not seeing is recognizing the nature of mind by looking inward toward the subject instead of outward toward objects.
3. Emptiness is Spontaneous Presence
Spontaneous presence refers to the knowingness or clarity aspect of clarity-emptiness. Awareness is a knowingness that is always present and does not need to be cultivated. The clarity of awareness is spontaneously present in all situations. There is no need to look inward to recognize the clarity of awareness. Instead, be with the awareness that is already here. Simply being aware of being aware is recognizing the spontaneously present clarity. Let go into the continuity of effortless being.
4. Spontaneous Presence is Self-Liberated
Appearances are the radiance of awareness, which knows everything, all appearances. Looking outward at appearances is recognizing mind’s nature, empty luminosity. Appearances are the radiant expressions of clarity-emptiness. Appearance-emptiness is the union of clarity and emptiness. Since appearances are the radiant display of rigpa, they arise already liberated.
Recognize the Natural State
The natural state is the ongoing experience of nondual awareness, innately stable and free. The natural state is already complete within us. The practice is to recognize the natural state and become familiar with it.