Psychedelic Meditation Course
Recognize Appearance-Emptiness
The Four Introductions to the Nature of MInd
1. All Phenomena Come From the Mind
Introduction (6 minute talk)
Psychedelic meditation is a path of healing and insight. Healing our burdened parts and insight into the nondual nature of awareness.
Our awareness is inherently nondual, already beyond confusion. However, due to the dualistic perception, our awareness has been seemingly obscured by ignorance, confusion, and emotional blockages. This confusion is temporary and can be completely cleared up.
There are two transformations: healing burdened parts and recognizing the nature of mind as empty luminosity.
Healing burdened parts is the transformation from the unhealthy subtle body to the healthy subtle body.
Recognizing the nature of mind is the transformation from the healthy subtle body to the nondual wisdom body. The natural state.
Psychedelic meditation with 5-MeO-DMT can accelerate both transformations.
Psychedelic meditation is an experimental practice that we are exploring as a community. Many of the insights in the manual have come from people doing the practice. Thank you for being a part of this process.
Recognize Clarity (11 minute talk)
We will describe the nature of mind: clarity, emptiness, radiance or display.
Duality is ignorance of the nature of awareness, which is empty clarity.
We will start with describing the clarity aspect.
One of the best ways to recognize the clarity aspect is the experience of self-awareness.
Self-awareness is not awareness of our relative self: name, job, gender, age.
Self-awareness means that awareness is aware of itself.
The ability to be self-aware is an intrinsic quality of awareness. It is built in.
We can forget that we are aware, and we can always remember or notice that we are aware.
Usually, we are caught up in activities and forget that we are aware. Forgetting that we are aware is a state of ignorance. This ignorance creates suffering and karma.
We might think that not being self-aware is not a big deal, but it is.
We become glued to thoughts, believe them, and follow the chain of thinking.
Compulsive thinking, compulsive chains of thoughts.
Reproducing negative emotions again and again.
Self-awareness has tremendous power to transform our lives.
Notice that we are aware. Being aware that we are aware is self-awareness. Like a candle flame is self-illuminating. It illuminates itself and it illuminates things nearby. Our awareness can know itself, and it can know appearances coming through the six sense gates.
Self-awareness does not depend on the visual consciousness. Self-awareness does not depend on any of the consciousnesses.
Self-awareness is the primary awareness that hosts the other consciousnesses but does not depend on them. We can be self-aware in all aspects of our lives: walking, working, talking, thinking, listening.
We can be self-aware in extreme states of being. For example, when dying, the six consciousnesses dissolve one by one: sight, sound, touch, thinking.
In high doses of 5MeO, the primary consciousness becomes as bright as the sun and outshines the six consciousnesses. As the clarity becomes brighter, the self awareness becomes brighter and easier. Non-meditators do not understand self-awareness, so they are glued to the experience of brightness. When they lose contact with their body they have fear. Meditators remain self-aware in high doses, so there is no fear and the very bright self awareness is profound and blissful.
Recognize Emptiness (25 minute talk)
Three aspects of the nature of mind:
Clarity – the knowingness of awareness.
Emptiness – the transparency of awareness. ***
Radiance – the unconfined capacity for anything to arise.
Three types of practice:
Shamatha with object – using an object as support for mindfulness.
Shamatha without object – self-knowing clarity does not need any support.
Nature of mind practice – clarity sees its own empty nature by looking and not seeing.
Awareness is transparent and ungraspable.
The analogy of a mirror being featureless. Awareness must be featureless in order to be aware of the many features. Awareness itself has no emotions or thoughts.
Examine this self-awareness. No one thinks to do this.
Does it have a specific location, or is it everywhere?
Does it have a shape or color, or is it transparent?
Self-awareness is transparent, featureless emptiness.
Look, don’t see, let be. The moment of not seeing is seeing emptiness. Like seeing the space in the room.
When recognizing that awareness is emptiness, subject/object duality collapses.
The subject is emptiness, so it cannot be separate from any object
Because of recognizing emptiness, there is no object to fixate on, so there is natural freedom.
Recognizing empty clarity is called the insight of rigpa, the experience of nonduality.
If you have not yet recognized empty clarity, don’t worry. Now that you know to look, 5MeO experience will give you an excellent opportunity to recognize empty clarity directly.
Understanding level.
Direct experience level.
Direct realization level.
Because of emptiness, awareness is primordial purity. It cannot be harmed or stained. It is beyond concepts or dualistic labels. We cannot say that it exists, because we cannot locate it. We cannot say that it does not exist because it is always present.
Awareness is unconditioned in order to be aware of all of the conditions. Awareness is beyond birth and death, beyond confusion and liberation, beyond time and space. It is a safe place to be.
Recognize Appearance-Emptiness
0:00 Recognize Appearance-Emptiness (8 minutes)
0:08 Why call it radiance?
0:14 Distinguishing between experiences and recognition.
0:18 Self has compassion to care for our triggered parts.
0:20 A daily practice is essential.
0:22 Rigpa is looking and not seeing.
0:24 Rigpa meditation exercise.
0:27 Rigpa is nonconceptual not seeing.
0:29 Higher doses are the same rigpa, just more intense.
0:30 Looking and not seeing is bizarre and liberating!
0:32 Thought loops are gone in nondual awareness.
0:33 What is the difference between a nonthought nyam and rigpa?
Clarity and emptiness are not two separate things.
They are one thing: clarity-emptiness.
The union of clarity and emptiness is appearance-emptiness.
Everything that appears to our awareness is awareness.
Visual appearances are knowingness in visual form. Sounds are audio knowingness.
The knowingness is emptiness, so appearances are also emptiness.
Without emptiness, appearances could not arise.
Appearances are in union with emptiness, so we call them appearance-emptiness.
Appearances are not separate from empty clarity, so
clarity, emptiness, and the display are one thing, one nondual awareness.
What can appear? Anything! Confusion or enlightenment.
It is the unconfined capacity for anything to appear.
In the big picture, from the point of view of enlightenment,
it is the unceasing energy of responsive compassion.
When we recognize the nature of mind, our responses are accurate.
We self-centered thought loops dissolve.
Without recognition, thoughts seem internal to a self, and appearances seem to be external objects.
Now, they are all part of a single nondual awareness.
Everything appears as a single sphere of nondual being.
All appearances are the radiance of empty clarity.
Appearances arise within awareness like a village in a snow globe.
How do we practice recognizing appearance-emptiness?
Just having sense perceptions is recognition practice.
We don’t have to hold back from life to experience peace.
We can participate fully in life while remaining in nondual awareness.
Daily Nature of Mind Practice
0:00 Daily Nature of Mind Practice (10 minutes)
0:10 There are many ways to enter rigpa.
0:14 We sustain rigpa in activities by not fixating on anything.
0:16 We allow our parts to arise within the not seeing.
0:17 Being with someone is a great time to be in rigpa with no agenda.
0:17 Vast energy with 5MeO is tantric energy yoga that clears out blockages.
0:20 Analytical meditation can be conceptual.
0:22 How rigpa progresses: concepts, direct experiences, direct realization.
0:26 We spend time with our parts instead of spiritual bypassing.
0:27 When critical parts show up in our practice, we spend time with them.
0:32 The natural state is compassionate.
0:34 The natural state dissolves suffering.
0:38 5MeO activates the hidden parts so we can heal them.
0:42 The healing of parts can be permanent.
0:43 Solo IFS work with the medicine.
0:45 Using 5MeO to activate parts before seeing a therapist.
0:46 IFS hints.
0:47 Being willing to be with our feelings.
Psychedelic meditation is nature of mind practice, recognizing empty clarity.
Daily nature of mind practice: Look, don’t see, let be.
We don’t expect the recognition of empty clarity to last very long.
At first, the recognition only lasts for a few seconds.
When the recognition is lost, we remember and recognize again.
Remembering to recognize repeatedly is the practice of short moments, many times.
It is like ringing a gong. We ring the gong, and the sound lasts for a while.
Then we have to ring the gong again by looking and not seeing again.
With practice, the recognition lasts for longer and longer.
The recognition lasts for a few seconds, then a few minutes, then a few hours.
Eventually, the recognition lasts all day from waking up until falling asleep.
All-day recognition is the realization of a bodhisattva.
Since it is so easy to experience nondual awareness while sober, what is the point of using psychedelics?
The progress from daily nature of mind practice is very slow, so most practitioners die before they attain stable realization.
Psychedelics can provide intense neuroplastic training in nondual awareness and speed the process up from lifetimes to years.
A daily nature of mind practice is the integration practice for psychedelic meditation.
It is the landing pad for nondual awareness in our lives.
We are building the skillset of sustaining nondual awareness through all of life’s experiences.
Psychedelics alone will not get us to stable realization.
A daily nature of mind practice alone will not get us to stable realization before we die.
We are combining a weekly psychedelic meditation practice with a daily NOM practice.
Together, we hope that stable realization in this life is possible.
This is an experimental practice, and we will find out in the next five to ten years whether it works.
As long as it is nonconceptual direct looking, we cannot fail to not see. Try it.
The Four Introductions to the Nature of Mind
1. All Phenomena Come From the Mind
00:00 All Phenomena Come From the Mind (6 minutes)
00:06 Distinguishing Sems from Rigpa (8 minutes)
Awareness is a knowingness. Each of the six consciousnesses is a type of knowingness: visual knowingness, audio knowingness, emotional knowingness, and conceptual knowingness. We only have six consciousnesses, and they are all the knowingness of awareness.
All of our information comes to us through the awareness of the six consciousnesses. In this specific sense, all phenomena that we are aware of arrive as awareness. All phenomena come from the mind. Seemingly external objects are our own awareness shining.
Distinguishing Sems from Rigpa
The six consciousnesses are a dualistic knowingness: a visual object seems separate from the self, the observer. They are sems, dualistic mind. Rigpa is translated as awareness, which is inherently nondual. We need to be able to tell the difference between rigpa, nondual awareness, and sems, dualistic consciousness, so that we can sustain nondual awareness in all situations.
The analogy of a candle flame can illustrate the difference between sems and rigpa. A candle flame can illuminate objects nearby, and it also illuminates itself. The objects nearby correspond to the six consciousnesses. The candle flame illuminating itself corresponds to awareness being aware of itself. Awareness knows itself in a nondual way by knowing itself by itself without needing any external agent.
Usually, we are caught up in thoughts and activities and forget that we are aware. Forgetting that we are aware is a state of ignorance. In unawareness, thoughts proliferate and loop, so we suffer.
Become self-aware by remembering that we are aware. Sustaining self-awareness is open awareness meditation. Self-awareness is effortless nondual knowing of itself by itself. Our awareness is inherently self-illuminating and nondual. The dualistic perception is a temporary misperception of nonduality.
Check that self-awareness is independent of the six consciousnesses. Start with the visual consciousness.
1. Become self-aware by remembering that we are aware.
2. Gently close the eyes while remaining self-aware.
3. Gently open the eyes while remaining self-aware.
With a little practice, we can sustain self-awareness as the visual consciousness disappears and reappears. Self-awareness does not depend on any outer or inner conditions, such as the six consciousnesses. Self-awareness is the nondual knowing of rigpa. The six consciousnesses are sems, dualistic mind. Sustaining self-awareness in all situations is distinguishing sems from rigpa.
The Four Introductions to the Nature of Mind
2. Mind is Emptiness
00:00 Mind is Emptiness (5 minutes)
00:05 No body, mind, future, past: existence itself.
00:07 No feeling tone in high doses is absolute bodhicitta.
00:08 Relative compassion in the tail of a wave.
00:09 Working with negative emotions with IFS.
00:12 Inner critic work.
00:15 Self-awareness within 5MeO experiences.
00:19 Brilliant nondual empty clarity in high doses.
00:20 Preliminary instructions include the first two introductions.
00:21 Side effects include a healthier lifestyle.
00:24 Transformation from the unhealthy subtle body to the healthy subtle body.
00:25 Absolute being in high doses and relative compassion in low doses.
00:28 Is absolute being positive?
Self-awareness can examine itself and discover that it is emptiness. Awareness is featureless and transparent. Awareness must be transparent to experience the six consciousnesses. For example, a mirror must be featureless to reflect the many visual appearances. If a mirror were dusty, everything would appear dusty. Awareness must be conceptless and emotionless to experience all concepts and emotions. Awareness is invisible, and we call that emptiness.
We can test this for ourselves.
1. Become self-aware by remembering that we are aware.
2. Look for this self-awareness.
3. Not see self-awareness.
4. Allow the rigpa of not-seeing to continue for a while. No need to keep looking.
We are looking and not seeing. How bizarre! Not-seeing is unique. No one ever does this.
The nonconceptual not-seeing is rigpa, the nonconceptual direct insight that awareness is emptiness. The observer is emptiness, so there is no self that could be separate from any object. Everything arises as the single sphere of nondual awareness.
The Four Introductions to the Nature of Mind
3. Emptiness is Clarity
00:00 Emptiness is Clarity (4 minutes)
00:04 Sustain the continuous moment of nondistraction (3 minutes)
00:07 It requires some effort to enter effortless resting.
00:08 While recognizing emptiness, there is no self, no observer.
00:10 The aversion for difficult emotions is the suffering.
00:11 In acceptance, we don’t need difficult emotions to go away to be okay.
00:11 Horizontal and vertical liberation.
00:14 Thought chains are freed by self-awareness.
00:16 Not following habitual thought chains dissolves karmic patterns.
00:17 In self-awareness, even distractions arise as wisdom.
Mind is emptiness, but not nothing. Mind is also clarity, the knowingness. We cannot say that awareness exists because we cannot find it. We cannot say that awareness does not exist because we are experiencing it continuously. Awareness lives on the borderline between existence and nonexistence.
Once we have the insight of emptiness, we can recognize rigpa by recognizing clarity because clarity is nondual awareness-emptiness. When recognizing clarity, we don’t even need to think about emptiness. Recognizing clarity is more vivid than recognizing emptiness, so it is a faster path.
Once we can recognize emptiness, open awareness practice automatically becomes nature of mind practice. We become self-aware, and the self-awareness now includes the insight of emptiness, rigpa. We can no longer practice shamatha without the insight of rigpa.
How do we drop into sustaining rigpa? Here are three methods.
1. Remember that we are aware and sustain the continuity of self-awareness. We can drop into rigpa by recognizing the continuity of being. Recognize the continuous moment of nondistraction and sustain it by remaining within it. Notice the continuity of being and stay with it.
2. We can drop into rigpa by unblending from parts, meaning thoughts. When the previous thought has ended, do not reconnect with any thought. As long as we do not blend with sems, it is rigpa. Rigpa does not fixate on anything. Sustain the continuity of not fixating on any thought.
3. We can drop into the continuity by looking for a moment of distraction. As long as we are looking for distraction, we will not find a moment of distraction. It is like looking for darkness with a flashlight.
The Four Introductions to the Nature of Mind
4. Clarity is Self-Liberated
00:00 Clarity is Self-Liberated (4 minutes)
00:04 Three stages of rigpa practice.
00:08 Direct realization transcends religion and belongs to everyone.
00:11 How often to practice with and without medicine.
00:15 Watching the visual system construct a 3D model of the room.
00:16 Ego death myth. We get permission from our protectors to use psychedelics.
00:23 Safety: start with low doses and understand how to heal parts.
Now we can recognize emptiness, and we can sustain the continuity of recognizing clarity. What happens to our experience of life?
Appearances are the union of clarity and emptiness. Appearances are radiance of clarity-emptiness. Recognize that all appearances are clarity shining. Now, seeing appearances and thinking thoughts are all rigpa practice. Sustain the insight that everything is rigpa. Now, the six senses are nondual rigpa!
1. Become self-aware and rest in the continuity of self-awareness for a moment.
2. While sustaining the continuity of awareness, slowly look around the room, recognizing that everything we see is rigpa dressed up to look like tables and chairs. Everything that we see, hear, and think is nondual awareness.
Recognizing appearance-emptiness is the full integration of the nature of mind. All four of the introductions are happening simultaneously. Recognizing appearance-emptiness is the complete realization of the ultimate truth. Recognize relative truth as nondual wisdom.
In the recognition of appearance-emptiness, all appearances self-liberate.
Internal Family Systems
00:00 Internal Family Systems (27 minutes)
00:27 Getting permission from a protector to talk with the exile.
00:29 Fun-loving firefighters and judgmental managers.
00:32 The role of psychedelics in IFS work.
00:34 5MeO can surface parts that are otherwise inaccessible.
00:35 Respect and validate our parts for trying to help us.
00:35 Parts can show up as physical problems.
00:39 Working with parts in low doses so that they don’t flood us too much.
00:43 We can release the holding patterns of fear and aversion around injuries and chronic pain.
00:48 Longer sessions allow more processing into a more relaxed state of okayness.
00:49 Start with low doses so our psychedelic protectors feel safe.
00:52 We are generally blended most of the time.
00:54 Drop out of the head into the body to access the exiles.
00:56 If parts don’t come up in low doses, don’t look for them. Proceed to higher doses.
01:00 Start with low doses to acclimate the body and mind to the medicine and help activated parts.
01:01 Finding the dosing sweet spot. Don’t push too hard: the pusher part.
01:02 Entities can be delusions, outward dualistic projections.
01:07 We identify with rigpa, awareness, not with parts.
01:09 We are good people with wonderful qualities. There are no bad parts.
01:10 IFS books and training.
01:12 Working in relationship with others.
01:22 The bodhisattva path is working with others within the realization of emptiness.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a groundbreaking personality model that enables us to unburden ourselves from the hidden traumas and storylines that run our lives. IFS is essential preparation for psychedelic meditation. In the dualistic state, we perceive ourselves as singular, independent, and permanent. The sense of self is not singular. It is a multiplicity of many parts, a collection of sub-personalities.
Everyone has many parts, and all of them are good. There are no bad parts. The parts mean well. They do their best to help us be happy and not suffer. However, due to past experiences, especially experiences at a young age, some of the parts have become burdened with trauma, shame, or insecurity. There is fear of feeling the suffering of the burdened parts, and we exile them from our conscious awareness. The exiled parts feel abandoned by us and feel even worse.
Some parts act as protectors to keep our exiled parts from becoming activated and flooding us with their suffering. Some protectors are managers who are constantly scanning the environment to avoid situations that might activate an exiled part.
It is impossible to avoid all situations that can activate an exiled feeling. When an exiled part is activated and floods us with suffering, there is a reaction of aversion and fear. The aversive reaction recruits another kind of protector called a firefighter. The firefighter's job is to get us away from whatever activated our exile's trauma as fast as possible.
When parts are activated and blend with us, they occupy the seat of consciousness. The part is in charge, and we are acting as the part. When we become self-aware, we unblend from the part. When we are not blended with any part, we discover the Self, which is not a part. The Self is our true nature and cannot be damaged or burdened. It possesses many inherent good qualities, such as the eight Cs: compassion, curiosity, clarity, creativity, calm, confidence, courage, and connectedness, as well as many other positive qualities.
Identifying with our Self allows us to address and heal our parts as if they were little sentient beings with independent points of view. It doesn’t matter whether or not our parts are separate beings. The IFS process of compassion and healing works best when regarding our parts and feelings as autonomous beings, respecting their point of view, and treating them with understanding and love.
When a part becomes activated, give it your full attention. Listen to what it has to say, let it know that you fully understand what it is saying, and thank the part for its wisdom and insight. Sometimes, there will be fear about taking psychedelics. A concerned protector wants to help us avoid difficulty or danger. When you feel fear, take the time to listen to the fearful part and address its concerns directly.
Nature of mind practitioners can consider that the Self is rigpa, and parts are sems. The Self is our true identity, rigpa. IFS is the wisdom and skillful means to recognize our Self and extend our Self-energy as compassion and loving-kindness to heal the suffering of sems.
When the Self occupies the seat of consciousness, all parts unburden continuously in real time and operate in their most valuable state. Unburdening parts in real-time corresponds to the Dzogchen stage of confidence in liberation, where everything arises as wisdom.