Who actually uses the herb as a tool for meditation? I am interested in starting meditation and meditating while high sometime after I have learned to meditate. What is it like? How is it different?
And 2 years later.. I am interested in this to. Anyone? The things i have read so far says that Marijuana can help to focus and with meditation if we have the right intent.
i guess being high could help with meditation, though it seems like a waste of a perfectly good high -_-
i find it easier to meditate sober, just cause my mind is a little more focused... when i get high i like to just let my mind and senses do whatever they want ... but many people like it, its been in use as meditation tool in many cultures throughout history
I tried meditating while I was stoned once...eh, didn't really work out that great, personally to me it seems like meditation is all about sobriety, and being on some drug at the time kinda defeats the purpose. Just my approach to it, though.
if you're looking for a drug conducive to meditation, try LSD or mushrooms. pot isn't going to help, in my opinion.
To me its no good, meditation is all about trying to make the mind quiet, when im stoned my mind wanders and is very active.
meditation does work well with marijuana, for me. it allows me to relax into myself enough where all the other junk gets quieted down. sometimes, when i try to meditate, my eyes start going crazy, little body twitches, etc. these are very distracting, and tend to disappear when i'm high. i think meditation is all about being, with no thinking. so in a way, marijuana is good. but it is a chemically induced state, from the outside. therefore it's somewhat illusory, ...it's like showing you what is possible every moment. so you need to incorporate this into your non-stoned life too, or it won't do as much good. but even meditating, just sitting relaxed ,calmly, while stoned(which i naturally tend to do anyway), relaxes you more than just getting stoned alone. being relaxed is good, even if you think you are relaxed you very well may not be. i think most people in society, that is, about 95 or more % of people have underlying tensiions and stress that isn't even conscious. they are not even aware that they are tense, ....so to them, that state of tension is being relaxed, and then being tense is just being REALLY tense. so get rid of all this underlying tension, hiding beneath us. go into your body, when you breathe in, feel how it feels inside, and the same for the exhale. feel your body breathing with the air. you can feel a substantial difference, i think. maybe not at first but only because it is subtle. also i notice the feeling more when stoned, maybe because of the heightened sensitivity to things
i would try to meditate sober if its something you havent done much before. it's good to explore your conciousness at baseline. you can get yourself to an almost inebriated state by simply controlling your breathing and chanelling your awarness. it takes time. it's something im working on too.
i definately think meditation is something to be explored fully with a sober mind. But i only got into meditation after smoking, and only felt like meditating when i was high. when i wasn't high it was just too hard, too much shit, too much insanity going on in my mind. and i realized, this insanity was going on ALL the time, i just wasn't aware of it. so i feel if you are interested in meditation and marijuana is making you interested in it, then explore that a bit. that's not to say you shouldn't do it sober, but if it makes you want to do it when you're high, i don't see that as a bad thing. that's how i started and a few months to a lot of months later i do it both sober and high now, and i like doing it in both states.
i suppose we're all different, but i just don't understand how someone can meditate while on weed. i've been meditating for about 9 years now and used to be a regular at the shambhala meditation center. i spent at least 5 weekends doing nothing but meditation, 10+ hours a day. when you do something like that, you really do get a natural high--one that can be quite strong; i was getting visuals after the second day. going to school the next monday morning became a blissful experience, full of smiles and tranquility. i was also fortunate enough to get to meditate with some Sufis in the mountains of southern Switzerland for two weeks. every act, from walking to eating, was done with care and awareness. after a few days i gained this feeling of empowerment that was far beyond the self-confidence and pleasure often induced by drugs like cocaine. for me, weed makes the thought process scatter and become unfocused--rather handicapped. it's more than excellent for creative outlets such as art or music, but trying to remain in a sitting position, thoughtless, is damn near impossible with pot. psychedelics, however, have far, far more in common with meditation than marijuana does. that said, no state of consciousness is "illusory" or fake; consciousness is consciousness no matter how you swing it. thus, drug experiences are as "real" as any sober experiences. peace
I love that statement, right on! I agree with your opinion in the first hour or so of the high, but I disagree for the burnout or comedown stage, and hour or two after toking. I find that I become totally lost in my mind for hours sometimes if I have a nice quiet meditation after the strong effects of the high have worn off. Everyone should give it a try and see for themselves. Get high, trip for a while till you are calm and relaxed then try the meditation or just a long ponder about yourself and life. If you are like me, you will suddenly snap out of some alternative reality, an hour or two later, wondering where the hell you just went and how did you get back here. Then I just go to bed and wake totally refreshed.
No way, shrooms unblock barriers rushing your head with thoughts, makeing ti hard as hell. It also leads to a bad trip if you try to fight these thoughts. Its better to just roll with the mush and let it take you where it wants. You have two choices, a long night of fighting the thoughts fellings and the drug, or an easy trip.
meditation isn't about fighting your thoughts. it's about accepting them and then letting them go. for many people, that's exactly what the psychedelic experience is.
I can get into deeper meditation faster when I'm stoned compared to being sober. Finding that bit of inner peace helps maintain some sanity in a crazy world. The hard part becomes remembering how to reach that inner peace when being sober.
i find meditation to be a state in which no thoughts arise, but it isn't something that you can will, or force yourself to do. the more you wattch your thoughts, the slower and less frequent they appear, and i believe its because when you watch them you disengage from them and no longer supply them with energy to continue. thus, even while on weed my thoughts race, my thoughts always race and so just watching them they slow down. plus mj takes a lot of tension out of my body which helps me sit still very comfortably for long periods of time, whereas sober i'm twictching and moving all over the place
I am a kung fu student, and I often meditate when I am high. I can meditate when I am sober as well, but when I am high, certain mental blocks are easily torn down (not to mention your body is simply more relaxed, thus making it easier to follow qi and to let it flow through your muscles and joints). I agree with the statement above that conciousness is just conciousness, no matter what state of mind you are in. -- One interesting way I was able to prove this to myself was by getting high one night and focusing on my qi, building it stronger and stronger. When I was done, I stored it in my Dan Tian (basically an energitic area 1-2 inches below your belly button). The next morning, I woke up and meditated sober for a bit, and I found that same energy stored away deep inside from the previous night. I've never done any other drug, but I have definitely been curious enough to consider it's effects on meditation. If anyone can give me their input on shrooms and meditation, please do. Also, one last thing... A few posts here mentioned how mindless mental chatter seems to overcome some people's ability to meditate while high. It's the same as when you're sober, and therefore you can conquer it when you're high the same way you conquer it when you're sober. Relaxation, concentration, and awareness. If you look online there's also hundreds of articles and information on how to allign your shakras, etc. These seem to work for many people, though out in the western world, the general population hasn't quite been opened up to it yet (or maybe they are still too busy denying it?)
Shrooms can help to induce some of the deepest meditation possible. When in the right state of mind, an entire trip can be a series of life-changing realizations that it is very hard to come to without the help of psychedelics. I would also suggest that you look into ayahuasca, as it is even deeper than shrooms, in most cases. It is an all natural tea that requires alot of discipline, as you have to abstain from certain foods, mostly those containing tyramine, for up to 3 days prior to the trip. You can order the ingredients(various plant material) from different websites. The ingredients are legal. Here is the link to erowid's ayahuasca vault, if you are interested: http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/ayahuasca/ayahuasca.shtml
