In recent years, there has been an explosion of interest in psychedelics. One thing that these drugs do for almost everyone is prove beyond any possibility of doubt that the mind is far more vast and interesting and malleable than they had any reason to expect before taking them. However, there is an apparent paradox here, because while psychedelics might be indispensable for some people, they are potentially misleading where meditation is concerned. If someone has never taken psychedelics, it is quite possible for them to try meditation even repeatedly and to claim that nothing happened. In which case, what is the point of meditation if you ve never tried psychedelics? And what is there to life beyond getting what we want and avoiding what we don t want? How can we cease to be mere prisoners of time? And how can we begin to live more and more in the present moment that is truly transformative meditation and psychedelics both address questions of this kind but they provide very different answers? In this episode of the Making Sense podcast, I discuss the paradox of psychedelics and meditation, and offer some thoughts on the difference between the two, and explore the benefits and drawbacks of taking psychedelics as a means to finding the things we want in the world beyond the confines of our usual concepts and the things that we don't want. I also discuss why psychedelics may not be as useful as meditation, at least not without first taking them, and why they aren't as a replacement for meditation, even if they can be as a substitute for it. and why meditation might be better than psychedelics at least in some day to day, and especially when it s all the same thing we can learn from psychedelics . in the first or at least it s if you don t have to take psychedelics to make sense of the world it s better than meditation but it s not so you can t be a drug not if you have never taken them . and you don't have any idea what you want to know what you re looking for you can of what to do with them? I hope you enjoy the making sense by Sam Harris make sense by you by me Sam Harris, making sense by me, by Tim Ferriss, The Making Sense - making sense, and if you do more information can be found over at waking up by
00:00:00.000welcome to the making sense podcast this is Sam Harris okay well there's a lot going on in the
00:00:29.120world but that we'll all have to wait for the next podcast today I wanted to give you a sampling of
00:00:36.960some of the content that we've released over at waking up I recently recorded a 10-minute audio
00:00:43.140essay on the relationship between psychedelics and meditation titled the paradox of psychedelics
00:00:50.700and thought that might be of interest to some of you here and then my friend Tim Ferriss had
00:00:55.960requested about 30 minutes of waking up audio for his podcast and so I'm adding the package we
00:01:03.220delivered to him here as well anyway hope you enjoy it and if you do more information can be found over
00:01:09.740at waking up.com in recent years there has been an explosion of interest in psychedelics
00:01:21.180one thing that these drugs do for almost everyone is prove beyond any possibility of doubt that the
00:01:28.520mind is far more vast and interesting and malleable than they had any reason to expect before taking
00:01:35.920psychedelics taking a sufficient dose of psilocybin or LSD provided you have a generally positive
00:01:43.080experience makes it absolutely clear that you have been living in a kind of prison and once the drug
00:01:49.660wears off and you're returned to that prison you can't quite convince yourself that it's good to
00:01:56.120live there if you have a truly liberating experience on psychedelics it is difficult not to view a
00:02:03.740conventional sense of self as a form of mental illness and many of us who practice meditation and
00:02:11.660consider it among the most important things we've ever learned have arrived at this discovery only after
00:02:17.320first taking psychedelics however there is an apparent paradox here because while psychedelics might be
00:02:25.500indispensable for some people and I think they probably were for me they are potentially misleading
00:02:31.500where meditation is concerned the reasons why people practice meditation and take psychedelics
00:02:37.880are often the same they both expose the mechanics of our psychological suffering
00:02:43.280and they both suggest that the remedy for it lies in experiencing ourselves in the world beyond our
00:02:49.740usual concepts both meditation and psychedelics are a response to the felt dilemma of our simply being
00:02:56.760in the world and once questions of our survival have been basically answered we're faced with the
00:03:02.200question of how to be happy what more is there to life beyond getting what we want and avoiding what we
00:03:08.720don't want how can we cease to be mere prisoners of time for instance in what sense and to what degree
00:03:16.260are feelings of dissatisfaction relieved by living more and more in the present moment what is there to find
00:03:23.640in the present moment that is truly transformative meditation and psychedelics both address questions of
00:03:30.080this kind but they provide very different answers so I want to say a few things about the differences here
00:03:36.580the great strength of psychedelics is that at a sufficient dosage they are guaranteed to produce a profound effect
00:03:45.860no one has ever taken five grams of mushrooms or 300 micrograms of LSD and been bored that has literally
00:03:54.940never happened the resulting experience might be terrifying and that is one of the primary downsides of
00:04:01.100psychedelics the prospect of having a so-called bad trip but no one ever says sorry I don't get what all the
00:04:08.160fuss is about with psychedelics at a sufficient dosage you need only wait an hour or so for a freight train of
00:04:16.580absolute significance to come roaring into the station of your mind and for better or worse you will get
00:04:24.320on it and you will never be the same conversely if someone has never taken psychedelics it is quite
00:04:31.800possible for them to try meditation even repeatedly and to claim that nothing happened they look inside
00:04:39.700and they see nothing of interest right what's the point of paying attention to the breath how is that
00:04:46.300not the very definition of wasting time if a person has never taken psychedelics and never glimpsed that
00:04:54.600vast firmament beyond the prison walls of their conceptual mind it can be all too easy not to see the point
00:05:01.680of meditation for many people learning to meditate without having first taken psychedelics is a little
00:05:08.200bit like learning to play a musical instrument when you've never heard music before you've never experienced
00:05:14.260the final product at all right so you have absolutely no idea where all this plucking at strings and
00:05:21.340learning musical notation might be going and you can't verify that anyone else knows either maybe the
00:05:27.820whole thing is just a scam by contrast taking psychedelics is like being dragged on stage with jimmy
00:05:34.880hendrix rather it's like suddenly being jimmy hendrix and whatever else happens over the next 10 hours
00:05:41.760one thing is certain you will know what music sounds like it might not be the only form of music
00:05:48.320in fact it certainly isn't but there's no longer the slightest doubt in your mind that music is a
00:05:54.920thing right so when you come down from the drug and you're returned to your lonely guitar even if you
00:06:01.620can't do much with it you can't deny what it was like to hear music coming out of that thing
00:06:06.560so psychedelics perhaps above anything else serve as a cure for skepticism about the basic project
00:06:15.580of having a much deeper engagement with the present moment the problem however is that they can give
00:06:22.460you a distorted sense of what is worth finding there because psychedelics work by producing extreme
00:06:28.400changes in the contents of consciousness whereas the true purpose of meditation is to recognize the
00:06:34.300freedom that is inherent to consciousness itself whatever its contents if you take a drug like
00:06:40.260lsd or psilocybin your perception of the world and of your mental life radically changes it's not an
00:06:47.160accident that these drugs are also called hallucinogens and your emotional engagement with literally any
00:06:53.100arbitrary thing or idea can achieve an intensity that has no reference point in ordinary life and is in
00:06:59.920fact incompatible with ordinary life again this can be true in both positive and negative ways
00:07:05.500you can be sent sailing across an ocean of bliss or you can be hurled into a pit of terror
00:07:11.180and at either extreme you can lose all memory of ever having existed in any other state
00:07:17.140on a sufficient dose of lsd or psilocybin you no longer recall that you are a person in a world much
00:07:25.040less that you have taken a drug so these experiences of bliss or terror can seem truly eternal
00:07:31.700without any connection to your life and without any memory of the past you really have been there
00:07:38.360in that state since beginningless time now if you have an unremittingly bad trip well then you might
00:07:45.840just conclude that drugs are dangerous and that the tray table of consciousness is best left in the
00:07:50.720upright and locked position but if you get a glimpse of the beatific vision you will know that it is
00:07:57.500possible to enjoy an utterly transfigured experience of the world and even to lose any sense of separation
00:08:04.460from it and you will know that consciousness in this moment is truly sacred however you will very
00:08:12.560likely come to believe that the path back to the sacred is to keep getting high if not through drugs
00:08:18.800and through a practice like meditation and you will approach meditation in the hopes of changing
00:08:23.540your experience in various ways making it seem less ordinary you might understand conceptually that
00:08:30.660the practice of mindfulness entails accepting this moment's experience exactly as it is but you will
00:08:35.940subtly or not so subtly be straining to improve your experience by getting better at meditating and
00:08:42.800whenever your experience does seem to change in auspicious ways perhaps you get a feeling of bliss or
00:08:48.620unconditional love in one of your sessions of formal practice you'll seize upon this change as a sign of
00:08:55.180progress surely getting more of that sort of thing is the point right but it really isn't the point
00:09:02.420the point of meditation isn't to collect more transitory spiritual experiences the point is to recognize that
00:09:10.960even the most ordinary state of mind is free of self and it is free of self already it isn't made free by the practice of meditation and it isn't made more free of self when you add the pyrotechnics of psychedelics the ultimate purpose of meditation is to recognize what consciousness is like
00:09:40.960that those changes aren't even helpful and yet many people are so identified with their thoughts and are so skeptical
00:09:47.520that there's anything profound to realize about the mind by observing it directly that they are for all intents and purposes unreachable
00:09:55.360they either won't try meditation or trying it they will think that they have discovered that it doesn't work
00:10:01.660and the truth is i was once just this sort of blockhead
00:10:05.660i really don't think i would have recognized the power of meditation without having taken psychedelics
00:10:11.120without first knowing that there was much more to the mind than i was tending to experience