On Meditation (and Marijuana)
For most of my lifetime, I simply couldn’t have cared less about meditation. Anyone who has been following my writing or who knows about my degree at UofT will know that this has changed. If you will, let me take a few moments to try and sell you on meditation.
Take one of the most euphoric experiences one can have; that of bursting out upon a great landscape. Perhaps a waterfall, a deep valley, or a mountain range. This feeling, provoked by an encounter with the vastness and grandness of nature, can completely overwhelm you. The effect is partly due to the suddenness of the experience, and partly because of your unusual vantage point.
Suddenness (or perhaps novelty is more apt) is a fairly intuitive idea. People who live in the mountains, or next to a waterfall, or on the oceanside, simply do not tend to react the same way after a couple of years. They’ve grown accustomed to their view.
Vantage point matters too; If you were inches away from the face of the mountain; if only a small part of its surface filled your field of vision, you would not have the same reaction. It is the wide, expansive point of view which allows all these small details to melt together into a staggering sight.
For most of us, the fundamental experience of perceiving ourselves and our surroundings is something we are too familiar with to find interesting. No surprise here; we’ve been doing it for as long as we remember. But meditation can allow for a revival of the feeling of first stumbling upon such a grand scene.
As it happens, a good shortcut to gaining this perspective is through an experience with marijuana (or psychedelics like psilocybin; but I’ll talk here about marijuana).
It took a long time for me to break my stigma toward drugs; my first time trying any form of weed was less than a year ago. The reason I changed my mind was because I was incredibly curious. How was my mind going to change? If I kept doing what I’d been doing for all of my sober life: moving, breathing, seeing, feeling, thinking… what would be different? How exactly would it be different?
I took a small edible with my girlfriend-at-the-time. After waiting a while (frighteningly close to declaring “this edible ain’t shit,” and having the rest of the bag), I began to feel different. I remember before long, I was delightedly describing the feeling by crying out “Time jump! Time jump!” every couple of seconds.
To be more specific; I was experiencing a kind of continual rebirth. Especially whenever I considered anything to do with time. Asking myself “how did I get here?” easily provoked this sense.
It was as if at every moment I was forgetting and then remembering instantaneously. I soon realized that this was the case with anything I turned my attention to. Whatever I focused on, it was as if I was discovering it for the first time. This was true when I turned my attention to the palm of my hand. Or to the taste of a Kit Kat. Or to the discipline of mathematics. Or to the concept of my identity. Or — and this was what really changed me — to the notion of attention itself.
Suddenly, as if for the first time in my life, I properly acknowledged the fact that I was, indeed, experiencing. I was experiencing bright, beautiful colours. Sounds, loud and soft. The feeling of my clothes against my skin. Emotions. I was even experiencing what it was like to have thoughts.
To pay attention to attention is to fully experience. To fully experience is to truly come to understand what consciousness feels like. And it’s remarkable.
Crucially, this can be achieved without use of drugs. For there is nothing particularly special about this insight. It simply requires funnelling your attention into the present moment. Right into the very centre of time. Not an inch toward the past, or toward the future.
This is the essence of meditation.
The words we have at our disposal to attempt to convey this experience are crude: wonder, awe, love, ecstasy, reverence, fulfillment. The only word that comes close is “ineffable” — and only because it means “something that cannot or should not be expressed in language”.
I began by attempting to express this feeling with the analogy of stumbling upon a scene of extraordinary natural beauty. But this too, falls short. Perhaps a greater poet than I could come closer; but even the most beautiful poetry is doomed to be inadequate. What I’m talking about can only be achieved as a first-person subjective experience.
If any of this has piqued your curiosity about meditation, reach out to me. I’d love to chat.
Three brief footnotes on drugs
1. Although the war on drugs is far from over, I am thrilled that we now live in a time where it is acceptable to openly discuss drug use (and without fear that one’s job prospects will evaporate).
2. However, I’ve been mocked in the past for using drugs in such a serious, introspective way. I can appreciate playful probing; I take no issue with (safe) recreational drug use, and truly don’t mind being teased. But the more vicious attacks that have come my way have disappointed me — not least because of the irony in users of drugs becoming the perpetuators of a kind of reverse stigmatization.
3. This piece is not meant to be a prescription of marijuana or any other kind of drug. My references to drug use by way of personal anecdote were merely meant to educate and spark curiosity. Taking an edible (or any drug) does not guarantee access to the kind of insight I’ve described here. Anybody using mind-altering drugs should do so in a safe, informed, and responsible way.
Acknowledgements
First, thank you to my dear friend Jan, for a wonderful conversation this evening which inspired my writing.
Second, I must thank a long list (too long to name everybody) of people with whom I’ve had incredible discussions with about these ideas.
Third, I must extend thanks to the people who I studied with in the Bhuddism, Psychology, and Mental Health program, including neuroscientist and professor Paul Whissel, Dr. Elli Weisbaum, and all of the Monks from the Plum Village community with whom I’ve had the honour of studying and meditating with.
Finally, while my writing here draws on and is undoubtably influenced by everything from personal experiences, conversations with friends and strangers, academic literature, educational articles, books, talks, and so on… I would be remiss not to specifically mention the work Sam Harris, whose speaking and writing on the subjects of meditation and self-transcendence have been crucial to my exploration of this territory, and to my ability to articulate my thoughts on it. In particular, I highly recommend reading his book Waking Up. In many ways, this piece can be seen as a response to some of the ideas he raises there.