A Practical Guide to Psychedelic Meditation

Radiant Great Bliss With 5-MeO-DMT

John Gorman

Copyright © 2025 John Gorman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the author.

ISBN: 9798879843248 (print)
Edition: 2025-02-18

A note to the reader

This book is for educational purposes only, aiming to inform without endorsing the use of psychedelic substances. The author assumes no responsibility for physical, psychological, legal, or other consequences arising from the use of psychedelic substances. You are solely responsible for understanding and complying with all laws that may be applicable to you.

Cover notes

The front cover symbolizes the radiant empty luminosity that you can recognize with 5-MeO-DMT. At low and moderate doses, with the eyes closed, healing golden light flows through the physical and subtle bodies. The golden light of allowing feelings to be felt releases tension, blocked energy, and trauma into the okayness of acceptance and essence love. At higher doses, awareness becomes extraordinarily bright. The brilliant white light, the supreme sunlight of naked awareness, washes out the relative dimness of concepts, appearances, identity, and duality. There is only brilliant white light, unobscured naked awareness. This precious and unexcelled quality of naked being is blissful and effortless.

The back cover symbolizes the visual effects seen with LSD. You will see the vajra chains flowing freely in the room's space, beautiful three-dimensional laminar flows of translucent patterns. They slowly shift and undulate, connecting in different ways. You can see right through them. They slightly distort the objects visible behind them as if they have some density, like ribbons of glass or transparent ripples in space.

This practice manual is dedicated to my root guru,
the mahasiddha Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche.

Since all things are naked, clear
and free from obscurations, there
is nothing to attain or realize.
The everyday practice is simply to
develop a complete acceptance and
openness to all situations and emotions.
And to all people – experiencing
everything totally without reservations
and blockages, so that one never
withdraws or centralizes onto oneself.

– Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

The wide-open expanse of spiritual realization, the true condition of mind, is like the sky, like space, without center, without edge, without goal. Dissolving into the expanse of emptiness, it has no limits and no boundary. Everything I see, everything I hear, my own mind, and the sky, all merge.

– Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
One of Trungpa Rinpoche’s main teachers.

Introduction

The powerful psychedelic 5-MeO-DMT is famous for granting profound experiences of nonduality. With an accurate understanding of the nature of mind as empty luminosity, it is easy to experience awareness as a blissful, lucid, and limitless expanse of nondual wisdom and universal love. Nondual, skylike awareness is beyond birth, death, confusion, and suffering. Even a single experience of nonduality can be life-changing because it reveals an entirely different way of being, characterized by openness, love, and universal compassion.

This book is a meditation manual for recognizing the nondual nature of mind, empty luminosity, using 5MeO. This recognition is called rigpa, often translated as insight or awareness. The goal is to stabilize rigpa so it lasts all day and transforms life into a flow of wisdom. Psychedelic meditation can bring us to the direct realization of empty luminosity many times. It is deep neuroplastic training in nonduality.

Neuroplastic training in nonduality refers to our ability to rewire our brain to let go of the deeply ingrained habit of duality and begin functioning without duality. The problem with relying only on daily meditation is that the training effect is very gradual. Most meditators do not become stable in nondual awareness before they die. Psychedelic meditation sessions are very intense neuroplastic training in nonduality, which can accelerate the training from decades to years.

This manual covers the entire range of practice from beginner to advanced. The experience of starting with low doses of 5MeO is surprisingly gentle and grounded in the body. Beginners often encounter complete mental silence, deep peace, and a clear glimpse of empty luminosity in their first low-dose sessions. This easy recognition of empty luminosity and relaxed liberation from concepts with no previous meditation training or psychedelic experience is unique to psychedelic meditation. Sometimes, people exclaim, “This is so easy! Is this cheating?” The answer is no, this is not cheating, because our next step is to bring nondual awareness into daily life where it can benefit ourselves and everyone we touch.

At higher doses, awareness becomes extraordinarily bright. The brilliant white light, the supreme sunlight of naked awareness, washes out the relative dimness of concepts, appearances, identity, and duality. There is only brilliant white light, unobscured naked awareness. This precious and unexcelled quality of naked being is blissful and effortless. 5MeO is the God molecule, meaning one, oneness, and nonduality. It reveals unobscured primordial wisdom, the mother luminosity, the ultimate unconditioned nature of awareness.

The cumulative neuroplastic training in nonduality is the dose intensity multiplied by the number of hours spent in rigpa. Even a hundred hours of high-intensity rigpa practice is significant neuroplastic training in nonduality. A working person can schedule a hundred hours of high-intensity rigpa practice a year in weekend sessions with no hangover, side effects, or lost time. The rest of the week is integration practice, bringing the wisdom of rigpa into daily meditation and daily life. No other practice can deliver this much nonduality training so effectively.

Psychedelic Meditation Institute holds space for practitioners at all levels of psychedelic experience, all levels of meditation training, of any tradition, and no tradition. This manual will benefit from your feedback and will be updated to track our progress in understanding and explaining the practice. You can be a pioneer in bringing psychedelic meditation into the world safely, accurately, and effectively. If you are interested in joining us in this research, visit https://psychedelicmeditation.org/ to get on the mailing list for announcements of classes, discussions, and meditation instructor training sessions.

This meditation manual contains no intellectual speculation or wishful thinking. It reflects traditional texts, oral instructions from qualified teachers, and personal experiential research. The nondual traditions have always sought the sharpest tools to cut through to primordial purity, such as multi-year solitary retreats, dark retreats, and thögal practice. Now, practitioners have access to the sharpest and most efficient tool of all, psychedelic meditation. Over the next generation or two, psychedelic meditation will become a primary vehicle for realization. May there be a thousand Buddhas in every generation!

Understanding Empty Luminosity – Understanding the nature of mind transforms a psychedelic experience into a psychedelic meditation session.

Nature of Mind Practice – How to recognize awareness as empty luminosity in psychedelic meditation sessions and daily life.

Nature of Mind Practice with 5MeO – Brilliant, profound, blissful immersion in nonduality is the heart of psychedelic meditation practice.

Navigating 5MeO – Practice hints.

Essential Training – Psychedelic meditation requires some familiarity with mindfulness, loving-kindness, and emptiness.

Navigating Psychedelics – How to work with confusion and fear as duality dissolves.

Thögal Practice with LSD – Advanced nature of mind practice with LSD.

Navigating LSD – LSD sessions are long and can be challenging.

Resources – Related organizations, books, Buddhist training options, and psychedelic safety.

About the Author – The lineage of teachings and series of coincidences that lead to this meditation manual.

1   Understanding Empty Luminosity

When you see the ultimate, the nature of the mind or luminosity, you are completely liberated from the delusion of dualistic perception. And since samsara is nothing other than this delusion, you are fully liberated from samsara. When you directly realize the ultimate, is there a seer and seen? No, but in the beginning, it is necessary for ultimate prajña to look at the nature of the mind.

– Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche

It is necessary to understand the nature of mind to practice psychedelic meditation. The nature of mind has many equivalent names, such as empty luminosity, empty knowingness, awareness-emptiness, clarity-emptiness, primordial wisdom, primordial purity, the ultimate unconditioned, Buddha nature, and nondual awareness. The nature of mind is the three aspects of essence, nature, and compassionate energy. The empty essence is stainless primordial purity. The nature is luminous clarity, the spontaneous presence of knowingness. The all-pervasive compassionate energy is the responsive wisdom of loving and caring for all beings.

The most direct way to understand the nature of mind is to look for awareness, which no one thinks to do. Everyone knows that they are vividly, sometimes overwhelmingly, aware. Yet, when attempting to find, locate, or see this vivid awareness, nothing can be found, located, or seen. Awareness is utterly transparent and empty of any perceivable characteristic. This emptiness is the nature of mind. Awareness is emptiness. Awareness is emptiness, but not nothing.

Awareness is also knowingness. Awareness is a bare clarity or naked luminosity that can know anything. This luminous clarity can know the sense consciousnesses, thoughts, and emotions, and it can also know itself. Awareness is self-knowing and self-illuminating, like a candle flame, which illuminates objects nearby at the same time that it illuminates itself. Using a flashlight to see a candle flame is unnecessary because it is self-illuminating. Awareness can know itself and, in doing so, can know its nature, empty luminosity.

Emptiness and luminosity are not separate things but a natural union, the radiance of compassionate energy. Luminosity is emptiness. Emptiness is luminous. It is impossible to have one without the other. This union of emptiness and luminosity is the unconfined capacity for anything to arise as responsive compassion and love. Everything that arises within the radiance of awareness-emptiness is not separate from awareness-emptiness, so all appearances arise as the union of appearance-emptiness. Appearances are emptiness. Emptiness appears as everything. It is impossible to have appearances without them being emptiness because appearances are composed of awareness, which is emptiness. Appearances are vividly appearing yet empty of any actual existence. They are ephemeral, dreamlike, and ungraspable. It is impossible to locate appearances except to describe them in relation to other ungraspable appearances.

Empty luminosity is like a perfect mirror. Although many images appear in the mirror of awareness, none of the reflections can change or stain the mirror. This stainless, empty quality is our pure and awake nature, beyond conceptual confusion. Empty luminosity is the mirror of awareness, a vivid and stainless lucidity.

It is impossible to say that awareness exists because it is unfindable. It is impossible to say that awareness does not exist because it is a vivid and continuous experience. Awareness is beyond existing and beyond not existing. It is impossible to fit awareness into conceptual boxes of any kind. Awareness is nonconceptual and, therefore, beyond duality, which depends on concepts.

Since awareness does not exist as an object, it cannot be created or destroyed. It is timeless, unchanging, and indestructible. It has no outer characteristic that can be damaged or stained. Empty luminosity is stainless and primordially pure since beginningless time. Confusion does not make empty luminosity worse, and realization does not make empty luminosity better. Empty luminosity is beyond confusion or liberation. It is the ground of everything without exception.

Understanding the view of empty luminosity is the basis for nature of mind practice. When psychedelics fully dissolve conceptual mind, all that remains is naked empty luminosity. This dissolution process will transform a conceptual understanding of the view into the direct realization of empty luminosity. It is the complete dissolution of concepts, identities, and duality that makes psychedelic meditation such a powerful, direct, and swift path to the stable realization of nondual wisdom.

1.1   Distinguishing Sems from Rigpa

Sems is translated as mind, meaning dualistic consciousness. Rigpa is nondual awareness, the ongoing nonconceptual direct insight of recognizing awareness as empty luminosity. Understanding the building blocks of dualistic consciousness and its relationship to nondual awareness is necessary to transition from dualistic consciousness to nondual awareness. Once the two states are recognized, entering nondual awareness at any time is easy. The practice is to notice duality and drop into nonduality many times until nonduality becomes the default state.

Psychedelic meditation is a particularly potent practice of distinguishing sems from rigpa because psychedelics dissolve sems and reveal intensely bright and brilliant naked rigpa. Rigpa itself is unchanging and is no different with or without psychedelics. However, the dissolution of sems reveals rigpa so clearly and brilliantly that it makes a deep impression, a highly effective neuroplastic training in nonduality. This neuroplastic training in nondual awareness speeds up the path to stable realization.

All of the eight kinds of consciousness are dualistic perceptions. Each consciousness consists of a subject that perceives a separate object. It isn't really like that, but it looks that way due to the dualistic habit. There are five sense consciousnesses: visual consciousness, sound consciousness, tactile consciousness, smell consciousness, and taste consciousness. These correspond to the five types of sense objects perceived as other than the self.

The sixth consciousness is the mental consciousness responsible for thinking and mental imagery. Thinking is the activity of unconsciously and compulsively fixating on one thought after another all day. The compulsive fixation of thinking is so continuous that it is hard to notice, like a fish not noticing water. Strong thoughts are like getting lost in a private movie for a minute or two when thinking about a past or future interaction.

The seventh consciousness is the klesha consciousness. The object is me, me, all about me, the unhealthy sense of self. Kleshas are the disturbing emotions of liking, disliking, and ignoring that are usually like the background music of daily life but sometimes overwhelmingly unbearable. Disturbing emotions are always about "me," the subject. There is so much sensitivity to every little compliment or snub!

The eighth consciousness is the alaya, or storehouse consciousness, where all habitual tendencies, traumas, and karmic seeds reside in the subtle body. Aversion for uncomfortable experiences and attachment to pleasant experiences both create karmic seeds of suffering. Anything that resembles one of the karmic seeds activates it. If someone says something that sounds like one of our life scripts, it gets interpreted according to the life script. The same kleshas are activated again, making the karmic imprints deeper each time.

Rigpa is the host of the eight consciousnesses. They all arise from within awareness and are composed of awareness. Rigpa is like a perfect mirror, and the eight consciousnesses are like reflections appearing in the mirror. Sems is glued to the reflections and does not even notice the mirror of awareness.

Rigpa does not depend on the eight consciousnesses.  You can check this for yourself. Within self-awareness, look at a visual object. Then, close your eyes. Does self-awareness change when the visible object disappears? It doesn’t even flicker. Check this with thoughts and kleshas. Think a thought within self-awareness, then let it go. Have a klesha about something that makes you mad, then let the madness fade. None of these has the slightest effect on self-awareness. The reflections in the mirror change, but the mirror of rigpa does not change.

Since rigpa does not depend on the eight consciousnesses, it is unchanging and beyond time. It is beginningless, endless, timeless awareness. Since appearances do not condition it, it is primordially pure, beyond confusion or suffering. Since it was never born, it cannot die. Nothing can destroy awareness, so it is protected and safe. Rigpa is total peace. By identifying with the unchanging mirror of rigpa instead of the ephemeral reflections of sems, our entire being is unshakable peace. The transition from the suffering of sems to the limitless peace of rigpa is the heart of nature of mind practice.

Rigpa is so close and accessible that it can be glimpsed simply by closing the eyes and seeing what doesn’t change. Rigpa is this continuity of beingness right here—so simple, so accurate, so reliable, so clear, so profound, so complete, so pure, so perfect, so peaceful, so open, so awake.

Tulku Urgyen observed that there are many wonderful qualities to express about rigpa, but not even a single bad thing to say about it. Empty luminosity is already complete and perfect. Everyone is a fully enlightened Buddha, whether they recognize it or not. The goal is to recognize this innate perfection and stabilize that realization.

Understanding the difference between sems and rigpa gives us tremendous power to transform the confusion and suffering of our dualistic perceptions into the wisdom of rigpa. Psychedelic meditation can significantly speed up this transformation process.

1.2   Distinguishing Parts from Self

Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a groundbreaking personality model that allows us to unburden ourselves from the hidden traumas and storylines that run our lives. IFS is an essential companion for working with psychedelics, which will reveal many of our hidden burdens. The belief that people are singular beings is an illusion of dualistic confusion. The sense of self is not singular. It is a multiplicity. There is no single self or essence, only a momentary and ephemeral collection of parts.

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 they are exiled 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 try to keep our lives on an even keel. The managers are constantly scanning the environment for situations that might activate an exile so that they can navigate around anything that might resemble a trigger. The downside of avoiding all triggers is that this avoidance can distort our life choices and create adverse outcomes for our relationships, careers, and health.

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. Firefighters do not care about life consequences. They will take an ax to a door, destroy a lifetime friendship, or ruin a career to protect us from our exiled feelings.

IFS training is relevant because everyone has burdened parts and overworked protectors. IFS enables us to identify and connect with the Self. The Self is not a part. It is our true nature and cannot be damaged or burdened. It contains many inherent good qualities, such as the eight Cs: compassion, curiosity, clarity, creativity, calm, confidence, courage, and connectedness. The Self is also rich with the five P’s: presence, patience, perspective, persistence, and playfulness. Our Self is always present and available to us.

The practice is to become better at identifying with,  speaking, and acting as our Self rather than identifying with and communicating as one of our parts. Becoming Self-led is the goal of IFS work. Identifying with our Self gives us access to Self-energy and the eight Cs.

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. Treating our parts as separate from our Self gives us enough space from our parts to engage with them from our Self rather than from another part.

IFS presents detailed step-by-step methods to unburden all of our parts. IFS is an essential tool for liberation work. IFS also makes intimate relationships much easier to navigate because the two Selves can communicate directly instead of relying on burdened parts to run the communication. The openness and compassion inherent in Self-to-Self relating are the best forms of intimacy.

While undistracted from self-awareness, Self occupies the seat of consciousness. Distraction occurs when a part blends with the Self. The part then occupies the seat of consciousness. Some familiarity with IFS is essential for meditators because the distractions that arise during meditation sessions are parts that want our attention. If a part starts looping, 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. Ask the part if it is willing to soften back and allow Self to be in the seat of consciousness for the session. Promise to check back with the part after the session is over.

Sometimes, a part will continue looping to remember to take action after the meditation session. You can write the message down and promise to follow through right after the session. Then, you can request that the part soften back and allow you to continue meditating to strengthen your self-leadership to benefit all the parts. This paragraph was composed by a manual writing part during a daily meditation session and written on 3×5 cards. Well done! Thank you.

Sometimes, there will be fear about taking psychedelics. A concerned protector wants to help us avoid difficulty or danger. When there is fear, take time to listen to the fearful part. Reassure the part that there will be no dosage bungee jumping, only careful explorations starting with very light doses. Continue spending time with the part until it softens back and trusts us to be responsible psychedelic meditators.

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. The compassion and skill that IFS brings to unburdening parts is a missing piece of the Vajrayana. 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.

IFS has four goals:

Unburden parts to return them to their valuable state.

Help parts trust Self as the leader.

Help the parts to work together and harmonize.

Bring Self-leadership out to benefit others and the world.

1.3   Healing the Subtle Body

The scope of psychedelic meditation is to heal the entire spectrum of our being from the most intimately relative to the most profoundly existential. The subtle body contains and stores all of our personal habits, relative identities, parts, and traumas. The subtle body also contains the deeply entrenched habit of dualistic perception and ignorance of our empty and luminous skylike nature.

According to the yogic tradition, the subtle or energetic body consists of prana, nadi, and bindu. Prana is our life force energy. Nadi are the channels or nerves where the energy flows. Bindu is awareness. There are three main channels that travel the length of the body. In the nondual state, energy moves freely in the central channel as the blissful insight of rigpa. In the dualistic state, energy moves in the left and right channels as the suffering of ignorance.

It is important to understand that the subtle body itself is always complete and perfect. Dualistic confusion and identity clinging are temporary surface phenomena that can be completely cleared away. There are two types of transformation of the energetic system.

The first type of transformation is from an unhealthy to a healthy energetic system. Blockages, traumas, and knots in the energetic system release. Letting go of blockages transforms unhealthy energetic patterns into healthy ones. Psychedelics will amplify the energy flow and speed up the transformation process. Clearing out the blockages allows vast amounts of energy to flow freely through our being.

The second type of transformation is from the healthy energetic body to the wisdom body. This transformation happens as nature of mind practice transforms dualistic perception into nondual wisdom. The wisdom body of bliss is revealed in the state of realization, stable rigpa.

Sometimes, both kinds of transformation happen at the same time. It is possible to let go of unhealthy patterns while also letting go of duality and recognizing the nature of mind. Sometimes, the transformations alternate or are sequential. In one session, unhealthy patterns dissolve, and duality dissolves in another.

Yoga means nondual union. High-dose rigpa practice is tantric yoga, transforming the dualistic subtle body into the nondual wisdom body. The practice is to lie down and spread the limbs out symmetrically to allow the vast energy of the medicine to flow freely through the channels. Becoming conceptual spills the energy of awareness into the left and right channels as dualistic fixation, and the training effect is lost. Psychedelic meditation is to remain continuously nonconceptual so that the brilliant energy of nondual rigpa flows through the central channel, cleansing and purifying the habit of duality.

1.4   The Mother Luminosity

The mother luminosity is unobscured primordial wisdom, naked empty luminosity. Nothing can hide primordial wisdom, but dualistic struggles seem to obscure primordial wisdom because they are mesmerizing. Here are four occasions when the obscurations of duality have dissolved, and the mother luminosity dawns like a clear and cloudless sky. Psychedelic meditation can bring us face to face with unobscured primordial wisdom to speed our progress to stable realization. See The Self-arisen Wisdom Lamp section for a detailed description of the ultimate unconditioned.

1. Everyone is guaranteed to encounter the mother luminosity when they die. During the dying process, the five sense consciousnesses dissolve one by one. Then, the mental consciousnesses dissolve. At the time of death, no mental activity obscures the mother luminosity, and she dawns bright and clear.

At the time of death, it is possible to recognize the mother luminosity and become fully enlightened, a full-fledged Buddha. Our nature of mind practice while alive is called the child luminosity. When our experience of the child luminosity is stable, our child luminosity will recognize the mother luminosity at the time of death. The child luminosity jumps into the mother luminosity’s lap and becomes one with her. The union of the mother and child luminosity is complete and final enlightenment.

2. 5MeO is so bright that it washes out identity, concepts, appearances, and duality, highlighting the brilliance of naked clarity-emptiness. Recognizing naked clarity-emptiness is a bright and stable direct realization of rigpa. While relaxing deeply into naked rigpa at high doses, the mother luminosity naturally dawns. 5MeO is a guest pass to unobscured primordial wisdom without having to die. As such, 5MeO nature of mind practice is an excellent preparation for navigating the dying process without fear. It is also the most efficient path to the stable realization of empty luminosity that lasts all day and transforms our lives into a flow of wisdom.

3. LSD reveals visual effects called the vajra chains, which are the radiant wisdom display of clarity-emptiness. Thögal practice is gazing at the vajra chains while recognizing the nature of mind, which guides us to relax the grip of duality completely. Without duality, nothing obscures primordial wisdom, and the mother luminosity naturally dawns. Primordial wisdom is already complete within us, and thögal practice reveals it effortlessly without needing outer appearances to dissolve. Living in unobscured primordial wisdom while in full contact with appearances and thoughts is an extraordinary realization integration practice.

4. The realization of a Buddha is unobscured primordial wisdom that continues day and night. Buddhas are living in the mother luminosity while still alive. From the perspective of a Buddha, there is no dying or death. Primordial wisdom continues when the body dissolves.

2   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.

2.1   Mind is Emptiness

Do not alter the mind but allow it to settle as it is.

And, in such a state, look naturally within.

There will unfold an experience that is indescribable,

Which has no fixed character as either this or that,

And the natural radiance of which will not cease.

This is the genuine state, the natural condition,

The actual dharmatā, beyond conception.

It is the insight born of natural luminosity,

The view: like a mountain, left as it is.

– Ju Mipham Rinpoche, The Key Points of Trekchö

Mind is emptiness is the primary insight that unlocks the wisdom of recognizing nondual awareness. Recognizing the empty essence liberates us from duality and suffering. As conceptual mind dissolves, the experience of emptiness becomes extraordinarily vivid during psychedelic meditation sessions. Not recognizing the vivid experience of emptiness arising during a psychedelic experience can lead to misunderstandings and fear. Recognizing the vivid experience of emptiness during a psychedelic meditation session transforms the session into a profound and blissful exploration of primordial wisdom. Mind is emptiness is a key instruction for psychedelic meditators.

In the state of ignorance, there is the unexamined assumption that there is a self, an observer somewhere, perhaps inside of our head. The observer is assumed to look out at external objects in the environment. No one questions this basic dualistic assumption. No one thinks of looking at the observing awareness and examining it. This section explores what happens when awareness looks at awareness.

Seeing that mind is emptiness is recognizing the nature of mind. It is easy and simple. Give it a try right now. Sit upright and compose yourself in awareness. Let go of the thinking mind and relax. While your eyes are looking outward, let your awareness gently look inward at itself, as if you are looking at the back of your head. When awareness looks inward at itself, it sees there is nothing to see. Allow the not-seeing to continue for a minute or two. Looking and not seeing is the experience of recognizing that mind is emptiness.

Awareness looking at itself and not seeing anything is seeing emptiness. Sometimes, the term can be misleading because it sounds like emptiness is a special object. Not finding this special object can feel like a failure due to expecting to see “something empty.” Emptiness is not a special object. Seeing emptiness is the moment of seeing that there is nothing to see. Looking for awareness and not seeing anything is an instant success. Be happy. Celebrate. Looking and not seeing is seeing emptiness.

Anyone can recognize their empty nature. No conceptual, philosophical, or religious belief system is needed. Seeing that there is nothing to see is a nonconceptual direct insight. Whenever we look for awareness, we succeed in not seeing anything, instantly and without error. There is no way to fail at this practice because awareness is indeed emptiness, and we can verify this every time we look.

Seeing space is a good analogy. Look at the space in the room. There is nothing to see there. Not seeing anything in the space is called seeing space. Seeing emptiness is similar but more intimate because awareness is so close, so personal. Clarity is recognizing its empty nature. Nature of mind practice is the heart of nonduality training.

Let this not seeing continue for as long as it naturally does. Don't expect rigpa to last for very long. When distracted from rigpa, notice the distraction and look again. Look, don't see, let be, and allow the not seeing to continue. While recognizing, let be in relaxation. Rest in the not seeing without altering anything or trying to improve anything. Recognizing many times like this is the practice of short moments, many times. Over time, these short moments naturally become longer and longer. One second, two seconds, three seconds. Then, one minute, two minutes, three minutes. Eventually, one hour, two hours, three hours up to all day.

Duality requires both a subject and an object. Seeing that awareness is emptiness removes the subject from the dualistic equation. Without a subject, there is no longer a separate object. The awareness seeing and the awareness seen are one. There is no duality in awareness. What used to seem like external objects become recognized as appearance-emptiness,  the radiant expressions of awareness-emptiness, vividly appearing without a trace of actual existence. At the moment of recognizing the nature of mind as empty luminosity, duality collapses into the openness of rigpa. The dualistic process of a subject fixating on one object after another has vanished. There is a natural resting in spacious openness with no fixation at all.

As Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche says, "Remain undistracted from holding nothing whatsoever in mind." Holding nothing whatsoever in mind refers to not holding onto or fixating on any mental object. It does not mean appearances, thoughts, and emotions do not arise. They do arise, and their arising is embraced by recognizing their empty nature without any fixation.

While not fixating, many appearances and thoughts can arise without having the slightest effect on the continuity of rigpa. Allow thoughts and emotions to arise and naturally dissolve on their own. There is no need to block, alter, or liberate them. They arise already liberated. They all self-liberate on their own. There is no need to even blow on them. This open and unfixated awareness is the nonmeditation state, also called the natural state. Undistracted nonmeditation means not meditating on any object and yet not being distracted for even an instant. Nonmeditation is resting meditation because it is effortless recognition of the nature of mind, awareness-emptiness.

The ideal outcome is a relaxed and stable openness, a single sphere of unfixated awareness. Look up, down, in, out, and 360 degrees in all directions. There is no separate object to see. There is nothing but awareness-emptiness and its radiance, appearance-emptiness. There is only openness with no dualistic object separate from awareness on which to fixate.

Recognize the luminous empty purity of awareness. There is nothing concrete to become stained, so it is always a vivid stainless knowingness. Recognize empty luminosity and rest in that recognition. Over time, this recognition becomes more stable. Once recognition becomes stable, there is nothing more to accomplish. It is the direct nondual realization of empty luminosity.

Psychedelics dissolve the conceptual mind and reveal awareness to be a radiant and brilliant expanse of unconditioned emptiness. Recognizing the empty essence of the brilliance transforms the psychedelic experience into the profound realization of nondual primordial wisdom.

2.2   Emptiness is Spontaneous Presence

As you simply remain in that natural state,

There is neither meditation nor distraction.

Without suppressing, cultivating, evaluating or analysing,

Allow yourself to settle fully into the genuine state.

This is the natural concentration of dharmatā,

Uncorrupted by the bonds of deliberate action.

Abiding in the yoga that is the King of Space,

This is meditation: like the ocean, left as it is.

– Ju Mipham Rinpoche, The Key Points of Trekchö

The clarity aspect of awareness becomes extraordinarily vivid during psychedelic meditation sessions. Conceptual mind dissolves, revealing a radiant expanse of brilliant awareness with no location, boundary, or limit. Recognizing the radiant brilliance as limitless clarity during a psychedelic meditation session transforms the session into a profound and blissful exploration of primordial wisdom. Recognizing clarity is a key instruction for psychedelic meditators.

Spontaneous presence refers to the knowingness or clarity aspect of awareness. Our knowingness is a continual presence, always present in every situation. Clarity is in union with emptiness, so it has no color or shape, like a perfect mirror. Since clarity is emptiness, it was never created or born. Since it was never born, it cannot grow old, change, or die, so it is a safe place to be. It is a continuous, spontaneous presence without needing any causes or conditions.

Since clarity is emptiness, it is impossible to find clarity by looking for something substantial. Clarity is ungraspable, yet it knows many things, so the knowingness is not nothing. If looking cannot find clarity, how can it be recognized? There is an experience of knowingness that is always here. There is an experience of beingness that is always here. The knowingness and beingness are continuous and undeniable. Recognize the continuity of the knowingness, the beingness.

Being caught up in chains of thoughts is being distracted from the continuity of knowingness. As soon as one thought ends, another begins, without noticing the continuity of awareness that is always present. As soon as the present thought ends, do not reconnect with any thought. Not following any thought cuts the chain of thinking, and the naked beingness of awareness is immediately apparent. Naked knowingness is the experience of clarity. Clarity is shining brightly as the continuous moment of nondistraction. Sustain the recognition of clarity for as long as it lasts.

If the continuous moment of nondistraction is difficult to sustain, look for a moment of distraction when awareness loses track of itself. While looking for the next moment of distraction, it is impossible to become distracted. It is like looking for darkness with a flashlight. Not finding a moment of distraction is a fun and easy way to enjoy the continuous moment of nondistraction.

If sustaining the continuous moment of nondistraction while sitting still becomes stale, go for a walk. Pick a landmark, such as a bush a short distance ahead, and see whether a moment of distraction arises before arriving at the bush. If there has not been a moment of distraction, then there is certainty in sustaining the continuity of clarity. Keep picking landmarks until the continuous moment of nondistraction is relatively settled. Then, let the landmarks go and continue walking in the timeless natural state.

Sustaining the continuity of recognizing clarity is the best refuge from suffering. Thought loops cannot operate while sustaining the continuous moment of nondistraction. Thoughts will arise, but they can no longer loop in ignorance of their nature. Instead of looping, they self-liberate and arise as wisdom. Without compulsive thought loops to stir them up, disturbing emotions naturally self-liberate. Sustaining rigpa is a safe place to be.

Recognizing clarity is the direct experience of nonduality. Nondual knowingness is the experience of emptiness, so recognizing emptiness is included in recognizing clarity. For this reason, there is no need to even think about emptiness. Sustain the flow of the continuous moment of nondistraction.

Recognizing clarity can be more accessible than recognizing emptiness. When recognizing clarity, the experience of beingness is evident and easy to identify. For this reason, recognizing clarity is a faster path to realization than recognizing emptiness.

Psychedelics dissolve the conceptual mind and reveal awareness to be a radiant and brilliant expanse of blissful clarity. Recognizing the brilliance as clarity transforms the psychedelic experience into the profound realization of nondual primordial wisdom.

2.3   Spontaneous Presence is Self-Liberated

As you are settled like this,

Any thoughts and impressions that stir within

And any appearances that occur without,

Should neither be prevented nor encouraged but left as they are.

As long as you do not stray from this natural state,

Whatever unfolds will bring neither benefit nor harm.

Without concern for good or bad, acceptance or rejection,

This is action: appearances, left as they are.

– Ju Mipham Rinpoche, The Key Points of Trekchö

When remaining in awareness itself, every thought movement,

no matter what kind, is like drawing in air.

– Tulku Urgyen

The radiant wisdom display of awareness becomes extraordinarily vivid during psychedelic meditation sessions. Conceptual mind dissolves, revealing a radiant wisdom display of immense power, beauty, and meaning. Recognizing the entire field of awareness as the radiant wisdom display of clarity during a psychedelic meditation session transforms the session into a profound and blissful exploration of primordial wisdom. Recognizing all appearances as the display of radiant wisdom is a key instruction for psychedelic meditators.

Awareness is the union of clarity and emptiness. The union of clarity and emptiness is the unconfined capacity for anything to appear. Appearances are the radiance of empty luminosity. Sense perceptions are appearance-emptiness, the union of clarity and emptiness. Thoughts and emotions are appearance-emptiness. Our entire field of awareness is the display of clarity-emptiness. Clarity is like a perfect mirror, and appearances are like reflections in the mirror. Just as reflections are not separate from the mirror they appear in, appearances are not separate from the clarity of knowingness. Seeing appearances is an invitation to recognize the clarity of knowingness because appearances are the expressions of knowingness.

Our moment-to-moment dualistic experience is dominated by the mental consciousness, which can only focus on one thing at a time. When daydreaming, the mental consciousness focuses on one thought after another. When looking at objects, the mental consciousness focuses on one visual object at a time. Clarity, on the other hand, is aware of the entire field of awareness and everything in it simultaneously.

One way to bypass the mental consciousness and recognize nonconceptual clarity is to become aware of everything simultaneously. Instead of only being aware of one visual object, be aware of the entire visual field, including everything in the peripheral vision. While aware of the entire visual field, be aware of any thoughts and emotional feelings. Also, be aware of any body sensations and sounds in the environment. Only clarity can be aware of all sense consciousnesses at once, so recognize them as the nonconceptual, nondual radiance of clarity. All appearances are clarity-emptiness.

Another way to see through the mental labeling and recognize clarity is to pay attention to the raw sense data behind the label. The sense consciousnesses are nonconceptual. It is possible to perceive the conceptual label "dog" and the unique nonconceptual beauty of the living animal in front of us simultaneously. Look right through the transparency of the label and see the being's color, shape, movement, and mood. Recognize the creature as an emanation of clarity.

It is not necessary to bypass the mental consciousness to recognize clarity. The focus and labeling of the mental consciousness is also the radiance of clarity. Notice the focusing process in real time. Be aware of the labeling as it arises. The focusing and labeling are the transparent display of empty luminosity. Recognize labeling as the toolbox of clarity.

The stream of thoughts appearing in the mental consciousness is the radiance of clarity. There is no need to suppress thoughts. Recognize thoughts as the discriminating wisdom of clarity.

The stream of disturbing emotions appearing in the klesha consciousness is the radiance of clarity. There is no need to eliminate or alter disturbing emotions. Allow them to fully ripen as the pure, luminous radiance of clarity-emptiness. Without altering or correcting them, allow them to spontaneously self-liberate. Recognize disturbing emotions as the radiant bliss of clarity.

The subtle body contains our identities, habits, traumas, and beliefs. Identities, traumas, and beliefs are the radiance of clarity. Whenever an identity or exiled feeling is activated, allow it to be just as it is without aversion, acting on, or ignoring it. Feeling the feeling and allowing the feeling to be just as it is will enable it to heal and self-liberate. Recognize identities as the radiance of the transparent identitylessness of clarity.

Recognizing appearances as the radiance of empty luminosity transforms sense perceptions into recognition practice. Merely seeing something is recognizing the nature of mind. Thoughts and emotions, ordinarily distracting us, become the basis for recognition practice. With everything helping our recognition practice, sustaining the continuity of recognition becomes easier.

Since appearances are always in our faces, everything becomes nature of mind practice. There is no need to hold ourselves back from engaging with thoughts and activities. Allow thoughts and emotions to arise freely. Full engagement with the world becomes our nature of mind practice. Appearances are opportunities for recognition, so everything is the experience of nondual awareness. Since appearances are the radiant display of rigpa, they arise already liberated. There is no need to alter them at all. They are naturally free. Thoughts and emotions are spontaneously self-liberated and arise as wisdom. Embrace nature of mind practice everywhere at all times in all circumstances. Recognizing appearances as the radiance of clarity is the swift path to stable realization.

Psychedelics dissolve the conceptual mind and reveal all inner sensations and outer appearances to be the wisdom display of clarity-emptiness. Recognizing appearances as the radiant display of clarity transforms the psychedelic experience into the profound realization of nondual primordial wisdom.

2.4   Recognize the Natural State

As you make progress, all that appears and exists

Will become a single all-embracing sphere of aware-emptiness,

Within which everything is entirely perfect and complete.

This happens effortlessly, is spontaneously accomplished.

Any striving to adopt or abandon simply fades away,

And hopes and fears for saṃsāra and nirvāṇa are no more.

The primordial nature is made manifest —

The fruition: awareness, left as it is.

– Ju Mipham Rinpoche, The Key Points of Trekchö

The natural state is the day-to-day lived experience of nondual awareness. At first, the natural state can feel unfamiliar because samsara no longer operates. Continuous self-awareness can be confronting in the positive sense of cutting through the ignorance and distraction that has been our default state. The Tibetan word for meditation is gom, which also means familiarization or getting used to. It takes practice to get used to the natural state. A lot of the familiarization process is letting go into being present instead of distracted. With enough familiarization, the continuous nondual self-awareness of the natural state will feel natural, liberating, and meaningful.

Shamatha requires ongoing effort to sustain nondistraction. As realization progresses, getting a grip on awareness using effortful mindfulness becomes impossible. It is no longer possible to meditate with effort. When it is no longer possible to meditate, it is necessary to recognize the nonmeditation state. Recognize the already present unfixated awareness and rest right within it. Awareness is inherently nondual, stable, and free. The nonmeditation state is the natural state, the effortless ongoing experience of nondual awareness.

There is nothing natural about samsara. Samsara is a hot mess of contrivance and suffering. Ordinary samsaric awareness is our reminder to rejoin the natural state. Rejoin the continuous moment of nondistraction and seamlessly drop back into the natural state.

Undistracted nonmeditation is not meditating on even so much as an atom and not becoming distracted for even so much as an instant. Undistracted nonmeditation is the nonmeditation state. The nonmeditation state is the natural state: open, spacious, and relaxed. The flow of compulsive thinking and karmic creation has ceased. There is freedom to be compassionate, skillful, and wise.

Psychedelic meditation makes the natural state of nondual awareness immediately accessible to everyone. Psychedelics dissolve concepts to reveal the nonconceptual, nondual ground of being, naked empty luminosity. Psychedelic meditation is deep neuroplastic training in nondual awareness that shows up as the stable recognition of the natural state in daily meditation practice and life.

Holding Nothing Whatsoever in Mind

Remain undistracted from holding nothing whatsoever in mind. Appearances and thoughts will arise and flow through without fixation on any of them. Holding nothing whatsoever in mind is not the same as not having any thoughts. It is a continuous and vivid experience of nonfixation while thoughts continue to arise. Mind is holding no object at all. With nothing to fixate on, there is no creation of karma. Everything arises already liberated. Like drawing on water, mental activity leaves no karmic trace. Holding nothing in mind is sustaining the recognition of objectless awareness.

If objectless awareness needs to be clarified, follow these instructions from Tulku Urgyen.

In this moment, when past thought has gone and future thought has not yet come, do not reconnect with any thought. To use Dzogchen terminology, it is to be awake, vibrant, crystal-clear, fully present. These incredible words do not need our fabrication, our making. They point at what is naturally so, not at what is cultivated through training.

– Tulku Urgyen, As It Is Volume II, p. 209

Reconnecting to a thought refers to blending with a thought in an ignorant belief that it is reality. By not reconnecting with any thought, awareness does not narrow down and become absorbed in thoughts. Thoughts still arise, and they can plan things, but since they are known to be thoughts, they no longer create any karma. Sustain the continuity of free, unbound, unfixated awareness.

Psychedelic meditation develops the skill of sustaining nonconceptual awareness. Sustaining nonconceptual awareness is essential in daily meditation sessions and life. When a thought arises, remain on this side of the boundary of getting absorbed into the thought. Thoughts arise within nonfixation and do not create any fixation, so the natural state is resilient and stable. Thinking without any fixation is productive and enjoyable.

Holding nothing whatsoever in mind is the second introduction to the nature of mind: Mind is Emptiness, recognizing the empty essence.

The Continuous Moment of Nondistraction

Enjoy the continuous moment of nondistraction. Without even an instant of distraction, there is no time for the karmic process of ignorance to operate. It is karma-free living. The continuous moment of nondistraction sustains timeless awareness.

If timeless awareness needs to be clarified, look for a moment of distraction. While looking, it is impossible to find a moment of distraction. Not finding any moment of distraction is timeless awareness. Rest evenly in timeless awareness.

The continuous moment of nondistraction is the third introduction to the nature of mind: Emptiness is Spontaneous Presence, recognizing the nature as changeless clarity.

The Single Sphere of Being

Spending time in the single sphere of nondual awareness in psychedelic meditation sessions will show up vividly in daily practice and life. Remain wide awake in the continuity of self-aware rigpa. Appreciate the vividness of appearances, like images appearing clearly in a crystal ball. Stretch out into the totality of space and awareness, the entire field of being. See The Single Sphere of Being section for another description. Sustaining the single sphere of awareness is the same practice with and without psychedelics. Once the single sphere shows up in our daily practice and life, the pace of training increases.

The Single Sphere of Being is the fourth introduction to the nature of mind: Spontaneous Presence is Self-liberated, recognizing the unconfined capacity for anything to arise. Everything arises already liberated as the radiance of empty luminosity.

Innate Stability

The nonmeditation state has an innate stability and natural uprightness. Innate stability does not require deliberate mindfulness. Sustain the natural state by living in the effortless flow of spontaneous liberation. Confidence in liberation is settled, peaceful, and skillful. It can navigate life's many ups and downs without becoming caught up in distractions or stories. Our natural good qualities are free to express themselves in response to whatever is needed. The natural state is inherently perfect and innately stable.

Psychedelic meditation is intense and sustained training in nondual awareness. The deep neuroplastic training in nondual awareness from psychedelic meditation sessions settles the mind on a fundamental level. The deeply ingrained habit of distraction dissolves and reveals our innate effortless stability.

Undistracted Ordinary Mind

Within the natural state, recognizing the nature of mind is innately stable and ongoing. There is no need to sustain it with effort. So, what exactly is happening with our everyday functioning? On the relative level, there is awareness of the ongoing insight of rigpa. The continuity of rigpa has the side effect of dissolving thought loops. Thoughts function well because they take place in the spacious clarity of insight. Activities attend to their tasks one at a time with presence and accuracy because there is no spacing out or delusion. Undistracted ordinary mind is mind just as it is: natural, free, not judged, and not altered.

To sustain undistracted ordinary mind, choose not to wander off into delusion. Navigate each new situation within the ongoing awareness of the environment of rigpa. Attend to each moment in an ordinary, accurate, patient, relaxed, and attentive manner. Within undistracted ordinary mind, everything self-liberates as it arises, like writing in water. Undistracted ordinary mind opens the door to the conduct of a bodhisattva: responsive, spontaneous, and free.

Nature of mind practice is the same with and without psychedelics. The most effective training is to combine a strong weekly psychedelic meditation practice with a regular daily meditation practice because they support each other. Progress in one leads to progress in the other. Psychedelic meditation is deep neuroplastic training in nonduality, and daily meditation integrates nonduality training into life.

3   Nature of Mind Practice with 5MeO

Pure mind is like the empty sky,

Without memory, supreme meditation;

It is our own nature, unstirring, uncontrived,

And wherever that abides is the superior mind,

One in buddhahood without any sign,

One in view free of limiting elaboration,

One in meditation free of limiting ideation,

One in conduct free of limiting endeavor,

And one in fruition free of limiting attainment.

Vast! spacious!

Released as it stands!

With neither realization nor non-realization;

Experience consummate! No mind!

It is open to infinity.

– Natural Perfection: Longchenpa's Radical Dzogchen translated by Keith Dowman

5-MeO-DMT is a miraculous healing medicine. It incorporates the DMT molecule but is an entirely different substance than N,N-DMT, which is present in ayahuasca. With 5MeO, the experience is much shorter than an ayahuasca journey, and there are no brightly colored patterns to see. 5MeO is part of the neurotransmitter system and is naturally present in the brains of all mammals. 5MeO is not addictive and leaves no hangover. It is safe and sustainable as a regular practice. The vape cartridges used for psychedelic meditation require pure synthetic 5MeO, which avoids harming toads and their ecosystem.

5MeO is the most powerful psychedelic on the planet and has the raw power to support any practice. It can catalyze mindfulness, loving kindness and compassion, deep Internal Family Systems work, healing the subtle body, and healing our relationship with the physical body. 5MeO excels in accelerating the most profound practice of all, healing duality, the root of suffering, with nature of mind practice. Nature of mind practice with 5MeO combines the most profound meditation practice with the most powerful psychedelic.

5MeO is a healing medicine that can heal the entire spectrum of our being, from the most intimately personal to the profound recognition of our Buddha nature. No aspect of ourselves is left behind. When someone has unprocessed trauma or emotional blockages, 5MeO goes straight to the burdened part and activates it so that it can be felt and healed. Because of this, spiritual bypassing is almost impossible with 5MeO. Most new psychedelic meditators have burdened parts that need to become unburdened before engaging in nature of mind practice. It is essential to respect this phase of the journey by doing the unburdening work.

5MeO is a nonspecific awareness amplifier. The amplified awareness can be felt as a heightened awareness of the body, subtle body, and mind. Scanning the body makes it possible to bring the golden healing energy of bright awareness to any areas of blocked energy and allow them to relax into acceptance and okayness. Scanning the mind makes it possible to bring the healing power of bright awareness to any looping thoughts, allowing them to relax into gentle, conceptless openness.

At higher doses, awareness becomes extraordinarily bright. The brilliant white light, the supreme sunlight of naked awareness, washes out the relative dimness of concepts, appearances, identity, and duality. There is only brilliant white light, unobscured naked awareness. This precious and unexcelled quality of naked being is blissful and effortless. As concepts and appearances dissolve, the experience of rigpa becomes extraordinarily bright, clear, and stable. Recognizing the nature of mind as empty luminosity is the only practice that can span the entire spectrum of low, medium, and high dose sessions with complete confidence.

5MeO is exceptionally well suited for nature of mind practice because it can bring us face to face with naked nondual awareness, unobscured primordial wisdom. It is powerful and effective, and does not waste time on side issues such as visual effects. It takes effect in one breath, is short-acting, and leaves no hangover, so an immersive, brilliant, and blissful psychedelic meditation session can occur in 45 minutes, followed by breakfast and a typical day. It is the most direct and efficient path to realizing empty luminosity.

For nature of mind practitioners, it is easy to experience rigpa at no dose and all doses, so psychedelic meditation sessions can be a smooth, relaxed, and continuous awareness of nonduality from beginning to end. There is no need for high doses to experience nonduality. By topping up with extra doses many times in each session, psychedelic meditation sessions typically last for an hour or two. Psychedelic meditation is resting within relaxed nonduality without altering anything. Within relaxation, there is a letting go of even the most subtle conceptualizations. The healthy energetic body is transforming into the wisdom body. Psychedelic meditation can be an intensely joyful and healing practice.

The key to psychedelic meditation is to start with light doses and work up to moderate doses gradually, step by step. It is essential to meet the medicine with confidence every step of the way to develop a taste for direct realization. It is an absolute pleasure to experience such a bright, stable, sane, heartfelt presence.

Psychedelic meditation sessions are deep neuroplastic training in nonduality. Most integration training will occur during daily meditation and daily life. It is good to go beyond thinking that the 5MeO experience itself is the main point and start thinking about using the medicine to sustain a vibrant daily meditation practice. During psychedelic meditation, saying yes to high-intensity rigpa helps us say yes to everyday rigpa.

Psychedelic meditation sessions ignite a flame of wisdom that burns ever more brightly in daily meditation sessions. The enhanced nature of mind practice following psychedelic meditation sessions constitutes hours of direct and thorough integration work. Psychedelic meditation sessions and daily meditation sessions converge on a stable realization that lasts all day.

The goal of psychedelic meditation is to get to stable direct realization as efficiently as possible. Psychedelic meditation is a clear, unambiguous, direct realization, which is pure gold. Few experienced meditators have stabilized direct realization. Now, the door to direct realization is open to everyone, beginning and experienced meditators alike.

Each of the following sections presents a new skill to master. Mastering these skills in the context of psychedelic meditation sessions will translate directly into being able to apply the skills in daily meditation and life.

Essence Love – Embrace feelings with love and compassion.

Naked Rigpa – Recognize the nature of mind, empty luminosity.

Psychedelic Meditation – Discover the dot of nonconceptual self-knowing awareness.

Let Go Into Rigpa – Let go of dualistic thinking into nonconceptual openness.

The Single Sphere of Being – Stretch out into the limitless, lucid, brilliant expanse of objectless realization.

Settled Rigpa – Relax into the continuity of settled rigpa.

Unwavering Rigpa – Explore the profound training of high-dose realization.

Great Bliss Rigpa – Dive into unconditioned Great Bliss, the most effective training.

3.1   Essence Love

Essence love is the pure feeling within and behind all conditional feelings. Once we connect again and again with this essence love, having cultivated a nonjudgmental mind, our dharma practice can be authentic and life changing.

– Tsoknyi Rinpoche

Psychedelic meditation practice takes place entirely within the experience of essence love. Essence love is our natural okayness and life force energy. It is a readiness to love that doesn’t need an object.

Check In

Before taking the medicine, the first step is to check in with ourselves to see if all of our parts are okay and are giving permission to take the medicine. Investigate this with curiosity and kindness. If some of our parts have reservations about taking a medicine, ask them what those reservations are and address them. Psychedelic meditation begins with light doses, so the initial experiences will be gentle and not overwhelming or fearful. Promise the concerned parts that you will take the medicine step by step and check in with them to ensure they feel safe and cared for. Once your protector parts have given permission, it is okay to proceed carefully and gradually.

5MeO is a healing medicine. It can heal our relative wounds as well as the wound of duality. 5MeO is an opportunity to experience intimacy with ourselves. It is essential to check in with our body and subtle body and see how they are doing before attempting nature of mind practice. Check-in with light or moderate doses for each session's first wave or two.

Check-ins will acclimate the body and mind to the medicine. Expect physical sensations such as mild nausea in the first wave or two. By starting with light and then moderate dose waves, there will be little or no nausea with higher dose waves later. Expect some mental discomfort in the first wave or two as concepts dissolve. The mind will become used to letting go into openness.

Lie in bed, arms at the sides, legs uncrossed, body open, relaxed, and symmetrical. Begin with a light dose, close the eyes, and gently scan the body from head to toe. 5MeO will light up the subtle body. Sometimes, our subtle body is clear and open, so there is nothing to address. Other times, there is something to attend to. Wherever there is tension, pain, or nausea, gently place awareness alongside or within the activated area. There is no need to judge or alter the feeling at all. Feeling the feeling is the healing.

There is the feeling, and there is the awareness of the feeling. Be with the awareness of the feeling. Self-awareness is the independent healing agent that allows us to feel the feeling without becoming glued to or blended with the feeling.

Over time, while gently feeling the feeling, a sense of okayness will occur alongside it. This okayness arises because of allowing the feeling to be there and feeling the feeling without any judgment. There is no need to fight the feeling, trying to avoid or eliminate it. This allowing is the okayness, and the okayness is the healing. There is no need for the feeling to dissolve to feel the okayness of allowing. The feeling and the okayness can coexist within the space of acceptance.

Okayness may eventually blossom into a gentle bliss or golden light that surrounds the feeling, permeates space, and flows through the entire body. The gentle bliss of healing flows around, near, and right through the area of the feeling. There may be gratitude because of being okay with the feeling just as it is without needing it to go away.

This okayness is essence love, love for no reason, love that doesn’t need an object. Essence love is our bindu, our life force energy, waking up and naturally healing constricted areas with attention and love. Essence love is always within us and always available. Essence love is the seed of loving kindness and compassion for ourselves and others. Connecting with and embodying essence love will benefit ourselves and everyone around us.

Healing the Physical and Subtle Bodies

The healing medicine may connect us with physical body issues that need attention. Contact with our physical body comes to us through direct sense perceptions, and 5MeO will light up our connection with the body, allowing us to notice aspects of our body that need attention. A lifestyle change may be in order. It may be time to make an appointment with a doctor.

Our subtle body energy patterns also mediate contact with the physical body. Stuck energy-holding patterns can obscure or distort our relationship with the physical body. The medicine will take us directly to awareness of our holding patterns to heal them, especially when a pattern holds a lot of fear or aversion. When there is chronic pain due to injury, aging, illness, or surgery, there is often an aversion to the pain, fear that the pain will continue, and wishing for the pain to vanish. Pain is not suffering. Aversion to pain is suffering. 5MeO cannot cure our physical body, but it can allow us to notice and release the aversion loop. It is possible to feel the pain with self-awareness and acceptance, releasing the suffering of aversion. Clear out knots in the energy channels by allowing the healing bliss of the medicine to flow through them with acceptance and compassion.

Unburdening Parts

In addition to healing our subtle body, essence love can heal burdened parts connected with subtle body holding patterns. What feels like tension or pain in the subtle body is often an activated part that needs our attention. The tension in the subtle body is a trailhead to exploring and healing burdened parts. Follow the feeling trailhead to the distressed part, be with it, listen to it, and give it the loving attention it needs. See the Distinguishing Parts From Self section for information on identifying and befriending parts. Essence love is the healing power of Self-energy.

IFS work with activated parts is extraordinarily effective with 5MeO. 5MeO activates parts that we may have no awareness of or have exiled from our lives, never to feel those feelings again. The exiled parts and the protector parts guarding them run our lives without our knowledge, causing suffering and poor life outcomes. 5MeO activates them so that we can encounter them, feel them, and heal them. The activation of parts bypasses our concepts and preferences and makes it clear what we need to work on in a direct and nonconceptual way. The nonconceptual direct feeling of the parts' suffering with attention and love unburdens the activated parts.

Longer Sessions

Longer sessions can allow us the time to process our physical sensations and emotional feelings. A lot of the perceived feeling tone depends on our relationship with the feelings. Most of the perceived difficulty is our aversion to the feeling. It is often possible to completely shift our relationship with a feeling by noticing the aversion loop and relaxing it into acceptance of the feeling just as it is. Longer sessions can open the space for this transformation process.

Continue feeling into all feelings that arise within self-awareness. When the experience of okayness and essence love is well established, it is time to begin nature of mind practice. Our connection with essence love will open our hearts, clear away obstacles, and establish the openness, curiosity, and joy that will carry us through our nature of mind practice sessions. The psychedelic meditation journey unfolds within essence love.

3.2   Naked Rigpa

Observe your awareness in this very present moment,

just as it is.

It cannot be spoiled by the comings and goings of

thoughts and memories,

nor corrupted by ordinary thoughts of good and bad.

There is something here that is at once both vivid,

yet devoid of thoughts;

devoid of thoughts, yet vivid.

In essence, this naked transparency is the dharmakaya;

innate wisdom, free of elaborations;

original purity, untainted by the mind’s stains;

the state of primordial freedom, unbound by the fixation

of meditative experiences;

this is buddhahood, the ever-present dharmakaya.

– Longchenpa, The Profound Quintessence,

on Garab Dorje's Three Words

Here is a detailed description of nature of mind practice with 5MeO. It explains how to recognize the nature of mind within a 5MeO experience and progress to the direct realization level of nature of mind practice.

5MeO itself is neutral and can be an experience of confusion or realization. It is necessary to have an intellectual understanding of empty luminosity for a 5MeO session to be nature of mind practice. Without understanding empty luminosity, it will be a bright experience as an object of mind instead of recognizing it as nondual awareness. It will be an experience of brightness suffused with ignorance of mind’s nature.

The key is to notice that it is impossible to locate or find this radiant awareness that is so vividly present. This unfindability is its emptiness aspect. There is a vivid experience of luminosity that cannot be identified as anything concrete. Luminous emptiness is not an object of mind. Luminous emptiness is the nature of mind. Recognize the mirror itself instead of focusing on the reflections in the mirror. While understanding the nature of mind, the brightness of luminosity-emptiness will arise as a naked openness with no object. This ungraspable nakedness is a direct realization.

Begin with a light dose check-in and warm-up wave or two, as described in the Essence Love section. When you feel warmed up, lie in bed with arms at the sides, legs uncrossed, body open, relaxed, and symmetrical. Remaining symmetrical throughout the experience will allow the heightened awareness energy to flow through the physical and subtle body without blockages. The eyes can be open or closed. Open your eyes if there is any distraction.

Take one or more light to moderate doses to open the session. The session begins with a brightening of awareness, rapidly increasing in strength and clarity. 5MeO is powerful yet gentle. Breathe evenly and remain as relaxed as possible. Remain in continuous contact with this gentle, powerful brightness. Open to the brightness. Trust the brightness. Stay right within the dot of the brightness without an instant of distraction. Relax into the continuous brightness. The bright awareness will be there continuously and obviously. Remain willing to be with the brightness, which will meet us right within our willingness. Embrace total openness. Embrace the objectless emptiness. Embrace the luminous clarity.

This brightness is the luminosity of naked nondual awareness. It is timeless primordial wisdom. The luminosity is revealing itself nakedly without any filter or veil. This luminosity is our authentic self, our true identity. Trust the luminous nature to be awake, aware, and pure. Luminosity-emptiness is primordial wisdom. Primordial wisdom has always been with us, and it is with us right now. 5MeO makes primordial wisdom as bright and obvious as the sun shining in a cloudless blue sky. Remain aware right within the brightness.

At the same time as being very bright, there is no "thing" there. How bizarre! It is simultaneously vividly brilliant and not findable. The union of vivid and not findable is the union of luminosity and emptiness. Recognize the vivid emptiness. This vivid emptiness is nondual awareness and is the primordial source of everything that appears within awareness. Everything that occurs within empty luminosity is primordially pure. There is not a spec of impurity or confusion anywhere to be seen.

Remain in the continuous presence of awareness-emptiness. Remaining in the continuity of luminosity-emptiness is rigpa, the recognition of the nature of mind. There is no need for any conceptual analysis at all. Simply remaining in contact with the brightness of empty awareness is nature of mind practice.

5MeO gently shows the direct realization of the nature of mind, luminosity-emptiness. Be present within this direct realization, embrace it, and remain at one with it. 5MeO is a direct realization practice, so let this direct realization take center stage. Let go of any need to analyze or comment on the experience of naked awareness. There is no need to even label it as pure or empty.

Thoughts will arise, and there is no need to suppress them. Do not follow a thought into the next thought of the karmic chain, so thoughts do not loop and create karma. Within the continuity of luminosity-emptiness, each thought will naturally self-liberate without interrupting the continuity of awareness.

5MeO is doing the heavy lifting for us. All that is necessary is to show up for awareness and not wander off from awareness. Remaining in the continuity of awareness is a high-intensity nature of mind practice. This high-intensity practice is very effective neuroplastic training in nondual direct realization.

For those at the understanding or direct experience levels, 5MeO can quickly and efficiently bring about the direct realization level. In each session, let go of all concepts and identifications. Embrace naked openness with no object of mind. This naked openness is rigpa, the nondual direct realization of the nature of mind. There are no words or concepts. Naked openness is not an experience with any identifiable characteristic. Become familiar letting go into naked openness with no object of mind and return to it in every session. This naked openness is the direct realization level of nature of mind practice.

The goal of progressing through light and moderate doses is to get used to direct realization. Progressively transition to actively loving the very bright and stable experience of rigpa. Master the nonconceptual skill of letting go into total openness.

Once rigpa has been identified, it is time for psychedelic meditation practice.

3.3   Psychedelic Meditation

Within the spacious expanse, the spacious expanse,

the spacious vast expanse,

I, Longchen Rabjam, for whom the lucid expanse of being

is infinite,

experience everything as embraced within

a blissful expanse, a single nondual expanse.

I, Natsok Rangdrol, have reached the point of

natural freedom where phenomena resolve.

Unchanging spontaneous presence is the pinnacle

of my excellent counsel.

– Longchenpa, the Chöying Dzod, Chapter 9,

The Decisive Experience

Psychedelic meditation is recognizing our true nature, an infinite, lucid, and blissful expanse of natural freedom. It is essence love, universal, boundless, and objectless. Psychedelic meditation is the pinnacle of realization training. Here is a description of a psychedelic meditation session with multiple top-up waves.

Recognizing the nature of mind is the experience of rigpa at no dose and all doses, so psychedelic meditation sessions are a smooth, relaxed, and continuous awareness of nonduality from beginning to end. Lie in bed, arms at the sides, legs uncrossed, body open, relaxed, and symmetrical. Keep the eyes open or closed. If there is distraction, open your eyes. It can be helpful to create a visual boundary at the ceiling to rest the eyes on for focus. See the Gazing Practice section for instructions on how to make a visual boundary.

Start with a light or moderate dose and ride it through the peak effect. In the peak, let go into openness. During the tail, remain nonconceptual. Navigate the return of thoughts without getting caught up in them. Thoughts are nonconceptual when there is no fixation on them. Experiment with closing your eyes and letting go into blissful openness without altering anything. Stay wide awake, holding nothing whatsoever in mind. This objectless awareness is the nonmeditation state, not meditating and not distracted. Open your eyes if you lose the sharpness of self-awareness or become distracted.

Whenever the wave feels complete, take a moderate top-up dose. Begin with a few light or moderate peaks, then perhaps some higher peaks. It is essential to remain fully present in all peaks, so don’t go higher than you can confidently and fully inhabit. You can let the wave fully resolve or top-up in mid-peak and enjoy the continual re-peaks.

Ride wave after wave of peaks, remaining continuously grounded in body sensations. Stay continuously aware of how the physical and energetic bodies are feeling. Whenever nausea or tension appears anywhere in the body, gently place attention on the feeling. Be aware of being aware of the feeling. If the feeling stays, stay with the feeling. If the feeling dissolves, that is fine, too.

Psychedelic meditation is true nonmeditation. There is no object to meditate on and no act of meditating. It is a pure recognition practice. Recognize awareness as empty luminosity and rest in objectless openness. See the Nature of Mind Practice chapter for instructions on nonmeditation. Here are some key instructions for psychedelic meditation:

Recognize conceptless awareness.

Recognize the continuity of conceptless awareness.

Sustain the continuity.

Relax within the continuity.

Be open.

Be curious.

Take joy in unbound awareness.

With each wave, embrace naked openness with no object of mind. Relax and let go of all reference points. Remain undistracted from conceptless awareness. Recognize the continuity of awareness and sustain the continuity. Relax into the continuity of conceptless awareness. While relaxing, holding nothing in mind, stretch out into openness. This total openness is inherently brilliant and complete. Open your being into the sky-like expanse of unbound awareness. Let go into relaxed well-being. There is no limit and no boundary to total openness. Stretch out into the lucid expanse of pure being.

While relaxing and letting go into openness, discover the dot of nonconceptual self-knowing awareness. Self-knowing awareness is like a candle flame illuminating itself without a trace of separation or duality from itself. The dot of self-knowing awareness is rigpa, and it knows its state, utterly lucid concept-free clarity. At the same time that a candle flame illuminates itself, it also illuminates nearby objects. The dot of self-knowing awareness knows the overall experience in real time. There may be some thinking that needs attention. There may be too much focus, and it is time to relax. The recognition may no longer be sharp, and it is time for more focus. In all cases and at all times, the dot of self-knowing awareness knows what is happening without being obscured by what is happening. It is like a mirror, knowing its reflections without being caught up in them.

The 5MeO experience reveals rigpa, but rigpa does not depend on the 5MeO experience. The nonconceptual insight of rigpa can occur in any situation. Since rigpa, like a visual dot, contains no content and is independent of all content, it is the dot of self-knowing awareness. Within the dot of self-knowing awareness, be aware of the entire field of relaxed, objectless awareness, which has no direction, boundary, or limit.

Self-knowing awareness is the independent internal degree of freedom that can sustain conceptless awareness throughout the entire peak and tail of the wave. Each wave has many phases, and the undistracted dot of self-knowing awareness is the agency that can navigate each phase one after another without becoming absorbed into or captured by any concept or momentary experience that arises. Being self-aware within the 5MeO experience is entirely different from being glued to it. Self-knowing awareness transforms the 5MeO experience into the direct realization of the nature of mind.

Within relaxed objectless awareness, concepts will arise. The self-knowing awareness of rigpa sees the arising of each concept as it arises, so concepts arise as wisdom without a trace of ignorance. Remain undistracted from conceptless awareness while the concept arises, dwells, and dissolves. Concepts are arising and dissolving without having the slightest effect on the continuity of objectless awareness. Allowing all concepts to self-liberate in real time is an important skill to master. As in any meditation session, there will be occasional wandering from the dot of rigpa. Noticing the wandering automatically resumes the dot of self-knowing awareness. Relax back into the continuity of awareness.

Each wave is unique and has something to teach. Embrace each wave with openness and curiosity. Often, it is letting go into the continuity of rigpa. There is always more to learn about allowing concepts to self-liberate. Sometimes, it is the simple joy and gratitude of full nondual awareness. Continue with the psychedelic meditation session as long as your attention span lasts, then allow the session to wind down. Since there is no hangover, continue with the day’s activities.

3.4   Let Go Into Rigpa

Psychedelic meditation is letting go into the continuity of rigpa. It is the opportunity, the challenge, and the choice to let go of the distracted wandering of sems and let go into the continuity of undistracted rigpa. Being distracted and following thoughts with psychedelics is unpleasant. Letting go into the continuity of undistracted rigpa in this context can be a pointed and intense choice. The first step is to recognize the resistance to letting go of distraction. Psychedelic meditation gives us access to breathtakingly clear rigpa. It is naked awareness without any padding. The rigpa is so pure and complete that it is a lot to plunge into and feel.

The process of letting go happens many times, leaning into letting go of sems whenever the choice presents itself. Letting go is feeling and allowing. Letting go allows a complete immersion into the continuity of awareness. Voluntarily let go into being present within the continuity of unambiguous, definite, nonconceptual, nondual, completely cut-through rigpa. Remaining in the continuity of rigpa is deep training in letting go. Letting go is a lot to feel. Say yes to being open. “I accept. I accept complete nonconceptual openness.”

When the opportunity to let go arises, meet it with self-awareness and skill. Letting go is always completely voluntary, which is essential to remember. See the Letting Go of Duality section for a full description.

Letting go clarifies the interface or boundary between rigpa and the conceptual mind. Remain within rigpa on the nonconceptual side of the boundary. Become very familiar with how the conceptual mind begins to arise, notice the arising, and allow it to dissolve back into rigpa. Mastering the process of letting go makes it easy to remain within the dot of full nondual awareness with effortless confidence.

3.5   The Single Sphere of Being

Uninterrupted, awareness is the expanse of

awakened mind.

Without transition or change, the sky of basic space is

timelessly and infinitely extensive.

Naturally occurring timeless awareness,

which has ultimate meaning in that nothing compares to it,

is subsumed within the single sphere of being,

unborn and unceasing.

Indeterminate and all-pervasive, it is absolutely without

limiting extremes.

– Longchenpa, the Chöying Dzod,

Chapter 4, Luminous Mind

Within complete letting go, stretch out into the entire expanse of rigpa. Fully inhabit rigpa. Take joy in rigpa. Explore the depth and breadth of rigpa from the inside. Stretch out into the space of objectless realization again and again. Take delight in the lucid brilliance of naked awareness. Feel into the depth of complete surrender with gratitude. Let go of all concepts, doubts, and holding back. Say yes to loving the single sphere of rigpa.

Within the single sphere experience, there is an ongoing dance between actively stretching out into objectless realization and relaxing into objectless realization. Whenever the objectless realization becomes vague or unfocused, rouse some sharpness of recognition by actively stretching out into the limitless single sphere of being, the vast expanse of objectless realization. Whenever the focus dominates the experience, let go of the focus and relax into objectless realization. Within the relaxation, reconnect with effortlessly holding nothing in mind. The dot of self-knowing awareness can skillfully navigate this dance between focusing and relaxing, between too tight and too loose. The dot of self-knowing awareness is rigpa itself and is always internally free and awake.

Stretching out into the fullness of nondual awareness is swift and thorough neuroplastic realization training. Remaining wide awake in the boundaryless single sphere of nonconceptual openness is the central training of psychedelic meditation. With practice, the single sphere of nondual awareness becomes apparent in daily life. It is the gateway to stable realization. It will appear in the natural state as objectless awareness, holding nothing in mind within awareness of the totality.

The following sections are more profound explorations of the single sphere of being.

3.6   Settled Rigpa

While sustaining the single sphere practice, there will be progressively more confidence and stability in fully inhabiting rigpa. Increased confidence leads to deep relaxation within naked rigpa. Within deep relaxation, discover completely settled rigpa. Within completely settled rigpa, there is no wandering at all. Awareness is face-to-face with itself in a continuous, awake, and settled way. There is a progressive dissolution of even the most subtle dualistic conceptualizations. There is nothing more profound than continuous, perfect, complete rigpa.

While settled in complete rigpa, take a top-up during the peak and enjoy the re-peak while sustaining settled rigpa. Take many small top-ups often to sustain a continuous peak of relaxed rigpa for the entire session. Remain in the relaxed and blissful range of not too little and not too much. Continue sustaining perfect rigpa for as long as the attention span lasts. Be sensitive to when attention begins to wander and allow the session to wind down while fully present.

The experience of complete perfect rigpa is so profound that it is worth reviewing the Dualistic Concepts About Nonduality section. At the boundary of complete nonduality, there can be fear of letting go into realization because of imagining that something might change. It is vital to remember that nothing changes when recognizing complete nonduality. Awareness is already nondual, so the experience is like pouring water into water. There is no fundamental transition, only letting go into what is.

The dot of self-knowing awareness is fully active within continuously settled rigpa. Awareness is face-to-face with itself and can navigate each re-peak phase without losing track of itself. The dance of navigating between focus and relaxation is finely tuned. There is often a keen interest and joy in seeing naked awareness so clearly. Let go into completely settled awareness without mental effort. Awareness is perfect, just as it is. Do not alter anything in the slightest. Sustain the state of perfect rigpa for as long as it lasts, and let the session wind down with gratitude and joy.

3.7   Unwavering Rigpa

Mastering the single-sphere experience is blissful and healing, leading to heartfelt gratitude for relaxing the struggle and suffering of duality. Gratitude and healing bring a natural desire for more profound training. Our nervous system will no longer be satisfied with moderately bright experiences and will yearn for more profound training in nondual wisdom. Deeper training takes place by gradually exploring higher doses. The doses must be within our ability to sustain the continuity of rigpa and challenging enough to be complete and satisfying.

High-dose sessions may require more integration time between sessions. Sometimes, our nervous system will be completely satiated with high-dose sessions and not want sessions for a while. If a session is too soon, the medicine will not feel good in the body or the mind. Ensure that exploring higher doses helps your confidence and joy in the single-sphere practice and does not hinder regular training sessions. If it is not helping, return to moderate doses for a while.

Begin with a few moderate single-sphere waves to prepare the body and mind. Single sphere waves will warm us up to the joy of letting go into the continuity of rigpa, which will prepare us for letting go into unwavering high-intensity rigpa. Moderate doses will acclimate the body to the medicine so that there will be no nausea during the high doses. Check that the single-sphere waves feel connected and complete before proceeding with high-dose waves. If the single-sphere waves do not feel settled and blissful, put off high-dose explorations until they do.

Do not bungee jump into high doses. Take a several-second puff, wait a minute or two for the effect to arrive, and then take another puff. Keep going until the effect is challenging and satisfying. If it isn’t quite satisfying enough, keep going. You will know when you have arrived.

At higher doses, the experience of rigpa is very intense and can be challenging to be with fully. Meet the challenge by leaning deeply into the clear light of naked realization. The more deeply you can dive into naked openness, the more intense and thorough the training. You are seeking a complete union with naked being. Be direct, focused, and unwavering. Unwavering rigpa is very muscular neuroplastic training in nonduality. Say yes to loving profound, brilliant, unwavering rigpa.

In the tail of a high dose wave, there is often an upwelling of love and compassion for everyone caught up in samsaric confusion and suffering. Feeling love for a specific being or all beings is a moment to commit ourselves to complete the path of realization to join compassion with wisdom and skill.

Mastering unwavering rigpa is the gateway to great bliss rigpa, which is the most effective training.

3.8   Great Bliss Rigpa

Mahamudra, from the point of view of Vajrayana, is the awakening to emptiness or the nature of reality that is accompanied by mahasukha, great bliss. This notion of great bliss is unique to Vajrayana, and it is not spoken about in the Sutrayana tradition. Yet the experience of mahasukha is a powerful awakening that can help someone purify the subtle mental habits or vasanas. The experience brings about awakening fully as well as quickly. The tantras teach that this mahasukha, or great bliss, is not the effect of any cause but resides in our being as an expression of our true nature.

– Anam Thubten, The Citadel of Awareness, p. 173

Mahasukha is translated as great bliss and refers to the insight of rigpa. Mahasukha transcends circumstances and conditions; it is the indestructible nature of our being. Mahasukha is rigpa, so there is no dualistic experience to grasp and no ignorant absorption into an experience. Mahasukha is far more interesting than the pleasurable absorption of the god realm. It is the sheer bliss of limitless, unconditioned infinite clarity, the recognition of empty luminosity. The practice here is to reveal the naked mahasukha that is already within us.

Practicing high-dose unwavering rigpa waves will lead to complete confidence in high-dose rigpa practice. There is no wavering, no fear, and no holding back. The peaks will become blissful. The practice is to stretch out into the entire field of bliss and especially to stretch out into any aspect that is yet to be bliss. Stretching out into all areas will transform everything into a unified field of blissful rigpa.

The practice of mahasukha is to engage with many high-dose, unwavering rigpa waves in succession. Each high-dose wave will become easier, clearer, and more blissful. As soon as a wave has resolved, and the subtle body has relaxed and is ready for another, begin another wave. All body resistance will dissolve. All mental resistance will dissolve. Ramp up step by step in each wave to avoid triggering physical resistance or nausea. Continue this process for as long as possible until the attention span is complete. Two to four-hour mahasukha sessions are ideal.

Mahasukha is the most complete and effective training possible. Our nervous system loves unconditioned bliss and soaks it up like a sponge. There is an opportunity to remain completely nonconceptual during very intense rigpa. When following concepts, the intensity of the training dissipates. While remaining without concepts, the intensity of the training grows. Sometimes, the nonconceptual peak of mahasukha is relaxed, profound, and settled, like a vast ocean of limitless illumination. Sometimes, the nonconceptual peak is energetic and intense, a full-being energy yoga practice.

From the tantric yoga perspective, when following concepts, the prana enters the left and right channels of dualistic consciousness and scatters into unawareness. When remaining in conceptless rigpa, the prana naturally enters the avadhuti, the central channel of wisdom awareness. Wisdom prana flowing in the avadhuti is intense energy in the center of awareness. Remain nonconceptual while feeling the power of rigpa flowing through the center of your being. Whenever a concept arises, return to the intensity of conceptless rigpa.

Sometimes, the wisdom prana flowing through the avadhuti may become quite intense. The intensity of concept-free rigpa will continue throughout the entire peak and tail of the wave. There may be heavy breathing to stay with the intensity of the bright energy flow. There may be a sensation of wanting to squirm or break body symmetry to escape the intensity. Remaining in the center of intense rigpa energy flow is a voluntary practice. Say yes to this very high-intensity rigpa training.

The intense neuroplastic training of mahasukha purifies the deeply ingrained habit of duality, transforming the subtle body into a wisdom body. Clarity sees itself in an open and stable way that continues right through thoughts, emotions, and activities. Everything is transparent clarity, the radiance of rigpa, the display of wisdom. Mahasukha is the fastest path to stable realization.

4   Navigating 5MeO

Pay close attention to the set and setting of your psychedelic meditation sessions. Set refers to your mindset before the experience, which should be relaxed and positive. Spend a few minutes in open awareness meditation to relax and settle into the present moment. Some people will enjoy chanting, breathing, and other methods of clearing the mind before beginning.

Setting refers to the environment, which should be clean, pleasant, and safe. Avoid playing music, which might inject a mood that masks feeling whatever arises from the medicine's wisdom. Lie on a comfortable bed, couch, or cushions on the floor to relax and allow bright awareness to flow freely through the physical and subtle bodies. Some nausea can occur during the first few doses. For this reason, don't eat a big meal before the session. A light meal two hours before the session is a good option.

At the recommended light and moderate beginning doses, there will be no loss of contact with the body and the environment, so there is no need for a sitter. Having a meditation instructor or companion present can be reassuring and helpful, especially for the first few times. See the Meditation Instruction section for how this can help.

5MeO has a ten-minute half-life, boosting the effect of subsequent doses. The conservative approach to a moderate or higher dose involves taking multiple puffs. Take a 1-3 second puff and wait a minute for the effect to arrive. Feel into the effect for another minute to see if there is a desire for more. If so, take another puff. There is a desire for each puff on the way up, so each increment of effect is desired and welcome. Repeat this sequence to arrive at the desired effect level.

Psychedelic meditators do not bungee jump into high doses, so there is no danger of overshooting and losing consciousness. High-dose rigpa practice sessions are qualitatively different than high doses without awareness recognizing awareness. High doses while recognizing the nature of mind are blissful, joyful, and self-aware. There will be complete confidence in not losing track of awareness.

Since everyone is different, practice frequency is an individual matter. For beginners, weekly is a good place to start. There is ample time to integrate the insights into daily meditation and life. There is something special and profound to look forward to for the week. Sometimes, there is a desire to practice more often, which requires some planning and experimentation.

5MeO is a natural part of our neurotransmitter system, and it leaves no hangover. However, it does take time for the nervous system to return to baseline. Practicing too often will strain the nervous system, which will degrade the quality of the sessions. The nervous system's refractory period depends on dose and duration. Low-dose Essence Love sessions may be sustainable daily. Moderate-dose Psychedelic Meditation sessions may be sustainable three times a week. High-dose Unwavering Rigpa sessions may be sustainable twice a week. Long, high-dose Great Bliss Rigpa sessions may be sustainable weekly. Pay attention to how the sessions feel and discover what is blissful for your nervous system.

With insufficient time between sessions, the medicine will feel uncomfortable in the body, and the experience will feel sharp and unwelcome. When sessions are too close together, high doses may result in breathing hard. Quality is more important than quantity, so listen to the body's wisdom and pace your practice sessions sustainably.

When practicing often or with higher doses, it is common and expected to experience reactivations. Reactivations happen later after all of the medicine has left the body. A reactivation can feel like a 5MeO session and like bright energy flowing through the central channel. Reactivations are a good sign that neuroplastic training is taking place. Reactivations are an excellent time for bonus nature of mind training sessions.

The bright energy flowing through the central channel can keep us awake at night. Not recognizing the energy as empty luminosity will manifest as churning thought loops. When recognizing the energy as empty luminosity, thoughts dissolve into the continuity of bright, blissful awareness. Place the attention right within the bright energy flow and remain there without wavering. Resting in bright, blissful awareness is excellent training. When practicing regularly, sleep well and spend time with yourself for meditation and integration. Keep a clear eye on your sleep schedule and overall well-being, and take breaks when necessary.

Here are some guidelines for 5MeO sessions.

Sustaining a Vibrant Practice – Psychedelic meditation requires commitment and skill.

Meditation Instruction – Help psychedelic meditators get started.

Gazing Practice – Join gazing at the visual effects of 5MeO with nature of mind practice.

Making and Using Vape Cartridges – Making vape cartridges is easy and fun.

4.1   Sustaining a Vibrant Practice

It requires commitment and skill to sustain an ongoing psychedelic meditation practice long enough and intensely enough to absorb significant neuroplastic training in nonduality. Here are some hints.

Schedule regular practice sessions. Aim for at least a weekly practice so that there will be a progression from session to session. Anyone can afford two or three hours a week by taking even a minor internet break. When practice sessions are sporadic, they are primarily about reconnecting with the medicine instead of exploring new ground.

Take the time to set up a formal practice session. Neaten up the room and make the bed. Be sure that the light and heat are perfect. Set aside enough time for an unrushed session. Plan not to be too hungry or too full. Put your phone on Do Not Disturb. Take some time to settle physically and mentally with open awareness meditation, nature of mind practice, or a body scan with breathing. The sessions will go well when the set and setting are well prepared.

If the first wave or two reveal activated parts, spend time with them. Listen to what they say and be willing to feel their suffering without blending with them. Allow them to be just as they are without trying to fix or eliminate them. Extend love and compassion to the parts. IFS parts work is essential work. It does not work to bypass our suffering parts and look for a special experience while ignoring them. For beginners, the first five or ten sessions may be mostly about unburdening parts.

The first 30 minutes of a session may focus on acclimating to the medicine physically and mentally. To enjoy friction-free time with the medicine, aim for 1-4 hour sessions. The longer, the better to get beyond the initial medicine processing and deeply into psychedelic nature of mind practice.

Challenge yourself in every session by going higher than previously. Staying within one’s comfort zone is boring, and one will lose interest in the practice. Psychedelic meditation is brilliant, profound, and outside of our comfort zone.

Long-term meditators can step out of their comfort zone of sitting upright and cultivating mindfulness. The brightness of 5MeO makes resting in the continuity of rigpa easy, so sitting up and practicing feels lovely and productive. However, far more effective training occurs in high-dose Great Bliss Rigpa practice. Try lying down and allowing the vast energy of wisdom prana to flow freely through the central channel. Psychedelic meditation is a yogic practice.

Continue progressing through the psychedelic meditation skills up to Great Bliss Rigpa. The most effective neuroplastic training in nonduality takes place in long, high-intensity sessions. If you are not progressing to high-intensity sessions, it is likely that you have concerned protectors who are not giving permission. Do some IFS work to identify the concerned protectors, ask them what they are protecting you from feeling and do some unburdening work with them.

Set aside time for some daily nature of mind practice to integrate the neuroplastic training into life. It is essential to bring the wisdom of rigpa into daily life, where it can do some real good for ourselves and everyone we come into contact with.

Relaxation, Joy, and Bliss

The key to a sustainable psychedelic meditation practice is to relax and enjoy the process in every session. Our physical body, subtle body, and conceptual understanding of the practice must all be cared for and aligned. When our entire being is in alignment, letting go into rigpa will feel welcome and healing. There will be many moments of intense and challenging feelings. It is essential to join them with essence love, compassion, and skill so that the overall experience is positive and healing.

The best dosing strategy is to listen to our internal compass in real time. Sometimes, staying at the current dose feels good. At other times, a higher dose is calling to us. Eventually, it will be a good time to let the session wind down. It is essential to be kind to our subtle body throughout the session by listening to our feelings and pacing our dosing to respect our internal speed limit.

Begin every session with light doses to acclimate the body and mind to the medicine. Physical sensations such as mild nausea may arise in the first waves. Starting with light and then moderate doses, there will be little or no nausea with higher doses later. Some mental discomfort may arise in the first wave or two as concepts dissolve. The mind will begin the process of letting go into openness. After the introductory waves, continue with some moderate doses. Conceptual thinking will dissolve to reveal a bright openness with no conceptual content, which can be exciting and joyful. As long as it feels good, the practice is progressing well.

With some experience, there will be a desire for higher doses. With proper preparation, higher doses can be blissful. Being face to face with naked awareness is inherently blissful and deeply healing.

4.2   Meditation Instruction

Having a meditation instructor present for the first session or sessions can make a big difference in establishing a healthy practice. The meditation instructor can be present in person or with a video call. Although a highly trained meditation instructor is wonderful, anyone with good intentions can be better than starting solo. For this practice to work, many of us must be willing to begin helping each other without formal training or credentials. Having a circle of friends who practice together is a great start.

What qualities help someone be an effective meditation instructor? A regular weekly psychedelic meditation practice is excellent preparation. An ongoing daily nature of mind practice makes a big difference. Some study and understanding of the meaning of empty luminosity is beneficial. Familiarity with IFS, protectors, and exiles can make a big difference in helping people navigate their essence love practice. Read No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz and Self-Therapy by Jay Earley. Watch the meditation instruction videos on psychedelicmeditation.org.

Before a session, it is good to ask about prior meditation training, psychedelic experience, and any 5MeO experience. Talk about aspirations for beginning psychedelic meditation. Ask about and address any fear about taking the medicine. It is vital to acknowledge to their protectors that it is essential to be careful with dosing. Let them know that the session will begin with light doses and that they control their dosing. Have them practice the mechanics of vaping without the battery.

Treat a meditation instruction session as a meditation session. Remain present and nonconceptual without wandering. The best way to hold space for someone is to be in space with them. The meditator taking the medicine will feel our presence, even over a video call. Meditation instruction is the combination of a personal meditation session and giving live action meditation instruction. It is a wonderful generosity practice and worth gaining some skill at.

Essence Love

5MeO is a healing medicine. Most psychedelic meditators have burdened parts that need to become unburdened before proceeding to nature of mind practice. When parts work is necessary, the medicine goes right to the part and activates it. When a meditator can be with the activated part with love and compassion, the activated part becomes unburdened, and the karmic loop dissolves. This process can be far more direct than years of talk therapy because 5MeO bypasses the conceptual mind and brings us face-to-face with burdened protectors and exiled parts.

When a meditator’s part becomes activated, remain nonconceptual while listening and responding. When the meditator’s parts are activated, this may activate our parts. Notice our parts having feelings while remaining in Self-awareness. If the meditation instructor becomes blended with a part, the activated part becomes the meditation instructor, which does not go well.

When a meditator is blended with a part, the meditation instructor can gently help them unblend by asking questions and making suggestions.

How is it going?

Are you blended with a part?

How do you feel about the part? Does it have a name?

What does the part want to tell you? What is it’s mission?

Can you be self-aware while being aware of the part?

Ask the part if it will soften back so that you can give it some loving attention.

Allow the part to be present without trying to get rid of it.

Give the part your full attention and loving compassion.

There is no need to be concerned when someone is temporarily blended. The 5MeO effect is brief, and the meditator will soon unblend naturally. The goal is for the meditator to begin to see the blending mechanism in action and learn the skill of unblending. When blended with a part, the part takes over the seat of consciousness, and consciousness becomes identified with the part. When Self is in the seat of consciousness, consciousness identifies with awareness, like the sky. The sky can host clouds without being harmed or even bothered.

Most people hate their activated parts and want to eliminate them. You can point out that the activated part cannot harm them. Awareness is emptiness and cannot be harmed or stained by activated parts. It is the aversion for the activated parts that is the actual suffering. Allowing the parts to be present without trying to eliminate them reverses the aversion, and the suffering dissolves. Giving the activated part loving attention will heal the part and release the entire habit pattern. The parts become unburdened and return to their naturally valuable state.

There can be a lovely interplay between the phases of a 5MeO wave and parts work. During the peak, parts sometimes dissolve, revealing nonconceptual openness and the essence love of Self-awareness. Bring the openness and okayness of Self-awareness into the tail to embrace the parts as they reappear. Remain in Self-awareness while giving the parts the attention and love they need to heal and unburden.

Nature of Mind Practice

Once the meditator is in touch with essence love, encourage higher doses over a more extended session, such as one to four hours. In the higher doses, awareness becomes exceptionally bright. There are several stages.

Being glued to the bright experience is the ordinary confused dualistic state.

Becoming self-aware within the bright awareness is open awareness meditation.

Examining the bright awareness and recognizing that awareness is emptiness is nature of mind practice. The clarity looks at itself and sees that it is emptiness. Awareness seeing its empty nature is rigpa, the experience of nonduality.

Recognize all appearances as the radiance of empty luminosity, The Single Sphere of Being, which is all-embracing nonduality. Appearances are the radiance of nondual realization.

Long high-dose sessions become Great Bliss Rigpa, the bliss of naked realization, the most effective nonduality training.

The surest way to guide meditators through the stages of nature of mind practice is for the meditation instructor to have an ongoing practice of their own. The best practitioners make the best meditation instructors.

The first step is always to unglue from the 5MeO experience and become aware of being aware. Then, have the meditator look at awareness and see that awareness is emptiness. The brilliant emptiness of 5MeO makes this easy.

Within the recognition of empty luminosity, encourage multiple higher dose waves as long as the attention span lasts. Encourage them to challenge their comfort zone by exploring higher doses at the edge of their confidence envelope. The best approach to higher doses is to take moderate puffs every two minutes to ascend in a controlled manner. Since there is a desire for each additional increment, each level of ascent will feel welcome, brilliant, and often blissful. At higher doses, rigpa and the experience merge. Sems is gone. There is only rigpa. The best reminder is “Yes!”.

Become self-aware within the experience.

Recognize the brilliance of awareness.

Recognize the emptiness of the brilliance.

Everything is the radiance of awareness.

There is nothing to do, nothing to manage, nothing to fix.

Rest in the space of letting be.

Not altering is bliss.

Stretch out into the field of awareness.

Let go into the vastness of awareness.

Let go of conceptualizing.

Loving the bright openness.

Awareness relaxes into itself.

Awareness is pure being.

Awareness is bliss.

Ah!

4.3   Gazing Practice

Gazing practice is an optional practice that can expand the scope of awareness and bring space and relaxation into the process of remaining immersed in the entire expanse of nondual awareness.

Psychedelic meditation will lead to the self-knowing awareness of rigpa becoming relatively stable. Confidence in sustaining the continuity of self-knowing awareness opens the option to explore the gazing practice of thögal within psychedelic meditation sessions. Read the Thögal Practice With LSD chapter to become familiar with the terms and the full scope of thögal practice. In the Dzogchen tradition, trekchö is the view, and thögal is the meditation. The practice of thögal takes place entirely within recognizing the nature of mind. Gazing practice can easily distract us from recognizing the nature of mind. When this happens, take a break from gazing practice and return to it later. Gazing practice is optional, so only engage with it to the extent that it enhances your recognition.

The vajra chains appear as three-dimensional transparent white ripples or delicate chains in the room's space. Leave the eyes unmoving and aware of the entire visual field as the vajra chains appear, move, separate, merge, and dissolve. Remain very still and breathe slowly and evenly so that the vajra chains will gather. Any movement will scatter them. It is essential to regard the vajra chains as perfect and pure, as expressions of nonconceptual wisdom. The vajra chains are also visible with the eyes closed. Sometimes, they look like the aurora borealis.

The practice of thögal is to gaze at the vajra chains while remaining in rigpa. Joining these two requires some practice. Usually, when gazing at something, our awareness becomes glued to the perception. In being glued to the perception, there is a narrowing of awareness, some fixation on the perception, and some ignorance of the overall field of awareness. This narrowing of focus is the function of the sixth consciousness, the mental consciousness. Thögal practice does not use the mental consciousness.

The practice is to remain in the openness of rigpa while gazing at the entire visual field at once. The mental consciousness is not doing the gazing by zeroing in on one or more vajra chains. Rigpa is aware of the entire visual field, including the vajra chains. There is the self-awareness of rigpa and awareness of the visual field containing the vajra chains simultaneously. The training of thögal is to remain united with the openness of rigpa while being completely aware of the vajra chains. Rigpa and the vajra chains are inhabiting the single sphere of nondual awareness. Gazing can widen awareness and make recognition easier to sustain. Since gazing at the vajra chains is completely nonconceptual, it can be more spacious to remain in the dot of nonconceptual rigpa while gazing.

Although the vajra chains revealed by 5MeO are fainter and less detailed than those shown by LSD, it is possible to relax by watching them pass over a visual boundary. See the Recognize the Wisdom Lamp section. A visual boundary is also helpful in providing some visual focus when not gazing at the vajra chains. Tack a black Bristol board to the wall up against the ceiling or to the ceiling. When looking up, there is a black/white boundary to rest our eyes on when looking at the blank ceiling feels unfocused.

4.4   Making Vape Cartridges

Psychedelic meditation sessions require multiple top-ups, and vape cartridges make this easy, so vape cartridges are by far the best method. Commercial vape cartridges often contain other designer drugs instead of 5MeO, so don’t buy them unless you have prior 5MeO experience and can tell what is real. Make your own cartridges from freebase powder. It is easy, fun, more reliable, and much less expensive.

Purchase a high-quality battery unit with a display or dial to select the precise voltage. A higher voltage will deliver a faster stream of vapor. Cartridge strength is the percent or ratio of 5MeO to carrier. For example, 250mg in 1.0 ml is 25% or 1:3 strength.

Make Your Own Vape Cartridges

You can convert 5MeO freebase powder into a working vape cartridge in an hour. It will be an hour well spent. You will need a few items. Light and heat destroy psychedelics, so keep your freebase powder and finished cartridges in the dark. Freebase powder will remain stable for years. Cartridges are less stable, so only make a few cartridges at a time.

A vape battery unit with a display or dial for precise voltage control.

Order 0.5 ml or 1.0 ml glass vape cartridges.

E-liquid carrier can be purchased at a vape store or online. The carrier is a mixture of vegetable glycerine (VG) and propylene glycol (PG). Good ratios are 60%VG/40%PG, 50VG/50PG, or 70VG/30PG. It should be flavorless and nicotine-free. If pre-mixed carrier is unavailable, order bottles of VG and PG separately and mix your carrier.

A gram or milligram scale accurate to 0.01 grams.

Order 5.0 ml clear glass screw-cap vials with scale markings.

Order 1.0 ml blunt needle syringes with a medium or large gauge needle.

A perfume funnel to pour the powder into the vial.

Stick-on labels or tape and a marker to label the vials and cartridges.

Screw a medium or large gauge needle onto a 1.0 ml syringe so that it will not fall off. Use the 1.0 ml syringe to measure the carrier, not the vial. The vial markings are insufficiently precise. Do not shake vials because air bubbles will make measurements inaccurate. Cut labels small so that they do not obscure the contents. It can be helpful to drill a hole in a piece of wood to hold the cartridges upright while filling them.

Work with powder over a plate so that spilled powder is easy to recover. To measure the powder, fold a square of aluminum foil in half to make a crease for pouring. Open the foil, place it on the scale, and press the tare button to zero the reading.

If you have a pre-mixed carrier, squirt the carrier into a vial and label it correctly, for example "60VG/40PG".

If you mix your carrier, fill one vial with VG and label it "VG." Fill another vial with PG and label it "PG." Use the syringe to measure 3.0 ml of VG into an empty vial, measure 2.0 ml of PG into the same vial, and label it "60VG/40PG". Stir with a syringe until it is clear of any density variations. Check for density variations by tilting the vial on its side and holding it up to a bright light while gently rocking it. Density variations will appear as thin hairs or cloudiness.

25% strength cartridges work well for small and large doses depending on the battery voltage and seconds of draw. To make one 1.0 cartridge, pour 250 mg of 5MeO freebase powder through the funnel into a vial. Use the syringe to add 0.75 ml of carrier. Close the top and label it "25%".

Place the 25% vial in a plastic bag to keep it dry. Water is not compatible with the carrier. Pour boiling water into a bowl and immerse the covered vial in the bowl to heat it. Rock the vial back and forth to dissolve the freebase entirely into the carrier.

After the solids have dissolved, different densities of the carrier will be visible. Check for density variations by tilting the vial on its side and holding it up to a bright light while gently rocking it. Density variations will appear as color differences, thin hairs, or cloudiness. Keep rocking the vial or stirring with a syringe until the carrier has uniform density and no cloudiness. Reheating the vial can help the mixing process. You can suck the fluid into the syringe and squirt it back into the vial several times.

Unscrew the mouthpiece from the cartridge. You will see a glass cylinder with a metal tube in the center. Do not put the mixture in the metal vapor tube. Insert the syringe between the metal tube and the glass cylinder and position the end of the syringe at the bottom of the glass cylinder. Fill the glass cylinder slowly and gently to avoid making bubbles until it is no more than 90% full. Screw on the mouthpiece, label it "25%", and it is ready to go.

Mix one gram of 5MeO with 3 ml carrier to make four 1.0 ml 25% cartridges. Do not reuse cartridges, as they will accumulate residue and leak. When the carrier is no longer visible, pay attention to how the medicine feels. If it no longer feels good, only residue is left, so discard the cartridge. If a cartridge is chilled, the 5MeO can recrystallize. When this happens, heat the cartridge to dissolve the crystals.

4.5   Using Vape Cartridges

Vape cartridges have a hollow metal tube through the center surrounded by a glass cylinder containing the carrier. When drawing on the mouthpiece, air travels up the tube through the mouth and into the lungs. There is a porous ceramic element around the bottom of the tube, which absorbs the carrier. A wire coil around the ceramic element heats the ceramic element and vaporizes the carrier, which mixes with the air and gets inhaled along with the air.

Vape cartridges screw into a battery unit. The battery unit supplies power to the vape cartridge to heat the ceramic element. A higher battery voltage makes the ceramic element hotter, which vaporizes more of the carrier. A higher voltage delivers a faster stream of medicine to the lungs. Some batteries are activated by the suction when drawing from the mouthpiece. Other batteries are activated by pressing a power button. In that case, hold down the power button for the entire draw. Most batteries have a voltage control. Some controls are low/medium/high. Others have a dial or a display to select the exact voltage. Start with medium voltage, such as 3.0 volts. If you want a faster stream of medicine, choose a higher voltage.

The amount of medicine inhaled during a draw will depend on the strength of the carrier, the battery voltage, how much suction is applied, how long the draw lasts, and how long you hold your breath. When drawing on the cartridge, only inhale through the cartridge. Do not also breathe in air from the sides of the mouth or the nose. Inhale the vapor directly into the lungs, don’t just suck vapor into the mouth. After the draw, inhale extra air only through the mouth to bring the medicine deep into the lungs. Hold the vapor in the lungs for as long as is comfortable, such as 10-30 seconds. The longer you hold the vapor, the more you will get and the less medicine you will waste.

Start with a practice session. Remove the cartridge from the battery to practice with. Inhale air from the cartridge into the lungs for a few seconds and then breathe extra air through the mouth. You want pure vapor deep in your lungs, so only inhale through your mouth to not dilute it with air from your nose. Identify the breath lock in the throat and close it. It is the same breath lock used when diving underwater to hold our breath. With the throat breath lock engaged, breathing in or out is impossible, so holding your breath is effortless. See how long you can comfortably hold the breath lock before releasing it. Try for 10-30 seconds.

Everyone has a different felt sense of how long one, two, or three seconds lasts. During your practice session, use your phone stopwatch to time your draws. For the first time, start with a one-second draw at medium voltage, such as 3.0 volts. For cartridges, there is no way to know how many milligrams a draw will deliver, so pay attention to how the medicine feels. Be conservative by taking several small draws to reach the desired dose.

The peak experience will last 5-10 minutes and then tail off for another fifteen minutes. Continue topping up every 2-5 minutes to sustain the peak for as long as desired. Charge the battery after each session so the vapor strength does not vary. Light destroys the medicine, so keep your cartridges in the dark.

5   Essential Training

Having some familiarity and experience with mindfulness meditation is helpful. A daily mindfulness practice will make a big difference in how our psychedelic practice sessions will go.

Some study and familiarity with loving kindness, compassion, and seeing the essential goodness of all beings will give our practice a warmth and positive outlook, which will be invaluable in our psychedelic practice sessions.

Analytical meditation can sharpen our ability to accurately recognize the nature of mind during psychedelic meditation sessions to avoid sidetracks and confusion.

Understanding the difference between temporary experiences and stable realization is essential.

Mindfulness – Abiding in mindful awareness is an essential skill.

Love and Compassion – Everyone wants to be happy and no one wants to suffer.

Analytical Meditation on Emptiness – Nothing is as singular, independent, or permanent as it seems.

Modes of Mind and Meditation – Each type of meditation engages with the mind differently.

Experience and Realization – The difference between experiences and realization and how realization progresses in stages.

5.1   Mindfulness

Meditation is really quite simple. All we have to do is embrace each experience with awareness and open our hearts fully to the present moment.

If you allow the mind to come to rest, ignorance, attachment, aversion, and all other mental afflictions will gradually settle, and the compassion, clarity, and infinite expanse of your mind’s real nature will be revealed.

– Mingyur Rinpoche

Awareness is the essence of meditation. Mindfulness can bring us out of stale thinking and into contact with present fresh wakefulness. Shamatha is calm abiding in mindful awareness.

Shamatha With Support

Mindfulness can be enhanced by focusing on an object for support. Pick a sense perception, such as the sensation of breathing in and out. Gently be with the sensation in a relaxed way for as long as it lasts. After a little while, distracted thinking obscures awareness of the present moment. When noticing the distraction, return to the sensation of breathing.

Pick another sense perception for variety, such as seeing a cup. Gently be with the cup. As long as our eyes see the cup and our mind is with the cup, this is mindfulness of the cup. It is not mindfulness if our eyes see the cup, but our mind thinks about something else and no longer notices the cup.

Thoughts are sense perceptions of the sixth consciousness, the mental consciousness. By being aware of thoughts as they arise, thoughts become support for mindfulness. Rather than fighting with thoughts, embrace them with awareness and use them as support for shamatha practice.

The practice is to gently return to the object of support repeatedly. Being with the object of support is mindfulness training.

Shamatha Without Support

Open awareness meditation is the best form of shamatha. It is not at all difficult and is suitable for beginners. One approach is to begin with shamatha with support, such as being aware of the sensation of breathing in and out. Then, after becoming somewhat settled, let go of focusing on breathing. Relax into the space of simply being aware. Remain in open awareness as long as it lasts. Return to open awareness many times. Be aware in a relaxed way.

Nature of mind practice uses the same approach of being present without focusing on any particular object. The only difference between nature of mind practice and open awareness meditation is whether the nature of mind is recognized. Whenever you notice that the recognition has faded into shamatha, re-recognize the nature of mind. The session will alternate between nature of mind practice and open awareness meditation. They are both excellent meditations.

Open awareness meditation mixed with nature of mind practice is the technique for psychedelic meditation. In psychedelic meditation, let go into pure openness without holding any object in mind. Pure openness is the space or emptiness aspect of recognizing awareness-emptiness.

5.2   Love and Compassion

Everyone wants to be happy, and no one wants to suffer. Wanting to be happy is loving-kindness. Not wanting to suffer is compassion. Every eye blink and each shift in posture is motivated by wanting to be happy and not wanting to suffer. Everyone is experiencing loving kindness and compassion continuously in everything that they do. Everyone has this essence of loving kindness and compassion. Everyone is basically good.

Recognize the basic goodness of all beings and extend loving kindness and compassion to everyone. All beings are experiencing unnecessary mental suffering. Our compassion can grow and extend to the commitment to freeing all beings from suffering. This commitment to help others free themselves is the experience of bodhicitta, the awakened heart of the bodhisattva.

The understanding that everyone is good to the core of their being is an essential component of psychedelic meditation. The practice is to recognize the empty luminosity, the ground of goodness in ourselves and all beings.

5.3   Analytical Meditation on Emptiness

Some analytical study of what the term emptiness refers to will help us recognize our nature, clarity-emptiness. Emptiness is not nothing. It is in a dynamic union with clarity, wisdom, and life. An accurate understanding of emptiness will make it easy to recognize when it vividly appears as objectless awareness in psychedelic meditation sessions. Recognizing our nature as clarity-emptiness liberates us from the dualistic perception, self-centeredness, and mental suffering.

A conceptual understanding of emptiness is necessary to recognize the nature of mind. Within recognition, there is no longer any need for concepts. The nature of mind is recognized directly and nonconceptually. It is like building a fire with kindling. The fire of wisdom burns up the kindling of conceptual understanding. The flame of wisdom no longer depends on concepts.

Emptiness

There is a tendency to think that if something has a name, it exists. However, closer examination reveals that things are only names and concepts. Analysis using particles or time is easy to understand. Here is an analysis using particles:

The left hand is a collection of parts, including the palm, four fingers, and a thumb. The thumb comprises many parts: skin, bone, blood, nerves, nail, etc. The nail is a collection of atoms. Each atom is composed of subatomic particles. Each subatomic particle is a wave of energy with no precise location. There is only quantum foam at the smallest scale, where time, space, and energy lose meaning.

On a relative level, things exist only as concepts, placeholders for collections of other concepts. Nothing truly exists in even the slightest way. Things do not arise, dwell, or cease. There are no things. Nonexistence is emptiness, but emptiness is not nothing. Because of emptiness, everything can manifest. Everything arises in union with emptiness. Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. The union of emptiness and form does not fit in the four conceptual boxes of duality: one is true, the other is true, both are true, or neither is true. Without the four conceptual boxes, there is complete liberation from duality.

Self

Examining the sense of self can be illuminating. There is an unhealthy sense of self, a healthy sense of self, and the luminous self, or self beyond self. The unhealthy sense of self is rooted in the assumption that the self is permanent, independent, and singular. These assumptions are three aspects of one thing: the dualistic perception. This confusion causes many problems because the unhealthy sense of self doesn’t exist, even on a relative level.

Analytical meditation will reveal the healthy sense of self, which is impermanent, interdependent, and multiple. It is constantly changing, arising in interdependence with everything, and composed of many aspects. The healthy sense of self includes many good qualities, such as being open, flexible, happy, loving, compassionate, and connected. However, the relative sense of self depends on time and space, so it is limited and bound by conditions. Liberation is beyond time and space.

The luminous self is empty luminosity, beyond permanent and impermanent, beyond singular and multiple, and beyond independent and interdependent. The luminous self is the complete picture of our being. Our true self is emptiness but not nothing. Because of emptiness, there is liberation from time and space, and at the same time, many positive qualities manifest spontaneously.

The Three Natures

The three natures are the imaginary nature, the dependent nature, and the luminous nature. All thoughts are the imaginary nature because they are mental fabrications. Concepts are imaginations of the mind. Accurate and inaccurate thoughts are equally imagined by the mind. Thoughts about the future are the imaginary nature because the future does not exist yet, and our projections about the future are often wrong. Thoughts about the past are the imaginary because the past no longer exists, and our memories are biased by our self-centric view of events. Thoughts about the present are the imaginary nature because concepts cannot begin to comprehend the infinite interdependence of all things.

The unhealthy sense of self is the imaginary nature because the concept of a permanent self doesn’t refer to anything. There is no permanent self. The permanent self is pure imagination. The healthy sense of self is the dependent nature. The dependent nature is the appearance of sense perceptions, emotions, and mental events, which depend on many causes and conditions. The luminous self is awareness itself, the luminous nature, empty luminosity.

Take the belief that the earth is round as an example. Long ago, everyone thought that the earth was flat. These days, everyone believes that the earth is round. Believing that the earth is flat is the imaginary nature. Believing that the earth is round is also the imaginary nature. Our entire mental model of the world, its people, and how it all works is the imaginary nature. All of astronomy and physics are the imaginary nature, and cosmologists know this because their theories are incomplete and constantly shifting. The words of the thought, “The earth is round,” are the dependent nature, a sense perception of the mental consciousness. The concept the words refer to, a round earth, is the imaginary nature, a fabrication. The awareness which thinks all of these thoughts is the luminous nature.

Realizing that all of our beliefs are the imaginary nature is very freeing. Thoughts are transparent and cannot bind us into suffering. Understanding emptiness sets us up to directly recognize our nonconceptual and nondual nature, empty luminosity.

5.4   Modes of Mind and Meditation

Here is a brief overview of how the mind functions with different meditation practices.

Knowing what things are without thinking about it is the most basic mode of mind. For example, when seeing a tree, it is obvious that it is a tree. There is no need to think to recognize a cough or a sneeze. Without self-awareness, the knowing process can become habitual and stale, sleepwalking through life without noticing the inherent beauty peeking out everywhere.

Thinking is quite different from knowing. Filling out a tax return requires many thoughts. The conceptual mind is useful when paired with awareness. The problem comes when there is no self-awareness of the thinking process, and it starts looping for the tenth time.

Awareness of the subject (the knower), as well as the object (the known), brings self-awareness into the knowing and thinking processes. Shamatha with support uses the knowing of a visual object or the knowing of the feeling of breathing as support for mindfulness. Awareness of the knower transforms the knowing into shamatha with support.

Clarity is knowingness itself—the ability to know anything at all. By connecting with the clarity aspect of mind, shamatha no longer needs a sense perception for support. Clarity is self-knowing, like a candle flame is self-illuminating. It does not depend on anything to know itself. Being in contact with clarity is shamatha without support, sometimes called open awareness meditation, because no specific focus is needed.

Rigpa occurs when clarity recognizes its nature, which is emptiness. When clarity recognizes its empty essence, ignorance dissolves, and duality collapses into self-aware nondual wisdom. Recognizing the vital unity of clarity and emptiness is nature of mind practice.

Most meditation techniques work with form, meaning they are dualistic and object-oriented. Object-oriented meditation would include mindfulness of physical sensations and visual objects, visualization of deities, mantras, chanting, or praying. It also includes contemplative or analytical meditations, where the objects are words and concepts appearing in the mental consciousness.

Object-oriented meditations help tame our wild and distracted minds. Still, these methods are all included within the conceptual structure of duality and do not lead to liberation from the dualistic state. Object-oriented meditation is difficult to sustain within a psychedelic session because the conceptual mind begins to dissolve. When duality starts to dissolve, object-oriented meditation also dissolves.

Subject-oriented meditation looks at awareness and is inherently more profound. When awareness sees itself, the dualistic confusion of a subject fixating on one object after another collapses. When awareness sees itself, it knows its nature: empty luminosity. Subject-oriented meditation is easy to sustain within a psychedelic meditation session because as duality begins to dissolve, the brightness of clarity and insight increases. The practice is awareness gently looking at awareness and relaxing into nonconceptual openness. Recognizing the nature of mind as empty luminosity is a nonconceptual direct insight.

5.5   Experience and Realization

Theory is like patchwork; it wears out and falls off.
Meditation experience is like mist; it fades and vanishes.
But realization is unchanging, like space.

– Dzogchen adage.

Understanding the difference between temporary experiences and realization and how realization progresses is essential. Having a profound experience with psychedelics is lovely, but it will only become a stable realization with a daily nature of mind practice.

Experiences come and go. Daily practice sessions come and go. Psychedelic meditation sessions come and go. Realization builds slowly and doesn't come and go. The measure of realization is how long the recognition lasts without becoming distracted. The more profound the realization, the easier it is to rest within it, and the longer it lasts.

Resting in recognition for one hour, without a moment of distraction, is the realization of an arhat. Resting in recognition all day, from waking until falling asleep, is the realization of a bodhisattva. Bodhisattvas are living in the direct realization of their nature, empty luminosity. The realization of a bodhisattva is an excellent and very attainable life goal. Resting in recognition all day and all night for the complete cycle of twenty-four hours is the realization of a Buddha. Buddhas no longer fall into confusion, and everything arises as wisdom.

Stages of Nature of Mind Practice

There are three stages of nature of mind practice. Psychedelic meditation with 5MeO can speed up the process by taking us from an accurate understanding of empty luminosity to the direct realization of empty luminosity in a few sessions.

1. Understanding. While learning about the nature of mind, recognition is associated with words and concepts. "Clarity sees emptiness." "Clarity and emptiness are a natural union." Understanding level recognition is like seeing a painting of the moon in a book.

2. Direct experience. The words and concepts fall away, but experiences still dominate recognition practice. Blissful, clear, or nonconceptual experiences are side effects of recognizing mind's nature. Rigpa is not an objectifiable experience with tangible characteristics. It is independent of experiences and occurs whether or not an evident experience is present. Rigpa is pure recognition, direct self-knowing wisdom.

Experiences are a good sign because they result from practicing and beginning to recognize mind's nature. When there is clinging to these temporary experiences and attempts to cultivate them, they become sidetracks and obstacles to realization.

Direct experience recognition is like seeing the moon's reflection on a lake. It is more vivid than the painting moon but has yet to be the real moon.

3. Direct realization. The meditation itself dissolves. It is no longer possible to get a grip using effortful mindfulness. The flavor or taste of meditation experiences is gone. The experiences no longer arise. One might think something is wrong with the meditation, but it is a sign of direct realization. You need to recognize the nonmeditation state when you can no longer meditate using effort. Effortless and completely ordinary, the nonmeditation state is the natural state.

Concepts and experiences are irrelevant at the direct realization level. Direct recognition is naked openness with no object of mind. Naked openness is rigpa, wisdom seeing itself. The nature of mind is a direct object, just as direct as looking at a cup sitting on a table. There is no need for concepts or analysis. Within direct realization, all thoughts and appearances arise as expressions of wisdom. The beginning of direct realization is like seeing the first sliver of the new moon in the sky.

The Four Yogas

The four yogas describe the stages of realization according to the Mahamudra tradition. Each yoga has lesser, medium, and greater stages, comprising twelve stages of the path. The four yogas are a detailed map of how realization progresses and are helpful guideposts for training.

The yoga of one-pointedness refers to stability in mindfulness. The yoga of one-pointedness is the realization of an arhat.

The yoga of simplicity or freedom from elaborations refers to stability in recognizing the nature of mind, empty luminosity. Empty luminosity is unconditioned, unchanging, simple, and free of conceptual elaborations. The yoga of simplicity corresponds to the second introduction to the nature of mind: mind is emptiness. The yoga of simplicity is the realization of a bodhisattva. The realization of a bodhisattva is like seeing the first sliver of the new moon in the sky.

The yoga of one-taste corresponds to the fourth introduction to the nature of mind: spontaneous presence is self-liberated. Appearances, thoughts, and emotions are all recognized as the nature of mind. Appearances all have one taste, the taste of liberation. Thoughts and appearances become the meditation. The yoga of one-taste is the further development of the realization of a bodhisattva, which corresponds to seeing the moon waxing in the sky.

The yoga of non-meditation is the final stage of realization. The greater non-meditation stage is the realization of a Buddha. A Buddha’s realization of empty luminosity lasts all day and all night for the entire cycle of twenty-four hours. A Buddha never falls back into confusion; everything arises as wisdom and universal compassion. The realization of a Buddha is like seeing the full moon in the sky.

The Three Vital Points

The three vital points describe the stages of practice according to the Dzogchen tradition.

Directly pointing out the nature of mind is the basis for nature of mind practice. The view is to recognize empty luminosity.

Deciding on a single point brings our focus directly to nature of mind practice. Realizing the nature of mind cures samsara’s duality, confusion, and suffering. No more direct or effective practice exists, so focus on this single point. The meditation is to sustain the continuous recognition of empty luminosity.

Confidence in liberation is living in the flow of realization where everything arises already liberated. The conduct is to engage in activities while sustaining the recognition of empty luminosity. Everything self-liberates as it arises, like writing in water.

Ground, Path, and Fruition

The ground of being is the original complete perfection, primordial purity, unobscured empty luminosity, and primordial enlightenment. Since everything arises from the ground, everything is primordial purity.

The path is the time of confusion. When ground appearances arose, ignorance of the ground appeared, giving rise to the delusion and suffering of samsara. Not recognizing the ground of primordial purity, everything seems impure. The path is the time of learning to re-recognize the ground of empty luminosity by looking and seeing that there is nothing to see.

The fruition arises when delusion has been cleared up, and the ground of being is fully apparent as primordial purity. The fruition is full enlightenment, the complete and stable recognition of the nature of mind.

6   Navigating Psychedelics

Psychedelics are an opportunity to experience intimacy with ourselves. There will be encounters with many aspects of ourselves up close and personal. Every session is different, and the discoveries will be different each time. For example, a tendency to be self-critical may show up vividly in a session. For this reason, engaging with psychedelics requires a high level of honesty and personal bravery. It is a willingness to see and feel whatever arises. See and feel everything without indulging the feelings, without trying to get rid of the feelings, and without ignoring the feelings. This willingness to nakedly be with all feelings allows them to heal and naturally self-liberate.

When a psychedelic reveals something that needs attention, it does its job, which is an occasion for gratitude. Seeing an issue is an opportunity to give it our loving attention, make friends with it, and grow as a human being.

Sometimes, people try spiritual bypassing, ignoring personal issues using spiritual techniques. Psychedelics aren’t the place for that. Psychedelics require a willingness to be face-to-face with all aspects of ourselves with kindness, patience, and honesty. Sometimes people take other substances with psychedelics to “take the edge off” and not feel anything difficult. Chemical bypassing is not recommended.

Handshaking Beautiful Monsters – Handshake practice is the heart of psychedelic practice, the catalyst that allows us to transform confusion and suffering into wisdom.

Letting Go of Duality – Letting go into nondual awareness is a voluntary choice that happens many times over many sessions.

Dualistic Concepts About Nonduality – When there is significant fear at the edge of nonduality, that is the result of confusion.

Energy Movements – Meditation practice, especially the intensity of psychedelic meditation, can lead to energy movements, so it is essential to understand them.

6.1   Handshaking Beautiful Monsters

Handshake practice is the heart of psychedelic practice, the catalyst that allows us to transform confusion and suffering into wisdom. Handshake practice makes psychedelic practice possible.

Beautiful monsters are aspects of ourselves that are unwanted or unaccepted. They seem like monsters because the lack of acceptance brings fear and suffering. They are beautiful because making friends with them will guide us to natural healing and growth.

The process of making friends with our beautiful monsters is called handshake practice. Handshake practice is accepting the feeling and learning from the feeling. Handshake practice is meeting the suffering on its terms, just as it is.

The number of people taking large amounts of psychedelics regularly at any given moment is minuscule. Everyone is afraid of having a bad trip, and rightfully so. A difficult psychedelic experience can be challenging indeed. When there is an unpleasant feeling that is not accepted, psychedelics shine a bright spotlight on the unwanted feeling, magnifying it so that it seems to take over all of space. This magnification of aversion can be intensely scary.

Having a good understanding of handshake practice makes this a non-issue. “Oh, I have an unpleasant feeling. Okay, I can accept that.” The psychedelic spotlight fades, and the feeling becomes part of the environment. Continue practicing alongside the feeling as long as it sticks around, which is usually not for long because the aversion and fear are gone.

Mastering handshake practice is of vital importance during psychedelic sessions and in life. It is a life-changing practice. Mastering handshake practice will allow us to take large amounts of psychedelics with confidence. It will remove a layer of suffering from our lives, a huge relief.

There will be many feelings, both inspiring and challenging, during psychedelic practice sessions. Whether unpleasant feelings or momentary confusion cause us any suffering is up to us. Having an unpleasant feeling is not, in itself, suffering. It is just a temporary and usually fleeting sensation. Feelings become mixed with suffering when there is fear and aversion.

Not accepting and trying to get rid of a feeling is like putting out a fire by pouring gasoline onto it. The result is a much hotter blaze that continues as long as the gasoline of aversion is present. There are four brands of gasoline, and they all make the fire hotter.

1. Indulging the feeling, believing it to be true, and following it. Being compelled by an emotion leads to a proliferation of further thoughts and emotions, which creates even greater confusion and suffering.

2. Trying to suppress the feeling will amplify the fear of the emotion. This fear of the feeling is suffering.

3. Trying to ignore the feeling. The feeling will grow in the background while trying to pretend everything is fine.

4. Using a spiritual technique to avoid unwanted feelings. For example, clinging to being in continuous rigpa to avoid bad feelings. In addition to being unrealistic, clinging to a meditation state creates a tension and fear dynamic that will result in an instant panic attack when the state ends.

The only response to unwanted feelings that always works is a radical and complete acceptance of the feeling, just as it is. Here are three steps to the radical acceptance of a feeling.

1. First and foremost, recognize the suffering as suffering. There is a special dualistic companion, a beautiful monster. This suffering is in our face, and it is ruining our psychedelic practice session.

Simply acknowledging the suffering brings some relief. It is like the difference between being carried along in a turbulent river and watching the river from the river bank. Either way, there is still a turbulent river, but as long the river is seen and acknowledged, the perspective is now from the river bank seeing the river. Seeing the river brings space into the situation. This step may be all that is necessary. If not, continue with the following two steps.

2. Turn toward the feeling of suffering and give it our full, undivided attention. Don’t wander into storylines or concepts about the suffering.

3. Consciously and with kindness, embrace the actual feeling of suffering. It may feel like embracing a dirty toilet bowl. Embrace the actual feeling of suffering and gently become one with it. This intimate embrace reduces the duality. It overcomes the suffering of trying to get rid of suffering. The war is over. The suffering can heal.

Sometimes, there are very difficult feelings, such as from a trauma. The feeling may seem unbearable, impossible to be with. This perception of unbearableness carries us away from feeling the feeling into spinning out into stories about the trauma, which makes the suffering stronger. The difficult feeling seems unbearable because there is the expectation that it will last forever. It is not necessary to feel the feeling forever. It is only necessary to bear the feeling for one single moment. This moment.

While feeling the feeling, ask yourself, "Can I bear this moment?" Put that way, then yes, it is okay to bear this moment. The feeling is already here at this moment. This "Yes, I can bear this moment." realization is gold. Apply it by allowing the feeling to be with us, moment by moment.

Allowing the feeling to be here quickly undermines the fear of feeling the feeling. The subtle body is rapidly learning that the feeling will not kill us. It cannot harm us. Allow the feeling to be felt and keep breathing, staying in the body along with the sensation.

While handshaking the suffering, the suffering part is gone. The feeling may continue for a while, but the relationship with it has transformed from fear and aversion to acceptance and kindness. Indeed, the feeling may allow us to grow and let go of long-held and deep patterns of trauma, suffering, lack of self-acceptance, life scripts, or low self-esteem.

Continue the handshake process by asking the beautiful monster to share its suffering with us to heal a pattern of fear, shame, or aversion that may have been coloring our entire life without being fully conscious.

"Yes, I did a very shameful thing in the past, but that is the past. It doesn't need to ruin my life any longer because I can bear shame whenever it comes up. Now I am kinder and more compassionate because I understand how suffering and liberation work."

As the beautiful monsters open up to us, there is the experience of essence love, a basic okayness, and readiness to love ourselves and others. Allow this essence love to expand into our lives and relationships. Discovering essence love is a transformative experience.

6.2   Letting Go of Duality

Letting go of duality and letting go into nondual awareness is a voluntarily choice that happens many times.

In the boundary between sems and rigpa, there is a letting go of sems, which is dualistic confusion. Notice the state of distracted thinking, re-recognize awareness, and drop back into the natural state of unfixated rigpa. Over time, this transition from sems to rigpa becomes second nature and increasingly automatic.

There is no unitary confused identity such as the popular idea of the ego. See the Distinguishing Sems From Rigpa section for a detailed explanation of the multiplicity of sems. The alaya stores all of the karmic seeds, life scripts, storylines, traumas, emotional burdens, and all levels of self-identification, which are the burdens that our parts can carry. Awareness is not a part and cannot become burdened. Awareness is the empty luminosity that hosts our parts. Our true self is awareness-emptiness. Awareness can never be stained, damaged, burdened, or destroyed.

While spending time in rigpa, there is no karmic creation. There is no fixation looping, so karmic habits do not accumulate in the alaya. While in rigpa, the karmic seeds from the alaya still arise as thoughts and emotions, but since there is no fixated engagement with them, the karmic seeds are dissolving. Every seed not followed is a weakened karmic seed. Nature of mind practice is emptying the alaya.

Psychedelics will temporarily dissolve the sense of self. How that lands in our being is up to us. The practice is to accept our innate identitylessness and let go into openness. This letting go into what is is entirely voluntary. This voluntary letting go of identities purifies our clinging to identities. The voluntary choice to let go happens in many small increments. Letting go of identities many times over many sessions will purify identity clinging.

Psychedelic meditation sessions create conditions where identity clinging can be seen and let go of. This letting go process can be intensely personal, voluntary, and healing. Even the most powerful psychedelic cannot make us let go of our identity clinging. There is always the choice to fight, react, cling, and suffer. No one can take that choice from us. It is really up to us to allow our clinging to dissolve.

Awareness is unchanging, nondual, and never dies. Identify with rigpa. Do not identify with confusion. When confusion dissolves, that is liberation. Seek liberation from delusion with every ounce of your being in every session.

When an opportunity to let go shows up, lean into it. Feel the discomfort of the contrast between sems and rigpa as fully as possible, and let be right within the discomfort. Then, when over the boundary into rigpa, relax with what is, just a little bit freer.

Let go of all identity labels. Be careful not to allow the letting go of identities to become another identity. The Vajrayana tradition instructs us never to reveal our state of realization to anyone. When studying with a teacher, talking with them about our progress is good. Telling others about our realization will look like ego pride to them and be an obstacle to our path. It is best to be a hidden yogi or yogini and dance through samsara without any labels or identity.

6.3   Dualistic Concepts About Nonduality

The experience of nonduality is meaningful, beautiful, profound, and liberating. It is not overwhelmingly frightening. When there is significant fear at the edge of nonduality, that is the result of confusion. In particular, it is essential to understand that nothing changes when recognizing nonduality. Awareness is already naturally nondual. Losing the dualistic perception feels good and healthy.

The experience of recognizing empty luminosity can be exciting and also a bit scary. There is a feeling of being at the edge of totally unconditioned space or witnessing the mother luminosity herself. The prospect of dissolving into empty luminosity might bring up fear of losing all reference points and personal identity. Is it safe to do this? What will happen to us?

The key point here is to realize that letting go into recognition is voluntary. When the time comes to let go further, it will feel fine. Until then, relax near the boundary of letting go and get used to feeling the option of further surrender. This is an excellent reason to be careful with dosing so that the choice remains relaxed and consensual. Recognition is a letting go into what is. It is not an action requiring effort.

On the edge of letting go, it is possible to wander into the trap of thinking that it is necessary to have to make a choice of some consequence, such as abandoning duality or not. This feeling of pressure to choose can be scary and is entirely unnecessary. Remind yourself that you do not have to choose. You are free not to choose, and no one can take that freedom away from you.

It is possible to think that there has been some terrible mistake that has trapped and doomed us. It is not possible to become trapped. There is always the option to choose openness and nonfixation. Remind yourself of this by saying, "I am free! I am free to choose openness." Then, apply handshake practice with the fear and relax.

Thinking that something will permanently change can become a conceptual trap. There is no need to worry about becoming instantly enlightened forever or getting trapped in hell forever. It is appearance-emptiness now, and it will still be appearance-emptiness later today. Our usual selves will return in a few minutes or hours.

The way through all of these kinds of dualistic mind tricks is to relax, stay uncontrived and natural, and take the time to become quite familiar with the recognition of empty luminosity by repeating it many times.

It is perfectly sufficient to recognize rigpa. There is no need to interact with it other than allowing it to naturally last for a while. Witness it, be close to it, and feel it. Admire its alpha purity, limitless clarity, and infinite potential. Let it dissolve without clinging or regret when it begins to fade.

Eventually, with enough familiarity, it will dawn on us that duality has never existed. It was just a confused, painful dream that got out of hand. Since there is no duality, there is nothing to compensate for. You are beautiful. You are perfect. Just the way you are.

6.4   Energy Movements

Meditation practice, especially the intensity of psychedelic meditation, can lead to energy movements, so it is essential to understand them. There are five types of energy movements.

Reactivations are feeling the brightness of the psychedelic meditation sessions showing up later, often while meditating or at night. Reactivations are a good sign, and they can enhance our practice.

Physical sensations. You may feel heat, tingling, pain, or blocked energy at the top of your head, chest, back, or abdomen. Your body may move or shake. You may cry or make spontaneous mudras with your hands. These are all energy movements, and they are normal.

Emotional ups and downs. You may feel blissful one day and feel depressed or mentally scattered the next.

Sensory perceptions. You may hear sounds or see images. You may see deities coming to you and giving you special messages.

Perception of positive and negative energy. You may feel blessings coming from someone. You may feel malevolent energy following you. You may feel like someone is spying on you or controlling you.

The first three are real, and the last two are not real. The reactivations, physical sensations, and emotional ups and downs are real, being the dependent nature. However, the sensory and energy perceptions are not real, being the imaginary nature, so don't believe in them.

Energy movements are good signs. Energy movements result from transforming the energetic system.

The first type of transformation is from an unhealthy to a healthy energetic system. Energy movements occur as blockages, traumas, and knots in the energetic system release. Letting go of blockages transforms unhealthy energetic patterns into healthy ones.

The second type of transformation is from the healthy energetic body to the wisdom body. This transformation happens as nature of mind practice transforms dualistic perception into nondual wisdom. This type of transformation will not produce energy movements. The realization of the nature of mind is self-resolving and self-integrating.

Sometimes, both kinds of transformation happen at the same time. It is possible to let go of unhealthy patterns while also letting go of duality and recognizing the nature of mind. In that case, energy movements will happen along with progress in realization. Sometimes, the transformations alternate or are sequential. In one session, unhealthy patterns dissolve, and duality dissolves in another.

It is essential to recognize energy movements for what they are whenever they show up. There is no need to make up stories about what an energy movement means or try to suppress or fix it. Allow them to arise knowing what they are, and they will naturally settle on their own. The Handshaking Beautiful Monsters section goes into detail about feeling our feelings so that they can self-liberate.

6.5   Rigpa for Two

Recognizing the nature of mind together is a beautiful, loving, and healing opportunity for close practice partners. Everyone wants deeper intimacy. The most profound intimacy and the core of all intimacy occurs when two awarenesses meet face to face in total openness and mutual acceptance. It is healing and life-affirming to experience complete mutual acceptance and love without concepts, drama, or storylines standing in the way.

This openness and acceptance is the experience of shared rigpa, which is very accessible with psychedelics. The most accessible channel for shared rigpa is gazing practice. Compose yourselves in rigpa and gaze into each other’s eyes. Sit, stand, or lie together where you can be comfortably face to face and relatively close.

Then, engage in an interactive dance of shared openness and recognition. Stay aware of our recognition, and at the same time, remain aware of the other person’s recognition. When one dims into thinking, the other can shift slightly to re-awaken the fresh openness in the other. In this way, the two awarenesses support each other in sustaining rigpa. After a bit of practice, this can become very easy to sustain because the two awarenesses support each other in sustaining rigpa, mutual acceptance, and love without conceptual wandering. Stay within the dot of timeless awareness, the awakened state. It is a beautiful experience to share and excellent nature of mind practice.

Sexual contact uses the identical mechanism of mutual recognition of awareness. Sex with psychedelics is famously amazing, and having it be a shared experience of rigpa is very intimate.

7   Thögal Practice with LSD

In the Dzogchen tradition, nature of mind practice is called kadak trekchö. Kadak is primordial purity, and trekchö is cutting through, so trekchö is short for cutting through to primordial purity. Trekchö is the view, and thögal is the meditation. The meditation practice of thögal is to gaze at the vajra chains while remaining in the view of trekchö. Thögal practice is unique to the Dzogchen tradition and is considered the swiftest of all practices for attaining realization. Thögal practice introduces us to the spontaneous presence arising from the ground of being so there is a complete understanding of the radiant power of primordial purity.

Thögal is the key to enlightenment.

– Trungpa Rinpoche

I asked Mingyur Rinpoche about this.

Yes, thögal is the key to enlightenment. Trekchö is also the key to enlightenment. They are both the keys to enlightenment. It is not necessary to practice thögal.

The Dzogchen tradition advises us to accomplish trekchö practice first and then practice thögal. Thögal practice requires skill in recognizing the nature of mind. Accomplish the stages of trekchö practice with 5MeO and realize the nature of mind before beginning thögal practice.

Thögal practice with LSD makes seeing the vajra chains extremely easy. Indeed, hundreds of thousands of people have taken LSD and seen the vajra chains, although they did not know what they were or how to practice with them. The vajra chains are the typical visual effects of LSD that everyone sees with their eyes open. There is nothing new to see, but practicing with them requires instruction and understanding. Since thögal practice with LSD is so easy, it can be a game changer for dedicated practitioners.

The primary term for thögal practice is the wisdom lamp. The wisdom lamp has the same meaning as rigpa, the recognition of primordial purity, the unconditioned. There are two reasons for using a specific term for this recognition. First, the wisdom lamp refers to the recognition practice while gazing at the vajra chains within thögal practice.

The second reason is that within the practice of thögal, the recognition of primordial purity is a direct realization. There are no intermediate concepts or analogies. It is the real thing. No higher, more profound, or more fundamental realization is possible because there is only one unconditioned, and it is the basis for all conditions. This direct realization of the wisdom lamp is the purpose of thögal practice.

Here are the stages of thögal understanding and practice.

The Vajra Chains of Awareness – Recognize the visual effects of LSD as the self-arising wisdom display, the radiance of primordial purity.

The Self-arisen Wisdom Lamp – The wisdom lamp is naked primal enlightenment, the direct realization of unobscured primordial wisdom, the ground luminosity.

The Four Visions of Thögal – The four stages of thögal practice.

The Vision of Manifest Dharmata – Trekchö practice with the vajra chains is exquisitely beautiful, elegantly playful, delicately feminine, freshly spontaneous, intimately responsive, and a lot of fun.

Recognize the Wisdom Lamp – Recognize the wisdom lamp by letting go into deep relaxation while remaining wide awake to the dynamic movements and shapes of the vajra chains in real time.

The Vision of Increased Experience – Drop into the wisdom lamp many times until there is a fully functioning relative consciousness fully immersed within the wisdom lamp.

The Vision of Awareness Reaching Fullness – Relaxing ever more deeply into the realization of the wisdom lamp and letting go of even the most subtle reference points. Relaxing deeply into the wisdom lamp is the heart essence of thögal practice.

7.1   The Vajra Chains of Awareness

While gazing at a blank wall, notice the visual patterns that spontaneously appear. They are a self-emergent display, not produced by intention or effort on our part. Do not anticipate them, try to find them, make them, lead them, or steer them in any way. Allow them to naturally and freely arise if and when they want to.

With enough LSD, they will naturally appear. Thögal practice is much more successful with higher doses of LSD. Increase your confidence with higher doses until they are clear. Wait until they can be seen clearly before attempting to practice with them. Trying to practice with them too early in the session before they become apparent can result in imagining them, which misses the point.

The vajra chains are not mental imagination. They do not arise from the sixth consciousness, the mental consciousness. They arise from within the visual consciousness. They are part of how the visual system in the brain functions. They are direct visual sense perceptions that require open eyes and light. They are always present but usually hidden. LSD makes them visible.

The vajra chains originate in the visual cortex. Light shines into the eyes, delivering the raw images to the visual cortex. The visual cortex uses the raw images to construct a three-dimensional model of the room, the walls, and the furniture, which is our world. Our environment is an exquisitely beautiful and richly detailed three-dimensional model of reality created by the visual cortex. Then, the visual cortex inserts the three-dimensional vajra chains into the three-dimensional model of the room, and they appear suspended in the room's space as if they were external forms.

The vajra chains are not external forms. The vajra chains are self-arising wisdom displays, the self-radiance of primordial purity. Regard the vajra chains as perfect and pure and trust them fully.

Several factors influence how the vajra chains are displayed. They move more quickly when there is more dualistic struggle and mental speediness. When recognized as appearance-emptiness, they slow down and become more peaceful. Sometimes, they will reflect recognizable content, such as ordinary objects or deities, if the practitioner has done a lot of deity practice. Their specific content does not matter. It is the recognition of them as appearance-emptiness that matters.

Look at a blank wall. The wall is composed of a tapestry of light. Look at the texture and pattern of the tapestry. It may be like garlands of pearls, patterns of delicate chains, or cords. They are not static but gently shift and move.

With enough LSD, the vajra chains will become visible in the space between yourself and the far wall. One will see them flowing freely, beautiful three-dimensional laminar flows of translucent patterns. They slowly shift and undulate, connecting in different ways. One can see right through them. They slightly distort the objects visible behind them as if they have some density, like ribbons of glass or transparent ripples in space.

Take a well-supported upright posture where you can remain fully attentive and unmoving. It helps to stay very still, inhale, and exhale slowly and evenly. Any movement will disperse the vajra chains. Staying physically and mentally still will allow them to gather and become more vivid.

It is essential to avoid becoming fascinated by or fixating on the vajra chains. Join seeing them with self-awareness and the prajna of recognizing that they are appearance-emptiness. Whenever feeling glued to the vajra chains, bored, or spaced out while watching them, take a break and return to them later. It is vital to treat the time spent gazing at the vajra chains lightly, respect their sacredness, and only engage with them with awareness.

7.2   The Self-arisen Wisdom Lamp

Synonyms for rigpa are: primordial purity, transcendence of concepts, self-cognizance, dharmakaya, single circle, prajnaparamita, Mahamudra, Dzogchen, ultimate wisdom, and countless others. In the context of thögal, it is called the self-arising wisdom lamp.

– Circle of the Sun by Tsele Natsok Rangdrol, page 50.

Internally, the experiences of the increasingly clear and stable self-arisen wisdom lamp – emptiness and luminosity which, like the center of a brilliant sky, are unable to be conceived of by the conceptual mind or expressed through speech and which transcend all conceptual elaborations – arise naturally, of their own accord.

– Fully Spreading the Light of Wisdom by Jamgön Kongtrül.

Usually, when something arises, it gradually appears. The wisdom lamp is not like that. It just shows up as naked primal enlightenment itself. It is the direct realization of unobscured primordial wisdom. It is the naked realization of the mother luminosity.

After the wisdom lamp first appears, it will appear more and more often. With a bit of practice, it will appear many times in every practice session. The wisdom lamp is a direct realization, and as such, it results in swift progress.

The wisdom lamp lets us know what it is, the ultimate unconditioned, but it is gentle and not scary. It allows us to engage with it at the level that feels comfortable for us at our own pace. When faced with the real unconditioned, it is breathtaking and awe-inspiring. It is mind-expanding to stretch our little personal reference points into what is beyond any reference point. It feels safe and consensual and, at the same time, super interesting because awareness is so clearly stretching out into the space of full enlightenment.

The wisdom lamp is naked, unadorned luminosity-emptiness, the realization of trekchö. It is very striking and unmistakably the completely unconditioned source of everything. There is no space, environment, or awareness beyond primordial purity. It is the primordial source of everything without exception. A stable relationship with the self-arisen wisdom lamp is complete enlightenment.

Of course, there is no form to see, but there is a definite recognition of complete openness and unconditioned space. Sometimes, it feels like the top of our head has peeled off, and there is only space up there. Relax within the complete openness. Let go into the completely unconditioned. Let go of all reference points.

There are analogies, such as looking at the sky, but they are inadequate and misleading, like looking for something vast and distant. It is right here, closer than our own eyes. That's the way it is. Everything is completely open and completely pure. There isn't even a speck of confusion anywhere. Sems is gone. There is only rigpa.

The wisdom lamp is the direct realization of primordial purity. It is utterly unconditioned, yet all conditions arise within it.

It is the unconditioned of the unconditioned of the unconditioned of unconditions.

– Trungpa Rinpoche

In primordial purity, there is no mistake. It contains nothing concrete that could support confusion. It has always been here and is here now, just waiting for us to notice. The wisdom lamp appears and shows us our enlightened nature. It is a direct realization practice that brings rapid progress on the path.

7.3   The Four Visions of Thögal

The four visions are a description of how thögal practice progresses.

The Vision of Manifest Dharmata

Natsok Rangdrol emphasizes the importance of joining trekchö and thögal.

If you have not correctly realized the vital point of trekchö, your practice [of thögal] will not become the true path.

– Circle of the Sun by Tsele Natsok Rangdrol, page 53.

See the vajra chains and get good at relaxing while seeing them vividly without distraction. Remaining undistracted in the union of trekchö and thögal accomplishes the yoga of one-pointedness. See The Vision of Manifest Dharmata section.

The Vision of Increased Experience

Many masters combine this stage with the simplicity of Mahamudra. But since the Thögal of Direct Perception is much swifter, it seems to correspond with one taste.

– Circle of the Sun by Tsele Natsok Rangdrol, page 56.

The vision of increased experience begins when the wisdom lamp arises in every session and is complete when the realization of the wisdom lamp becomes stable. See the Recognize the Wisdom Lamp and The Vision of Increased Experience sections.

The Vision of Awareness Reaching Fullness

You will have “reached the fullness” of realizing enlightenment within this very body.

Although this has been combined with the lesser and medium stages of nonmeditation, you have actually reached the final point of greater nonmeditation. All of the obscurations of body, appearances and mind have been exhausted. You have been liberated from the most subtle defilement, the obscuration of dualistic knowledge, and have perfected, without exception, the great power of the qualities of wisdom, compassion, and ability. There is, consequently, no higher place to which one can journey

– Circle of the Sun by Tsele Natsok Rangdrol, pages 57-58.

The vision of awareness reaching fullness begins when the wisdom lamp becomes stable in each session and is complete when the wisdom lamp is stable for the entire cycle of twenty-four hours. See The Vision of Awareness Reaching Fullness section.

The Vision of the Exhaustion of Dharmata

The term vision of the exhaustion of dharmata is also known as the “dissolution of outer appearances into the inner space”, or “passing into the nirvana of buddhahood” by means of the rupakayas dissolving into dharmakaya, or the “fruition of the exhaustion of concepts and phenomena” because of transcending the elaborate attributes of subject and object. In brief, in the context of the thögal teachings, it is the spontaneous presence having dissolved back into the ground of primordial purity.

– Circle of the Sun by Tsele Natsok Rangdrol, page 58.

The wisdom appearances dissolve, having done their job. The union of the ground and the fruition is the final stage of enlightenment within the Dzogchen tradition.

7.4   The Vision of Manifest Dharmata

The vision of manifest dharmata is the first vision. It refers to simply seeing the vajra chains.

Seeing these displays a little bit from time to time is called commencing. Knowing how to watch them correctly and see them fully is called establishing. Finally, seeing them without difficulty whenever you look is called perfection.

– The Circle of the Sun by Tsele Natsok Rangdrol, page 53.

Good news for us. Just by taking LSD, the perfection stage of the vision of manifest dharmata is complete. By relaxing and staying very still, the vajra chains will begin to gather and become progressively clearer.

Just watching the vajra chains has no more benefit than sitting on the couch and watching a show. It is necessary to join gazing at the vajra chains with the self-awareness of trekchö practice. For those who don't have much experience with trekchö practice, this is a great place to start. For those with some experience with trekchö training, this is an excellent opportunity to deepen the practice.

Trekchö practice with the vajra chains is exquisitely beautiful, elegantly playful, delicately feminine, freshly spontaneous, intimately responsive, and a lot of fun. The vajra chains are dynamic, alive, and aware. They are chains that know themselves. They respond to the state of recognition moment by moment. As the recognition improves, the vajra chains will slow down and become more apparent. Because they respond dynamically to recognition, they guide us to recognize our nature. They provide direct, real time feedback to improve the recognition of primordial purity.

Trekchö can be practiced as usual while gazing at the vajra chains or using these approaches specific to gazing practice.

1. Recognize self-awareness.

When looking at a book, one can say, "I know this book." The more interesting question is, is there awareness of knowing the book?

Usually, the relationship with appearances is similar to that of a dog sniffing a tree. Appearances are known, but there is no awareness of knowing the appearances. There is no self-awareness present. Everyone is sleepwalking through their lives.

While gazing at the vajra chains, one can see the vajra chains, and one can be aware of seeing the vajra chains. This shift into self-awareness is a crucial point and easy to do. Awareness is aware of itself as the vajra chains unfold within awareness as the radiant display of awareness. Being aware of seeing the vajra chains transforms our relationship with them into rigpa.

2. Recognize that spontaneous presence is self-liberated.

Gazing at the vajra chains is the premier occasion to practice the fourth introduction to the nature of mind. Simply seeing the vajra chains becomes nature of mind practice. The vajra chains are the radiance of awareness, the self-display of rigpa, and the dynamic union of awareness and emptiness. That the vajra chains are awareness can be seen just by looking. There is no need for any analogy. There is no need for any analysis or logic. The vajra chains are plainly and obviously awareness itself. There is no separation or duality between the wisdom display of the vajra chains and awareness.

3. Recognize the crystal of awareness-emptiness.

While gently watching the play of the vajra chains in the space, notice that they are arising from and within awareness itself. Now, look directly at the source of the vajra chains. Look and see if their source has any characteristics. While watching the vajra chains continuously arise, at the same time, look at their source and see if it has any conditions, any form, any structure, or anything identifiable at all. Are the vajra chains groundless and rootless, or are they attached to something?

It is the combination of looking directly at the spontaneously emerging patterns and simultaneously recognizing the unfindability and lack of substance of awareness. It is direct looking combined with seeing that awareness has no characteristics. Recognize awareness-emptiness with the assistance of the vajra chains, appearance-emptiness. The vajra chains are the radiant display of awareness, the union of clarity and emptiness.

Awareness-emptiness is like a perfect mirror or a flawless transparent crystal. The mirror is the clarity aspect of primordial purity. The appearance-emptiness of the vajra chains are like reflections in the mirror or images in the crystal. The vajra chains slightly distort what lies behind them. While immersed in the perfect crystal of awareness, the vajra chains make the crystal apparent by seemingly distorting it. Look at the distortions, and you may glimpse the crystal itself.

7.5   Recognize the Wisdom Lamp

By not moving, like striking down a nail, the lamp of self-arisen wisdom of the unelaborated mind of luminosity and emptiness arises. Meditating in that state without distraction is the ultimate key point of the Heart Bindu of the Dakinis great perfection.

If the self-arisen wisdom lamp is not clear, you should train in breathing very slowly, so that the vajra chains do not move back and forth at all.

– Teaching on the Four Lamps by Longchenpa

Here are detailed instructions on recognizing the wisdom lamp for the first time.

Use a visual focus to support the recognition of the wisdom lamp. The visual focus is a clear contrast boundary free of any visual clutter. Bristol or poster boards often come in sheets of 28×22 inch (71×56 cm). Tack two sheets of black Bristol board with the long side up, side by side, on the wall with the top edge level with the eyes. If the wall is patterned or dark, tack a white bed sheet above the black poster board so that it is easy to perceive the three-dimensional vajra chains in the space of the room above the contrast boundary. The overall effect is like gazing at the horizon. The bright sky is above the dark land.

Remain unmoving and relaxed while watching the vajra chains pass over the black/white visual boundary. At the edge, the three-dimensional vajra chains will distort the boundary between light and dark, highlighting their movements near the border. One can see the vajra chains and their distortions passing over the horizon very clearly, one or more at a time.

The vajra chains have a remarkable quality. The speed of their movements responds to the speediness of our minds. The vajra chains are very active when our dualistic mental speed is high. When our dualistic fixation begins to dissolve, the vajra chains slow down. The vajra chains are like a natural speedometer. Their activity shows our realization state in real time, moment by moment.

The key to recognizing the wisdom lamp is staying very still in complete relaxation and mental quiescence, not holding anything in mind while vividly aware of the movements of the vajra chains near the boundary line. Recognize the wisdom lamp by letting go into deep relaxation while remaining wide awake to the dynamic movements and shapes of the vajra chains in real time. Allowing these both to happen at the same time requires some practice.

The vajra chains actively guide us into allowing their activity to relax and slow down. They are giving us feedback to relax and slow down the churning of our dualistic minds. Sems relaxes and dissolves into rigpa, and the vajra chain movements track this relaxation process. When the movements of the vajra chains slow down and come to rest or close to rest, the wisdom lamp will arise.

This feedback loop where the vajra chains guide us into relaxing the struggle of duality is a natural miracle. It is the heart of thögal practice because it is a transition directly from duality to nonduality without effort or process. It is relaxing directly into the wisdom lamp.

Thögal is translated as "direct crossing." It crosses directly from the mountain valley of samsara to the mountain valley of primordial wisdom without needing to climb up and down the mountain pass separating the two valleys. The exceptional quality of thögal practice is that direct crossing is effortlessly and reliably repeatable. It is easy to explore primordial wisdom confidently and in great detail. One can drop into the wisdom lamp five, ten, or more times in a session.

After some experience with the wisdom lamp, it will be apparent that it doesn't newly arise. It is always here, shining as brightly and obviously as the sun's disk in the sky. Dualistic churning seemingly obscures the wisdom lamp. When the fog of dualistic struggle clears, one can see the naked sun, the unconditioned.

Relaxing into the wisdom lamp in the first or tenth gazing session is possible. Individuals will vary. If it seems to be taking a while, be sure to be taking enough LSD to see the vajra chains clearly. Good solid doses are a requirement for this practice. Be patient. Deeply relaxing while vividly aware of the vajra chains at the boundary requires training. You will be amazed when you first succeed in seeing the wisdom lamp. From now on, nothing can stop you from accomplishing the entire path of thögal and attaining complete enlightenment.

7.6   The Vision of Increased Experience

It is taught that rigpa is now like a bird about to fly off, but mostly it is described as being like a bee circling – – after honey.

– The Circle of the Sun by Tsele Natsok Rangdrol, page 56.

This section contains instructions on how to stabilize the wisdom lamp. The Vision of Increased Experience begins when one recognizes the wisdom lamp in every practice session. Before long, the wisdom lamp will be recognized many times in every practice session.

When first recognizing the unconditioned, it is such an enormous realization that it can take over the normal functioning of consciousness. It is such a bright flash of wisdom that one cannot stabilize it, and it doesn't last very long. Often, it is not even possible to comprehend what is happening. It is a bit overwhelming, and there is not yet a connection between the unconditioned and the everyday stream of consciousness.

Sometimes, one loses track of the continuity of ordinary consciousness. One is absorbed into the wisdom lamp realization without any connection to normal perceptions until one drops back into everyday awareness. Sometimes, one drops back into odd and disoriented states of mind. Sometimes, it is like being in several different dimensions simultaneously. This multidimensionality may feel like a broken mirror, where each mirror fragment reflects separate portions of relative reality. The fractured mirror perceptions may feel sharp and edgy.

Our job is to relax with all of these increased experiences. They are side effects of uncontrolled entry into the wisdom lamp.

In the samsaric state, the fixation on ordinary appearances obscures the unconditioned. When first realizing the unconditioned, the realization of the wisdom lamp obscures ordinary appearances and consciousness. The practice here is to integrate these two, the conditioned and the unconditioned, into a single sphere of awareness.

It takes a while to get to know the unconditioned. After first seeing the wisdom lamp, it will soon start appearing many times in every session, so there will be many opportunities to get used to it. These are opportunities to become skilled at making the transition into relaxing into the wisdom lamp.

Once there is some facility with this, slow the process down. Slowly relax only part way into the wisdom lamp recognition. Feel it gradually arising, but don’t plunge fully into it. In this partially recognized state, there is still access to ordinary consciousness and one foot in the unconditioned. Now, play back and forth over the boundary and see if it is possible to keep a connection with ordinary consciousness while fully recognizing the unconditioned.

After a while, keeping a sliver of ordinary awareness with us during the transition into full recognition becomes possible. Work on sustaining and expanding this sliver of ordinary consciousness within the full realization of the wisdom lamp.

After some practice, expanding the sliver of ordinary consciousness into a fully functioning conscious awareness becomes possible. Conscious awareness is just like usual. One can see, hear, think, and look around the room with the full recognition of the wisdom lamp.

This transition is an exhilarating moment! There is a fully functioning relative consciousness fully immersed within the wisdom lamp. At first, it is only possible to sustain it for a minute or two, then gradually longer and longer. In this state, there is full realization of the unconditioned. Look at the boundary again and keep it sharp whenever it begins to fade.

Once the realization is somewhat stable, raise the gaze above the horizon line and watch the vajra chains unfold in three-dimensional space while sustaining the direct realization of the wisdom lamp. Gazing at the wisdom display of the vajra chains while immersed in the full realization of the wisdom lamp is an integration practice. It integrates the realization of the unconditioned with the ongoing functioning of everyday conditioned consciousness.

After a few sessions, the wisdom lamp realization will become stable. Stability with the wisdom lamp completes the Vision of Increased Experience. There are no more increased experiences. It is the direct realization of the wisdom lamp.

7.7   The Vision of Awareness Reaching Fullness

Through the natural appearance of the self-arisen wisdom lamp, you attain stability with the vajra chains and they do not move or flutter.

– Teaching on the Four Lamps by Longchenpa

All the subtle bindus of the vajra chains of the radiance of awareness appear in forms that come and go. It is crucial to bind those so that they do not move.

– Instructions on Divining Luminosity by Longchenpa.

The Vision of Awareness Reaching Fullness begins when the realization of the wisdom lamp is stable. Spending time in the stable realization of the wisdom lamp is the main body of thögal practice and results in the realization of a Buddha.

At the beginning of each session, as soon as the vajra chains appear, look at the vajra chains near the boundary and drop into the wisdom lamp. Then, sustain the wisdom lamp recognition while gazing at the three-dimensional vajra chains in the space of the room or looking around the room.

It is good to return to gazing at the boundary to sharpen the recognition occasionally. While gazing at the boundary, one will notice a relationship between how sharp the recognition is and how much the vajra chains move near the boundary. When the recognition is sharp, the vajra chains do not move at all, and they may merge into the boundary so that they are no longer visible. Use this phenomenon to sharpen the realization over time.

Gazing at the boundary and allowing the vajra chains to stop moving and merge into the boundary is deeply relaxing, extremely powerful, and intimately engaging. One is relaxing ever more deeply into the realization of the wisdom lamp and letting go of even the most subtle reference points. Embrace this process with intelligence, self-awareness, and curiosity. Relaxing deeply into the wisdom lamp is the heart essence of thögal practice.

While gazing at the boundary, it is important not to space out. If the attention wanders while gazing, the recognition may become mixed with concepts. When mentally wandering, feeling stale, or overly focused on the boundary practice, it is time to raise the gaze above the boundary for integration practice.

Avoid drifting into thinking that something will permanently change while gazing at the boundary. The only change will be a sharper, more profound, and more stable realization of the wisdom lamp. It will still be possible to return to samsara at any time.

As part of the integration practice, spend time gazing at the three-dimensional vajra chains above the boundary. The relationship with the vajra chains will become more interactive and responsive. Look around the room to integrate the realization of the wisdom lamp with ordinary appearances. Integrate realization with the everyday thoughts that arise. Thoughts are the radiance of rigpa and are expressions of wisdom.

Stabilizing nonduality is a significant exercise in full brain neuroplasticity. In thögal practice sessions, our brains are being reformatted to function within nonduality. These hours spent living in the wisdom lamp are a rapid and thorough process of voluntarily letting go of confusion. Every hour in the wisdom lamp is meaningful and exciting. The mirage of duality is incinerating.

The wisdom lamp realization will show up vividly in daily practice and life. Spend time in daily practice integrating the wisdom lamp realization with ordinary living. Daily practice will provide a landing pad for the wisdom lamp to enter our lives. See the Recognize the Natural State section.

The vision of awareness reaching fullness is complete when there is no distraction during the day or night. Not falling into confusion for the entire cycle of twenty-four hours is the realization of a Buddha.

8   Navigating LSD

Regular N,N-DMT has very pronounced visual effects and does not dissolve conceptual mind very much, so it is not suitable for nature of mind practice. 5MeO has minimal visual effects and completely dissolves conceptual mind, so it is perfect for nature of mind practice. LSD is right in the middle between the two. LSD has beautiful visual effects and does an excellent job of dissolving conceptual mind, which makes it perfect for practicing thögal.

An LSD practice session is considerably longer than a 5MeO experience. In thögal practice, spending several hours immersed in primordial wisdom is possible. One can think, look around the room, and eat snacks in complete contact with the wisdom lamp. This experience of relatively normal consciousness in the context of complete nonduality is a unique, powerful, and dynamic integration training.

The length of an LSD session requires a lot more organization and planning. There is time to traverse many ups and downs in meditation practice and states of mind, so there are many opportunities to gain skills in acceptance and self-liberation. The set and setting will determine the trajectory of the practice session. Paying meticulous attention to every detail will sidestep many unnecessary difficulties.

Set refers to the mindset going into the session. Mindset is primarily intention and aspiration. Intentions are exceedingly powerful, and it is good to articulate them at the beginning of the session. Once the intentions are clear, relax into being present and accepting whatever comes up. Whatever happens is an opportunity to learn and grow, so don't expect or cling to any specific outcome. An example of a general aspiration might be, "I aspire to remain present, to recognize the nature of my mind, to accept whatever happens, and to grow my compassion for all beings."

Plan to be in as good mental and physical shape as possible. Consider choosing another time when you are not feeling well or when life doesn't feel settled. Try to be well-rested. Make sure that the circumstances of life will afford the time it takes, which is all day and often half of the night. It is also helpful not to have to work the next day so that there is space to catch up on sleep and have some time to absorb the session's lessons.

Setting refers to the practice environment. Prepare a safe, clean, and pleasant place. Have delicious, easy-to-eat food such as cut-up fruit, crackers, and other treats. Thögal practice is a meditation session, so set it up like any all-day meditation session. The senses are left wide open and natural. There is no need to wear an eye mask or listen to music. That would be another kind of experience. All traditions have methods of creating a sacred space for practice. Use some thought and planning to create a wholesome and uplifted practice container.

Here are the guidelines for LSD practice.

Practice Partners – Sharing a practice session with someone can be beneficial and lovely.

Rigpa for Two – The most profound intimacy and the core of all intimacy occur when two awarenesses meet face to face in total openness and mutual acceptance. This openness and acceptance is the experience of shared rigpa, which is very accessible with LSD.

Dosage Guidelines – Spread the dose out within each session. This way, the ramp-up sensations will be manageable.

Extended Sessions – To progress rapidly in thögal practice, seeing the vajra chains quite clearly for extended periods such as 4-8 hours can be helpful.

Sustainable Practice – Taking large amounts of LSD over many hours is not sustainable more often than every two weeks.

Taking LSD – An overview of the process.

The Preliminary Practice – Navigate the subtle body ramp-up sensations and the dissolving of self.

8.1   Practice Partners

A big part of the setting is whether there is a practice partner and who it is. It is optional to have a practice partner. Some people prefer to practice alone so that they have more focus. Sharing a practice session with someone can be beneficial and lovely. A psychedelic session is a relatively intimate experience to share, so liking and trusting each other is essential. Discussing each person's intentions and aspirations beforehand is a good idea to ensure they are compatible.

Since this is a shared meditation session, there can be a good balance between leaving space and silence for the practice to unfold and sharing some observations and gentle humor. It is essential to respect each other's journey and not steer each other's session in any way. There is no need to bring up topics for a partner to consider. A psychedelic practice session is not the time to ask someone how their divorce proceedings are going.

If a partner is experiencing a fixation, hold space and be with them without judgment or feeling that they need rescuing. Trust that they are okay now and will be okay later. Our role is to remain present and open. It wouldn't help to have two people fixated. Reminding them that they can feel whatever they are feeling and allowing the feeling to arise without fighting it can be helpful. See the Handshake Practice section.

Be spacious, relaxed, kind, and curious. If it is safe, sometimes a change of location, such as going for a walk together, can bring a new perspective. It may be helpful to point out that this is a temporary experience that will soon be over and that you will be present until it is. Unless there is some physical danger, avoid calling emergency services. That will not be fun.

If you are the person having a hard time, go ahead and let your practice partner know. It helps to know that they know you are working on liberating yourself, and you will feel their support.

After the practice, take some time to debrief, put the experiences into context, and begin the integration process.

8.2   Dosage Guidelines

When practicing with psychedelics, let go of any dosage-based pride. Everyone is different, and it is essential to discover effective doses for ourselves without comparison with others. For example, people who weigh less will require smaller doses than people who weigh more. Taking anti-depressants or similar medications will lessen the sensitivity to LSD.

Don’t make large dosage jumps. Work up step by step and master each dose with confidence before increasing the dose. Taking psychedelics is not the place for dosage bungee jumping, which could be an obstacle to ongoing practice. With confidence, there will be a natural interest in taking larger doses to recognize the nature of mind more clearly and make discoveries. Being bored or not learning anything new is a sign to take more.

When practicing for the first time, there may be some hesitation about trying LSD at all. The gentlest way to ease into LSD practice without any fear is to start by microdosing. Thousands of people microdose LSD regularly. The effects are very light, like drinking a cup of coffee. People microdose with LSD and then go about their day as usual. Start with 10 mcg, then 20 mcg, and work up. For the first time, start low and give each dose time to take effect before taking more. For example, start with 50 mcg. Then, if it is going well after an hour, take another 50 mcg.

Spread the dose out within each session. This way, the ramp-up sensations will be manageable. For example, take 50 mcg every 30 minutes. Depending on individual sensitivity, it is possible to take 100 mcg every 30 minutes. However, if there is any nausea or pain, then the ramp-up is likely too steep.

It is impossible to become physically addicted to LSD because the nervous system quickly learns to compensate, and it will soon have no effect. The higher the dose, the longer this desensitization effect will last. LSD is nontoxic. There is no lethal dose. It only directly affects the nervous system. It is safe for long-term use and is known to increase neuroplasticity and dendritic arborization, which support brain health and learning. The discoverer of LSD, Albert Hoffmann, took it throughout his long and productive life. He was mentally sharp and engaged in speaking at conferences well into his 90s before he died at 102.

Heat, light, moisture, and oxygen will destroy LSD. Well sealed and stored at room temperature, it will last a few decades. It is best to keep it out of the refrigerator or freezer where condensation is difficult to control.

When receiving the LSD, transfer it into small aluminum foil envelopes. Separate it into several envelopes so that most of it stays sealed. Designate one envelope for current use to open as needed and keep the others closed until the working envelope runs out. Cut a 6×10 cm piece of aluminum foil. Fold it in half to make a 6×5 cm envelope, and put the LSD tabs in the pocket. Then, fold over the open edges, creating an airtight seal on the left, right, and top edges. These envelopes completely seal off light and air exchange and keep the LSD safe. Then, hide it somewhere secure, such as in a book.

8.3   Extended Sessions

To progress rapidly in thögal practice, seeing the vajra chains quite clearly for extended periods such as 4-8 hours can be helpful. Extended sessions can deliver the training effect of several shorter sessions in a single day. Sometimes, the best training happens later in an extended session, so it is worth continuing as long as it is practical. It is not possible to sustain high-quality attention for an entire extended session. Take breaks from gazing practice every 30-60 minutes. Do nature of mind practice, have a snack, or walk around. When physically tired, lie down for a rest. After a break, return to gazing practice feeling rested and refreshed.

Regular practice requires some planning. Monthly extended sessions are sustainable. Bi-weekly extended sessions will have a reduced LSD sensitivity of around 80%. Weekly extended sessions are not sustainable. LSD will be only 50% effective, and the vajra chains will be too faint for effective thögal practice.

Figuring out the correct amounts for regular practice sessions will require ongoing experimentation. Keeping accurate records of doses and timings for every session is helpful. The sensitivity to LSD will decline later in the session. Pay close attention to the overall state in real time. Make a dosing decision every 30 minutes based on how it is going.

The key to extended sessions is to take at least some LSD every 30 minutes to maintain enough in the body to see the vajra chains sufficiently clearly to practice with them. Falling below the threshold for effective thögal practice will leave a big hole in the practice session. While comfortably within the peak, take 50-100 mcg every 30 minutes to maintain the sweet spot. Later in the extended session, there will be progressively less sensitivity to LSD, and it will require 100-200 mcg every 30 minutes to stay within the peak.

8.4   Sustainable Practice

When practicing regularly with LSD, it is essential to consider how best to time the sessions. Taking LSD more often than every two weeks is not sustainable. Here are some reasons to consider taking LSD less often than twice a month. The overall message here is that for psychedelic meditation sessions, quality is far more important than quantity. Ensuring high-quality sessions allows the practice to continue until the path is complete.

Progress in LSD sessions will support daily meditation practice. Improving daily meditation practice will enhance progress in LSD sessions. This process takes time. If daily meditation has not progressed, then LSD may have nothing new to show us.

An LSD session is extremely sensitive to the overall mindset and state of being. The nervous system must be fully relaxed between sessions. It takes time for the subtle body to return to baseline after the intensity of a session. During that time, there is an integration process of fully absorbing the nonconceptual learning that has opened up in a session.

It takes time to integrate psychedelic sessions into life and keep up with domestic and job responsibilities. Keeping up with life is very important. If our lives become unbalanced or unstable, LSD will require us to take a break before resuming practice sessions.

It is vital not to develop expectations around reproducing the insights of the last session in the next session. Expectations can create an unhealthy hope and fear dynamic around looking for peak experiences. Grasping for peak experiences would be an obstacle to our relationship with LSD.

It is necessary to carefully guard the sacredness and specialness of our relationship with LSD and pay meticulous attention to the set and setting of the session preparations. Any casual, careless, or unsacred attitude could quickly become a problem and an obstacle to LSD practice.

Listen carefully to messages in the days leading up to a planned session. How is our health? Are things becoming stressful at work? Are there communication issues with a partner? When there are unaddressed conflicts, it is better to delay the session until everything is grounded and well.

LSD itself may want us to pause the practice. LSD will not feel good in our bodies, and there will be resistance to taking the next dose. When this happens, listen and pause the practice. It may be that there has not been enough time for integration between sessions. It may be not feeling secure and settled, such as experiencing family or livelihood issues.

8.5   Taking LSD

It is best to take LSD with an empty stomach but also not be too hungry. For example, eat a light breakfast 90 minutes before taking the first dose.

Avoid caffeine. LSD sessions are plenty wakeful, and it is best not to have extra stress energy circulating in the subtle body. Plan to encounter the LSD stone-cold sober with every spare neuron in top shape. Do not smoke pot, drink alcohol, or take anything psychoactive for at least the previous day and, ideally, the previous week. Have bottled fizzy or still water on hand to drink. Avoid tap water because chlorine in the water will destroy the LSD. Turn your phone off.

Have a clock, pen, and paper nearby to record the time and amount of each dose. The session notes will be helpful when deciding whether and when to take more. Write big numbers to be readable later when there are visual effects. Transcribe the session notes into the practice journal to help with future session planning. While taking doses every 30 minutes, write headlines about how it is going. These brief notes will help recall the session highlights for recording in the practice journal. Add additional times and insights as they occur. For example:

10:30 100 mcg. Beginning to gaze at the vajra chains.
11:00 50 mcg. Recognized the wisdom lamp briefly.

Take your first dose. After 20-40 minutes, the raw openness of the LSD will arise. This rawness is the beginning of the preliminary practice. Feeling chilled during the preliminary practice is common. Keep a blanket nearby. Depending on the dosing schedule, the peak effect will occur between 2 and 4 hours from the beginning. The peak will last for 2-3 hours and then start to diminish unless this is an extended session with continuous top-up doses.

After the peak, shift focus to the integration phase. Snacks may be in order. Walking outside can be a real treat. Physical contact can be especially wonderful with a close partner. Depending on the dose, it may take a while before sleep arrives. Rest within openness while relaxing and feeling the body. Writing the session summary in the practice journal can be interesting.

Some people find the time after the end of the session to be irritating, so they smoke pot or drink alcohol to dull out, which is a missed practice opportunity. Sometimes, there can be fixating on unwanted visuals or thought loops while waiting to fall asleep. Remember the instructions to neither lead nor follow whatever arises in the mind. Do not alter the visuals or thoughts at all. Let them be just as they are, and the fixation on them will naturally self-liberate.

8.6   The Preliminary Practice

The time during which the effects of LSD are building is the preliminary practice. The effects begin after 20-40 minutes and will build slowly over the next 1-2 hours until the period of the peak effect begins. The preliminary practice isn’t always easy or smooth. It can sometimes be pretty intense and demanding. Considering this an essential part of the overall practice session is best. Handling this period well is the ideal setup for an exciting and illuminating main practice session.

LSD is a nonspecific awareness amplifier. Many body sensations will arise. For example, a sensation ordinarily associated with anxiety may occur in the abdomen. It helps to identify the sensations as simply sensations. In this example, there is no anxiety, just a sensation that resembles what one might feel when anxious. The practice is to feel and accept the sensations just as they are in all their raw brightness.

The preliminary practice can happen sitting up or lying down. Lying in bed under the covers can help with relaxation and acceptance. Lie on your back with the body open and symmetrical so that the energy can flow freely. Lie in a state of openness and acceptance with closed or open eyes. The preliminary practice is to maintain a connection with awareness and deliver ourselves in a relaxed and open state for the primary practice. Pace the dosage so that the sensations are not too intense.

Place your mind evenly relaxed, resting in awareness. Keep the continuity of resting in the view. A raw openness will arise. Recognize this raw openness as rigpa itself and trust it fully. This raw openness will be your companion and teacher for several hours. Accept it fully and feel it in your body, heart, and mind. Embrace it as your awareness consort.

There is a brightness! Look directly at the brightness. Be with the brightness. To the extent possible, relax right within the brightness. Let go, give in, surrender, and trust.

Feel the raw openness in the body. Breathe slowly and deeply into the rawness. It is a lot to feel. Keep breathing while fully feeling everything moment by moment. Embrace the sensations arising in the body. Lying in bed and being with sensations as they arise can be relaxing and even slightly blissful. Wear a coat or wrap up in a blanket if you feel cold or jittery. There may be odd physical sensations or upwellings of emotion for no reason. Sometimes, it helps to walk slowly around the room, breathing deeply and joining the sensations with some movement.

The visual effects of LSD will begin to show. Contrary to the popular imagination, these are not hallucinations. Hallucinations are believing that the visual effects are real external objects. This only happens when delusion takes over, which is very rare for meditators. With LSD, the visual effects are obviously just visual effects, so there is no confusion about what is real.

Mentally, conceptual mind will begin to dissolve. Accept this process and let go of figuring anything out using concepts. Switch to emphasizing a direct nonconceptual openness. Let go of concepts and go with the flow. The sense of self will begin to dissolve, and one may feel laid bare, flayed open, or exposed. There may be some sadness or humbleness as the sense of self dissolves. Try to recognize this for what it is and accept this loss of self as part of the process.

The preliminary practice is an excellent time for recognition practice. To the extent possible, try to connect the raw brightness with the space and openness of rigpa. Constantly keep opening to the space, to the openness. Stay with the continuity of awareness, which can help smooth the experience. The continuity brings objectivity and perspective as everything arises and passes through. Stay as relaxed as possible while keeping the experience of the preliminary practice in perspective. This time with ourselves creates the conditions for a profound and transformative main practice session.

9   Resources

Visit https://psychedelicmeditation.org/resources for up to date information and clickable links.

The Psychedelic Meditation Institute is a community of people interested in psychedelic meditation. You can watch videos, join discussions, and learn how to become a psychedelic meditation instructor. Sign up for the mailing list for announcements of news, upcoming classes, and discussions. https://psychedelicmeditation.org/

The Psychedelic Sangha holds space for Psychedelic Buddhism, a non-traditional approach to Buddhism that values the spiritual efficacy of psychedelics on the Path. Psychedelic Sangha was founded as a spiritual refuge for Buddhistic Psychonauts and Psychedelic Buddhists. https://psychedelicsangha.org/

The mission at F.I.V.E. is to provide the world with a centralized hub for resources and education on 5-MeO-DMT. As this compound continues to grow in popularity, so does the importance of creating a space that brings awareness to the ethics, integrity, and safety of this medicine. The first step to this is education. https://five-meo.education/

The Pattern Project is a collective of mental health researchers, therapists, meditators, and innovators based in Canada. The organization is the first dedicated to exploring the breakthrough potential of combining mindfulness and other practices with low-dose 5-MeO-DMT. Here is the StepWise Protocol for starting with low doses and gaining confidence in higher doses: https://patternproject.substack.com/p/stepwise

Books

As It Is Volumes I and II, by Tulku Urgyen, are excellent books on Dzogchen practice. Tulku Urgyen was one of the most realized Dzogchen teachers to leave Tibet. Three of his sons, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, Tsoknyi Rinpoche, and Mingyur Rinpoche, have continued his teaching lineage. Here is a video of Tulku Urgyen giving pointing out instructions. https://youtube.com/watch?v=YftLXnUCr98 Erik Pema Kunsang recounts his own pointing out instruction by Tulku Urgyen. https://youtube.com/watch?v=s23Fhsak88U

The Circle of the Sun by Tsele Natsok Rangdrol is an excellent text on trekchö and thögal. It contains a concise overview of thögal practice. The translation by Eric Pema Kunsang is out of print.

The Citadel of Awareness by Anam Thubten is a commentary on Jigme Lingpa’s Dzogchen Aspiration Prayer. This book is an accessible description of the ground, path, and fruition of the Dzogchen path.

No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz is an excellent introduction to Internal Family Systems (IFS). Search YouTube for “Richard Schwartz IFS” to find many excellent talks, interviews, and IFS sessions.

Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche presents a step-by-step guide to understanding the nature of mind.

Self-Therapy by Jay Early is a clearly written IFS manual for unburdening our parts.

The Teaching on the Four Lamps and Instructions on Divining Luminosity are contained in the Secret Treasury of the Dakinis from the Khandro Yangtig by Longchenpa, translated by Eric Fry-Miller and available on Buddha Visions https://buddhavisions.com/shop/secret-treasury-of-the-dakinis-from-the-khandro-yangtig-longchenpa/

The Teaching on the Four Lamps is available for download from Buddha Visions: https://buddhavisions.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Teaching-on-the-Four-Lamps-of-Direct-Transcendence.pdf

A Treasure Trove of Scriptural Transmission by Longchenpa, translated by Richard Barron, is Longchenpa’s auto commentary on the Chöying Dzod. It includes the root verses of the Chöying Dzod, Longchenpa’s commentary, and many quotes from the tantras. A Treasure Trove is a poetic, precise, and detailed description of empty luminosity. It is available at http://tibetantreasures.com/.

Buddhist Training

There are many authentic teachers in the Mahamudra and Dzogchen traditions. Here are a few good examples.

If you would like the full Buddhist training in nature of mind practice, you can study Mingyur Rinpoche's Joy of Living and Path of Liberation curriculums.

The Joy of Living curriculum is three online courses. https://joy.tergar.org/

Calming the Mind: Recognizing Awareness. Everything is Meditation. Emotional Balance.

Opening the Heart: Love. Compassion. Joy. Transformation and Equanimity.

Awakening Wisdom: Analytical Meditation, Innate Wisdom. Multiplicity and Interdependence. Impermanence and transformation. The Self Beyond Self. The Luminous Self. Timeless Awareness.

The Path of Liberation curriculum is the four introductions to the nature of mind. See the Nature of Mind Practice chapter on these. Mingyur Rinpoche explains each introduction in detail and how to practice it. https://tergar.org/what-is-the-path-of-liberation

The Path of Liberation includes pointing out the nature of mind instruction in person with Mingyur Rinpoche. It is worthwhile to receive a qualified teacher's pointing out instructions in person. The in-person transmission of the pointing-out is how the lineage is passed on from generation to generation.

If you already have some Buddhist training, you can receive the pointing-out instruction without any prerequisites at an in-person open retreat with Tsoknyi Rinpoche. Visit his site for his teaching schedule and a member’s area with videos of many teachings and retreats. https://tsoknyirinpoche.org/

Tsoknyi Rinpoche’s Fully Being site explains handshake practice and essence love with more detail about making friends with our beautiful monsters. https://fullybeing.org/

Anam Thubten is an excellent and clear Dzogchen teacher based in California. Here is a delightful brief message. https://youtube.com/watch?v=2WY_x-eDlRw You might enjoy his book, The Citadel of Awareness. For more information, see https://dharmata.org/

Psychedelic Safety

Pharmacology and Drug Interactions of 5-MeO-DMT. You can download the free Five Guide. https://www.spiritpharmacist.com/blog/5MeODMTPharmacology

SSRIs, SNRIs, and other psychiatric medications can diminish the effect of 5MeO and LSD because they compete with the same receptors. Taking psychedelics along with psychiatric medications is generally okay, as psychiatric medicines are often combined.

5MeO binds to the serotonin receptors more strongly than regular DMT, so never take 5MeO with MAOIs, which can result in serotonin toxicity and death. Never take 5MeO in an ayahuasca setting. Taking 5MeO while on lithium can result in seizures.

There are currently no definitive studies about psychedelic use and health. Here is a Nature article that suggests that psychedelic use may be correlated with decreased heart disease (22%) and diabetes (12%). This study suggests that psychedelic use is at least not causing detectable overall harm. https://nature.com/articles/s41598-021-93787-4

10   About the Author

I am a student of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Trungpa Rinpoche often took LSD with small groups of his students. It was a very intimate and direct teaching encounter. I am sorry I never had the opportunity to share that experience with him, as so many of my friends have. It is this connection with my root guru that inspired me to attempt to meditate with LSD. Now I understand why he loved it.

I completed the full Kagyu ngondro, Vajrayogini practice, and fire pujas. I completed Chakrasamvara practice on solitary retreats. Throughout those practices, I didn't understand the nature of mind, so the methods were ineffective in liberating me from confusion and suffering. I had problems with alcohol, and my relationship communication skills were poor. I felt stuck since Trungpa Rinpoche was no longer alive to explain it.

In 2001, I read Tulku Urgyen's book As It Is Volume II. On page 209, I read this paragraph and tried it out.

In this moment, when past thought has gone and future thought has not yet come, do not reconnect with any thought. To use Dzogchen terminology, it is to be awake, vibrant, crystal-clear, fully present. These incredible words do not need our fabrication, our making. They point at what is naturally so, not at what is cultivated through training.

To my astonishment, I was resting in stable rigpa for the first time. It was like switching on a light bulb. I understood the Buddhist path.

My wife and I became students of Mingyur Rinpoche and Tsoknyi Rinpoche, two of Tulku Urgyen's sons who specialize in teaching nature of mind practice. We started studying and practicing Mahamudra and Dzogchen together.

At the same time, my wife and I were exploring rave culture to have more fun and romantic dates. We took large doses of LSD and practiced recognizing the nature of mind for 2-3 hours. When we were in the view of rigpa, we would go out dancing at our favorite gay dance club or rave party. We had an extraordinary amount of fun while dancing in rigpa on LSD.

After two years of weekly LSD meditation practice and dancing experiences, things shifted, and I stopped dancing. I arranged to go on four solitary meditation retreats a year, each one nine days long. Toward the end of most retreats, I would take a high dose of LSD and do nature-of-mind practice. Then, I would eat a delicious feast and walk on the wooded paths by the lake. I enjoyed 30 of these nine-day solitary retreats over ten years.

My LSD practice sessions improved my understanding of trekchö practice tremendously. Around 2010, I felt that LSD had shown me what it could at my level of training, so I set it aside and focused on strengthening my daily practice. In retrospect, if I had access to this manual, I would have begun trekchö practice with 5MeO.

In 2022, I came across Chris Bache's book, LSD and the Mind of the Universe, and decided to try an LSD practice session again. I discovered that it is possible to do thögal practice with LSD. I also realized that no one had published a clear guide to nature of mind practice with psychedelics. I retired from software engineering and began writing this meditation manual, mapping out thögal practice with my partner, one discovery at a time. I am lucky to have a partner who has joined me in exploring meditation with LSD and 5MeO. She has been an invaluable companion and spiritual friend on this journey, challenging my assumptions and helping me articulate my understanding in numerous ways that have improved the manual and helped to make it accessible.

A friend read a draft of this manual and recommended 5MeO for nature of mind practice. 5MeO is far more efficient and much less arduous than LSD. Within one breath, it is possible to come face-to-face with primordial wisdom. I recommend starting psychedelic meditation with 5MeO. When used responsibly, it is gentle and effective and feels like home.