No Attainment, Nothing to Attain: A Buddhist Reflection on Psychedelics
Peter D. Hershock
Journal of Contemplative Studies February 29, 2024 DOI: 10.57010/pmjx1418 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Buddhism |
| Keywords | Nothing Reflection computer programming Theology Epistemology |
| Key points | Argues that the religious or spiritual value of contemplative practices and psychedelic use is relational—a function of how they alter consciousness—rather than intrinsic to the experiences themselves. |
Abstract
The religious or spiritual value of contemplative practices and the use of psychedelics is not intrinsic to experiences obtained through them and is instead relational—a function of how they alter consciousness. In support of that claim, I first present a nonreductive, nondualist Buddhist account of consciousness that calls critically into question the merits of both physicalist and phenomenalist reductionism in exploring the meditative and psychedelic alterations of consciousness. I then make a Buddhist case for seeing that changes in subjective experience are at best provisional goals of these alterations, and not their ultimate aim: elaborating increasingly liberating and compassionately virtuosic relations. I turn finally to recent neuroscientific studies of psychedelics and meditation that combine first-person and third-person methodologies to draw some challenging inferences regarding the dynamics of contemplative practice, the reality of interpersonal realization, the merits of group practice, the liabilities of individualist conceptions of liberal autonomy, and the inadequacy of meditative techniques like mindfulness practice stripped of dharmic content and context.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on buddhism, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mental balance and well-being: Building bridges between Buddhism and Western psychology. | 2006 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Buddhist Modernism and the Rhetoric of Meditative Experience | 1995 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Buddhist and Psychological Perspectives on Emotions and Well-Being | 2005 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Too Early to Tell: The Potential Impact and Challenges—Ethical and Otherwise—Inherent in the Mainstreaming of Dharma in an Increasingly Dystopian World | 2017 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| From self to nonself: The Nonself Theory | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
Citations in the library
Cites 24
- Neural correlates of the LSD experience revealed by multimodal neuroimaging. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences April 11, 2016
- Validation of the revised Mystical Experience Questionnaire in experimental sessions with psilocybin Journal of Psychopharmacology October 6, 2015
- Psychobiology of Altered States of Consciousness. Psychological Bulletin 2005
- Psychedelics, Meditation, and Self-Consciousness Frontiers in Psychology September 4, 2018
- Finding the self by losing the self: Neural correlates of ego-dissolution under psilocybin Human Brain Mapping May 22, 2015
and 19 more in the library