Meditative Integration through Psychedelic Therapy (Link #580)

Speaker: Bill Filter. Bill describes therapies that use psychedelic drugs to help Navy SEALS struggling to cope with depression and addiction, and explains how he introduces meditation practices to veterans who have undergone these therapies, helping them integrate their therapeutic experiences and provide enduring relief from suffering. He teaches them the practices of shamatha and tonglen, using the metaphor of projector, light, film, and screen to enable them to understand and integrate their experiences of ego dissolution. At the same time, he notes that, however beneficial the use of psychedelics may be for people struggling to come to terms with such strong suffering, it cannot replace the practices of the Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana paths, which gradually cultivate the insight needed to dissolve the ego and prepare us for successfully navigating the experience of the bardo.