If someone posted an article about a new supersonic jet that takes you from New York to Sydney in under 4 hours, you could make a comment about being able to do the same by foot. You would be technically correct however it wouldn't be a very useful comment, given the difference between several hours and a lifetime.
People don't know why they should be practicing mindfulness. And then for whatever reason they gain insight -- be that practice, or ritual, or psychedelics -- they get it. A lot of things open up. There's a whole layer of meaning in textual traditions that opens up, and you realize a lot of people have been trying to say the same things. And you wonder how you missed it?
And then you want to go back. Now you jump into the practice diligently, to try to get back to that peak experience. The thing is, peak experiences are just that. Like all things, they come and go.
Coming through the psychedelics, it is easy to spend a lot of time taking hit after hit to get back to that peak experience. It was part of why people who have not been initiated into this fear it. They see people drifting out from the real world, and these people then say crazy things like, "well, reality is much bigger than you think."
The thing is, this happens in any mystical traditions. Someone who realized these insights while sitting on a cushion starts become uninterested in anything but sitting on that cushion.
Which is ironic because all of this is about experiencing reality, not escaping from it. That is another reason I pointed out the connection with vipassana. The point is to experience reality, something that seems counterintuitive when people talk about psychedelics.
Usually, you have a sangha -- people who are cultivating with you, whatever the modality -- helps you stay grounded.
Generally speaking, once you had some psychedelic experience, you'd find meditating much easier. It's the journey, not the destination. Of course :-)
That said, I really want to try mushrooms/acid because I feel like I'm at this midway point, bobbing back and forth between the awareness of meditation and the power of the present and slipping back into old thought habits and anxieties. I feel like a pokemon evolving, flashing between my old form and my new form and my ego keeps wanting to hit B to stop the evolution. :P
Something else that complements vipassana well is the method described in Tsultrim Allione's Feeding Your Demons.
But isn't meditation more like "You don't get it, until you get it" kind of a thing?
I mean I haven't read anything so far that describes the process of mediation as do Step 1) -> Step 2) .. All I get is description of what meditation can do and even that too more or less put down like- "You will not know how it feels, until you feel it".
How to Meditate? I hope someday I get some clear answer to this question.
What you do: 1) Sit in a comfortable position, without shifting around, in a quiet place, with your eyes closed 2) Primary Focus: to constantly feel yourself breathing 3) Do this for about an hour
Likely Contingencies: a) You "need" to shift around. Nothing wrong with that. What happens if you don't? Keep feeling your breath! b) You will start thinking. Nothing wrong with that. But can you think while constantly feeling your breath? Or are you multi-tasking now? Keep feeling your breath! c) a+b: You think about needing to shift around. Nothing wrong with that. Keep feeling your breath! d) You might wonder if the hour is over or not. Alternatively, if you set an alarm, you will wonder if its properly set, and if maybe you should check it. Keep feeling your breath! e) You might need to do a million little things, check the dog's water, the task queue, the pot on the stove, whatever. Keep feeling your breath! f) You will find yourself thinking about how you are now 'feeling your breath'. Oops, you probably just stopped feeling your breath to think that thought. Keep feeling your breath!
What does it mean to "constantly feel yourself breathing"? a) It means your attention/focus is completely on the feeling of breathing. Your conscious existence is the sensation of being 'a breathing thing'. b) Corrolary: you probably aren't 'thinking in language'. In my experience, its not common to multitask thoughts 'in language' with a focus on physical sensation. c) As you begin meditating (first several times? more? less? depends...) You will context switch back and forth constantly between 'thinking in language' and 'feeling your breath'.
Why is this meditation interesting? The best reply I can give is, "Isn't it interesting enough that you can't just do such a simple thing as watch your breath without thinking about a bunch of other things?"
So for example, you have a web of thoughts associated with meditation and things like "You don't get it, until you get it".
There are feelings underneath that. Perhaps a bit of anxiety, frustration. Curiosity. Etc. Your mind interprets those feelings into thoughts.
Each feeling then, radiates from parts of your body. For example, anxiety may be a tension that you feel in the chest. It has shape, it has texture. It has pressure. Whenever you get those sensations, your mind automatically interprets that as "anxiety". So you focus in on the sensations instead.
So now, you're paying attention to the actual sensations. You notice that it isn't a solid thing. That it moves. And if you start zooming into it, it isn't a solid sensation so much as made up of tiny bits of sensations that come in and out very fast, and your mind interpolates the sensation to give an illusion of a single, solid sensation.
So now you're there, at the "bare-metal", bare sensation level. This is where you are, observing those sensations and not attaching to any one of them.
A similar practice is called "Noting". You pick a concentration object, and pay attention to it. Things will come up. First will be thoughts. You Note the thought, and then you go back to to the concentration object. Eventually, something will shift and emotions will come up. You Note each as they come up and then go back to the concentration object. Then you get to the bare sensate levels, and you Note each of the things that come up. Then you go back to the concentration object.
That is it.
There really is not much more than that. The insights some of the other folks have mentioned here, that will come on its own. Your "job" while meditating is to Note each and every thing that comes up, let it go, and then go back to the concentration object.
Testimonies of Deep Insight or Knowledge of the Arising and Passing - http://thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com/2010/12/if-this-is-in...
To reach the end of seeking and seeing that everything is already non-dual, many people can accomplish this in 18 months to 2 years.
== another nit: the first word is a useless adjective.
If you know enough to nitpick this, then you probably didn't need the information :-D
(1) You don't have to do this with psychedelics.
(2) You can gain the insights without psychedelics, meaning that it is within the normal operating parameters of the human brain to gain these insights.
(3) You can trip and get high when you meditate. Don't be afraid when it happens.
(4) You can trip and get high when you meditate. It's another attachment.
(5) It's less of taking a "shortcut" with psychedelics and more about being initiated. Having tasted it and knowing that vipassana will also get you there invites you to have a regular practice. Peak experiences come and go.
(6) The universe is a bigger place than we thought.
I'd suggest starting with the book Unlearning Meditation instead of any particular traditional technique, but that's just me.
I never heard of Unlearning Meditation but I do know that there were a lot of things I thought I knew about meditation and it was ... not exactly like that. Anne Wise's book, High Performance Mind gets into some of the technical details. I like Daniel Ingram's book, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha but a lot of people don't. It's not exactly a beginner's book, but it's something to keep in mind if you ever start getting some weird experiences that you have difficulty framing.
I say vipassana to mean the specific practice of experiencing reality, every little bit. It's not the only modality, and you'll find this particular practice in other traditions (and I mean, in Western traditions as well. There's not much you can tack on to "experience reality").
I have also been (slowly) translating the Tao Te Ching from the perspective that it is a book to guide you in your practice, not necessarily a book stating a philosophy. For example, the famous "The journey of a thousand miles begin with the first step" when put into this context actually means, let go of the thought/emotion/sensation at the beginning rather than when it becomes a full-blown train wreck that you have to ride out.
I'm a bit stuck with the translation because I'm hitting the parts that resemble more of a trip with psychedelics, and the audience was originally intended for people who may not have those experiences. Having said that, I noticed that Brian Browne Walker's translation is in that particular spirit.
Sometimes, just sitting there and getting in touch with reality is difficult. So there are other practices that can lead up to doing this. If you are still interested in this, but find Mindfulness in Plain English intimidating, I suggest Dan Millman's The Way of the Peaceful Warrior and followup with his Everyday Enlightenment.