An Interview with Jack Komfield

ACK KORNFIELD, author of A stand that. What points of view we Path With Heart (Bantam), have come from the understanding teaches Vipassana at Spirit Rock of Buddhist masters and teachers JCenter in Woodacre, California. This based on contemporary experience. interview was first conducted by Robert The precept in Forte, a longtime student of Buddhism for dealing with intoxi- and an independent scholar of history cants is one of the five basic training and the psychology of religion, on Febru- precepts for living a wise life: not alY 3, 1986, in San Anselmo, Califor- to kill, not to steal, not to speak nia, and revisedfor Tricycle in 1996. falsely, not to engage in sexual con- duct that causes suffering, and lastly, Tricycle: Is there a Buddhist point of to refrain from using intoxicants to view 011 psychedelics? the point of heedlessness or loss of awareness. An alternate transla- Kornfield: No. Psychedelics are tion says not to use any substances found rarely, if at all, in the Buddhist that distort the sense of attention. tradition, and generally would be Then it is left up to the individual, lumped together in the precepts under as are all the precepts, to use these "intoxicants." In , , and guidelines to become more gen- the Theravada traditions, there is very uinely conscious. little mention of them and there is no traditional point of view about Tricycle: Are the precepts understood their use. It is important to under- Similarly in the East and the West? Jack Kornfield

34 FALL 1996 Kornfield: They are much of wise conduct and TAB.JlI. more fundamental to prac- inner training, you tice in Asia. There you have a context for the traditionally begin with deepest wisdom and shila, or compassionate it's naturally integrated action. This commitment in your life. What has to not cause harm is the happened in the West foundation upon which seems to be a reversal all spiritual life is built. It of that. is universally understood that you can't meditate Tricycle: A reversal? properly after a day of What do you meal1? lying and stealing! To free the heart from entangle- Kornfield: Many ment in greed, fear, hatred people who took LSD, and delusion, a nonvio- mushrooms, and other lent relationship with psychedelics, often the world must be devel- along with readings oped. Out of this ground from The Tibetan Book of compassionate conduct of the Dead or some grows the whole range of Zen texts, had the other meditative and spiri- gates of wisdom tual practices. opened to a certain extent. They began to Tricycle: How would that see that their limited function;> consciousness was only one plane and Kornfield: By living a that there were a thou- compassionate and harmo- sand new things to dis- nious life, you have already cover about the mind. begun to quiet the mind and open the vast inner realms. They saw many new realms, got new the heart. Then the second domain The third domain is the aris- perspectives on birth and death, and is to train yourself through medita- ing of wisdom, or prajna. Based on discovered the nature of mind and tions, visualizations, and yogic a foundation of compassionate liv- consciousness as a field of creation pratices that tame the wild mon- ing and meditative training, con- rather than the mechanical result of key-mind. It is the power of these sciousness becomes clear and open. having a body. Some opened beyond practices that dissolves the barriers Wisdom arises as we see the whole the illusion of separation to the truth of the mind, the identification with nature of how consciousness creates of the oneness of things. our small sense of self. They unify the world and discover freedom and But in order to maintain this our body, heart, and mind through the great heart of a Buddha in the vision they had to keep taking the concentration, and open us up to midst of it all. With this foundation psychedelics over and over. Even

TRICYCLE: THE BUDDHIST REVIEW 35 though there were some transforma- teachers used psychedelics at the tions from these experiences, they start of their spiritual practice. A tended to fade for a lot of people. number still do on occasion. But Following that some people said, of the many hundreds of people "If we can't maintain the highs of I know who took psychedelics, consciousness that come through only a few had radically transform a- the psychedelics, let's see if there tive experiences. Many others were is some other way." And so they greatly inspired, and a few were undertook various kinds of spiritual damaged. It's like winning the lot- disciplines. They did kundalini yoga tery. A lot of people play, and while and bastrika breathing, or they did not so many people win big, the serious hatha yoga as a sadhana, raja potential is there. yoga, mantra and concentration exer- cises, visualizations, or Buddhist Tricycle: There is a story that when Brllgmansia au rra LdK.l'rh. practices as a way to get back to those the Dalai Lama was asked ifyou could profound and compelling states that use drugs to attain enlightenment, he had come through psychedelics. their meditative practices wouldn't said, "I sure hope so." And when Zen stabilize when the rest of their life Master Seul1g Salm was asked what he Tricycle: Are you saying that it instilled wasn't included. They found it was thought about using drugs to help in in people a thirst for experience? necessary to take care with their the quest for self-knowledge he said: actions in a way that was non-harm- "Yes, there are special medicines which, Kornfield: A thirst, that is correct. ing and compassionate. So we dis- if taken with the proper attitude, can covered that fundamental change facilitate self-realization." Then he Tricycle: Would you say this was the must be grounded in our ethical added: "But ifyou have the proper atti- same thirst considered to be the cause behavior, and in compassion fol- tude, you can take anything-take a of suffering in terms of the Buddha's lowed by a systematic inner training. walk, or a bath. " second noble truth, i.e., that we suffer Those are the supports for long-last- because of our desire or thirst for sensu- ing and integrated access to these Kornfield: I have the utmost respect al or mental experience? trans formative experiences. for the power of psychedelics. In taking a tempered view of them, it Kornfield: Psychedelics awakened Tricycle: How important was LSD does not mean that I do not have a in people not just a thirst, but a for the importation of Eastern spiritual lot of respect for them, and for the sense of the possibilities for explor- practices into the U.S. during the sixties? work that certain courageous ing the mind and body-that they researchers have done with them. could live in a different way. Then Kornfield: They were certainly My sense from my own Buddhist they began to develop those sensi- powerful for me. I took LSD and training and from teaching tradition- tivities and those visions without other psychedelics at Dartmouth al practice for many years is that repeatedly taking psychedelics, by after I started studying Eastern reli- people underestimate the depth of undertaking some spiritual disci- gion. They came hand in hand, as change that is required to transform pline, yoga, or . Finally, they did for many people. In fact, oneself in spiritual life. True libera- many people began to see that even the majority of Western Buddhist tion requires a great perspective-

36 FALL 1996 called "a long enduring mind" by like Stan Grof and Ram Dass have bly means occasional) and sacred. If one . Yes, awakening articulated a sense of the power of one uses any substance, whether it comes in a moment, but living it, the forces that one may confront. is wine, marijuana, LSD, or mush- stabilizing it, can take months, One needs to respect the depth of rooms, this precept says to make years, and lifetimes.The propensi- these experiences and make a con- that a conscious and careful part of ties or conditioned habits that we scious commitment to the full jour- your life. Without the precepts, if have are so deeply ingrained that ney of spiritual change. one even begins the journey, they even enormously compelling visions will get lost or go off the track. You do not change them very much. Tricycle: What about addiction? can not complete the journey until Therefore, the practices of liberation you get the basics right. This is real- taught by the Buddha draw on many Kornfield: Even among the most ly a very simple message. dimensions of life to help empower conscious explorers of contempo- Almost every system in the world such a deep transformation. The pos- rary psychedelics, addiction and that is assisted by substances, includ- sibility of liberation of the heart from attachment have sometimes been a ing the wide range of shamanism, greed, hatred, delusion, and libera- problem. Even more critical is the exists in a context of purification. tion from all sense of separateness overly positive message about both and fear is a very compelling possi- the spiritual and the casual use of Tricycle: What are the purifications bility for humans. these drugs that has been adopted that might be applicable to a psychedel- When you have undertaken a ic experience today? deep spiritual practice of whatever kind, including psychedelic experi- Kornfield: First, there is the ences, you begin to encounter the purification of non-harming, or roots of Greed with a capital "G": shila. Following that, there are the most primal kinds of grasping; purifications of the body through and Hatred: finding Hitler and Attila yoga, breathwork, fasting, and the Hun in your mind; and Delusion, other practices that allow your which manifests as the darkest blind- body to feel and to be open enough ness of confusion. You must learn to to touch these deeper levels and to work with these forces and trans- integrate them. You can take a very form them ina way that leads to powerful substance and even if you genuine liberation. are physically a wreck, you can touch A lot of people use psyche- deep places, but there will be a delics in mindless or misguided physical price to pay for it. When ways, without much understand- your body is in tune and open, ing. The spiritual context gets lost. by quite a few people who could you can open to deeper levels It's like taking a synthetic mesca- not handle them well at all. As with much less physical disharmo- line pill and forgetting the 200-mile many of us who have used psyche- ny. It also allows the experience desert walk and the months of delics have discovered, it is not an to be integrated. Without prepar- prayer and purification the easy practice.The most liberal point ing the body, one cannot hold Huichols use to prepare for their of view of the precepts would make those understandings. peyote ceremony. Modem explorers their use nonhabitual (which proba- Then there are the purifications

TRICYCLE: THEBUDDHIST REVIEW 37 of the heart and mind; that is, emo- by these energies, and use this Tricycle: How can we understand the tions and thoughts.For many, purifi- ability to enter other domains healing effect oj psychedelic experience cation of the heart involves extending of consciousness. from the perspective oj Buddhist psy- forgiveness and opening the heart- Then, if you should enter a chology and meditation? seeing the fears, angers, and memo- domain of pure light filled with love ries that have been locked in and and ecstasy, you will have learned Kornfield: Healing takes place in releasing them. Purification of how to do it without getting too a number of ways, but the most fun- thought means taking the crazed attached. You see it as part of the damental healing in Buddhist prac- monkey-mind and nonstop inner passing show. And you can go to tice comes by bringing awareness dialogue and beginning to train a the hell realms that arise within you to that which was twisted, knotted, stability of mind. Most people find with the same attitude. You become or held in darkness in the body, this happens with a long regular free in the realms of birth and death. feelings, or mind. Through system- practice, using sitting meditation, You learn how to open to them with- atic meditation practice one brings mantra, visualization, or a hundred out so much grasping and attach- the power of compassion and mind- other ways. Once the mind is stabi- ment. Here you learn not just the fulness to these knots and the deep- lized you can apply that clarity r-~--r~7T""--C"~:C:=----C"---'~---=~C=---":-:-----C'=-~~ est patterns of holding open to discover the laws of the up.There are many patterns mind, or the laws of con- of mind in which we get sciousness. entangled: beliefs, opinions, and views, all that leads us Tricycle: How docs a psyche- to hold on to our sense delic "trip" relate to a spiritual of self as separate. These journey? too can be opened and healed. Kornfield: In a spiritual Healing with psyche- journey, the point is to awak- delics is much the same. en to our natural inner free- Healing comes when you dom, our true nature.To do have a suitable and careful this we must start where we situation, and one's uncon- are. In beginning to quiet the scious is opened by the psy- mind and open the heart you content of the various realms of con- chedelics.Maybe you will relive a often encounter waves of desire, sciousness, where psychedelics can past trauma, or experience the pain fear, anger, laziness, or restlessness. also take you, but how to relate to that is held in your physical body These are the. preliminary hin- it all wisely. If I were to put any sen- from an accident, or an operation, drances to transformation. You tence in this interview in capitals it or the tension from deeply stored learn how to use wise attention would be that spiritual awakening anger or grasping comes into con- so that you don't become caught is not about just visiting the many sciousness and begins to release. The up or lost in them. As your body realms of heart, mind, and body, healing effects come through the and mind become more open but learning how to open to them power of bringing into conscious- and purified, you take that ability wisely, compassionately, and with ness that which has been below the to be balanced and less caught real freedom. threshold of awareness. Part of the

38 FALL 1996 difficulty with psychedelics, and ty is created out of consciousness especially today in the West, where we even with meditation at some and not the opposite They can have developed such mastery over the points, is that it comes too quickly show that reality can be filled with material world. and people get overwhelmed. There light and humor.They can show is a danger that they will shut down that there are realms of tremendous Kornfield: I see psychedelics as immediately afterward. They will transcendent understanding and having been enormously useful as touch a place that is too fearful or realms of many different scales of an initial opening for people, and at too difficult. But there are certain stages it may be healings that take place in possible to use them again that way on all those lev- wisely, but with the con- els of body, feelings, and straints of shila. But they mind. can be easily abused if one is not careful about the set Tricycle: A crucuii aspect and setting. To explore of both ancient wisdom and some of this territory, Stan the new paradigm is that and Christina Grof and I separateness is an illusion, a offer annual retreats that supC1ftciallevel of reality, integrate Holotropic and that at afundamental Breathwork (somewhat level, all things are connect- like psychedelic experi- cd. This is hard to under- ence) and Buddhist medi- stand on the sensory or tation. Participants seem intellectual level, where to really respond to this experience suggests that combination of practices. things are separate. If psy- chedelics can take you Tricycle: One of the to that place of essential best applications of the unity, are they not a valu- psychedelics in modem able tool in the development times may be in the work of a new paradigm that with people who are dying emphasizes wholeness? a little faster than the rest

of LLS. Research with termi- Kornfield: Any tool or nal patients indicates that practice that can open the heart and time, eternally slow or eternally rapid. the psychedelic experience illuminates show that we are not separate, that They can also open us to hell realms the process of dying and lessens one's touches the realms of universal Iov- where there is extraordinary pain fear of it. ing-kindness and universal compas- and seemingly no way out. sion, can be valuable. For some Kornfield: From what I know people psychedelics can open the Tricycle: It seems that something of this work it holds great potential, mind and reveal that consciousness VC1"YpowC1ful is required to show that primarily for people who have not creates the world, that physical reali- this level of reality is not the only one, done a disciplined spiritual practice.

TRICYCLE: THE BUDDHIST REVIEW 39 delics. Ecstasy would be the flight of some of these sacred materials the soul from the body,"the soul's and a systematic training or prac- ecstatic journey through the various tice that I have described. That cosmic regions, " whereas yoga pur- marriage will have to be based on sues enstasis, or the final concentra- an understanding and respect for tion of the spirit and "escapefrom the the ancient laws of karma, ground- cosmos" [Eliade, 1958,1964]. What ed in compassion, virtue, an open do you think about this distinction heart and a trained mind, and the with regard to psychedelic experience laws of liberation. Given those, and meditation? there might be some very fruitful combination. , Kornfield: goes from enstasis to ecstasy. Some purely ecstatic practices in Buddhist meditation exist, but primarily we work not so much by turning up the volume as by tun- ing the receiver. By training sacred attention we can awaken to the In many ways spiritual practice is deepest levels of body and mind, intended to prepare us to die. By and beyond that to the non-dual going through a meditative death- nature of reality. All the realms of rebirth process deliberately, we can consciousness become available dissolve the illusion of a separate through a powerfully tuned aware- self, access other realms of con- ness. You can enter realms where sciousness beyond our limited the body fills with light, you expe- view, and learn to live more wisely rience tremendous rapture, and because of that. If we have never ecstasy, and are catapulted learned that, perhaps psychedelics through all the realms of the heav- could assist us in preparing for ens and hells. death as it opened so many doors in the initial stages of spiritual Tricycle: Do you think Buddhism practice. Whatever leads to open- and psychedelics will continue to ing the heart and mind and letting intersect in the future? go is beneficial. Kornfield: I see psychedelics as Tricycle: At a meeting held at the one of the most promising areas Harvard Divinity School in 1985, of modern consciousness psychologist Dan Brown brought up research.I would not be surprised the distinction between ecstasy and if at some point there comes to enstasis in a discussion about psyche- be a useful marriage between

40 FAIL 1996