Chapter
Thirteen
Altered states of consciousness
practice is not to achieve an ASC or reach any other goal. Rather, meditation itself
becomes the task (Watts, 1957). ‘Enlightenment and practice are one’, claimed the
thirteenth-century Zen teacher Eihei Dogen.
Even so, some Zen Buddhist practitioners may have dramatic, if temporary,
kenshō (awakening) experiences, including glimpses of the true nature of mind,
experiences of emptiness, and great flashes of understanding leading ultimately
to the ‘dropping-off of body and mind’ (Chapter 18). As the story goes, Dogen
was sitting one morning in meditation when his master reprimanded a dozing
monk, urging him to wake up and work harder, saying ‘To realize perfect enlight-
enment you must let fall body and mind’. In that moment, Dogen achieved full
awakening or liberation (Kapleau, 1980). Something had clearly changed, and
changed dramatically, yet it is said that enlightenment itself is not a state of
consciousness.
So does meditation induce ASCs? According to Tart’s subjective definition, it
does, because people feel that their mental functioning has been radically
altered. One sceptical theory is that meditation is nothing more than sleep
or dozing. Neuropsychiatrist Peter Fenwick (1987) (see the website for a brief
biography) showed that EEG profiles in meditation are not the same as sleep
or drowsiness, yet many meditators take microsleeps during meditation, and in
one study TMers slept as much as a third of the time while meditating (Austin,
1998). Since naps are known to reduce anxiety and depression and improve cog-
nitive ability, this might explain some of the claimed effects of meditation. Yet
meditators themselves say they can easily distinguish between deep meditation
and sleep. One interpretation is that meditators learn, with inevitable slip-ups, to
hold themselves at that interesting transitional level between sleep and wake-
fulness (Chapter 15).
Perhaps the most extraordinary claim for ASCs achieved through meditation
appears in the early Buddhist teachings of the Theravadan tradition. The jhanas
are a series of eight increasingly absorbed states said to be reached through
deep concentration applied in a series of graded steps (Chapter 18). The first
jhana involves raising a kind of ‘energy’ that the ancient suttas refer to as piti, and
may be equivalent to the kundalini energy described in some yoga and other
traditions. This can come in a rush of shaking, vibrating, noises, and hot flushes
and is maintained by attending to the sense of glee or joyfulness that fills the
whole body. The skill is then to drop down from this hyper-excited state into a
happy but calmer state, and then to equanimity, converting the piti into a gentler
‘energy’ called sukha, and finally into a deep, emotionally neutral state without
thoughts.
These first four states are firmly rooted in the body, but the next four are referred
to as the ‘immaterial’ or ‘formless’ states. Limitless, infinite, or boundless space
entails continuous expansion, until only endless space remains as the object of
attention. Cannabis can have this same effect of expanding into space with no
bodily sense remaining (Tart, 1971; Blackmore, 2017). Beyond this lies the sixth
jhana of infinite consciousness and beyond that further indescribable states.
From these descriptions, the states are clearly meant to unfold in a specific
order, and meditation teacher Leigh Brasington speculates that the techniques