Buddhism and Altered States of Consciousness

Abstract

This paper argues that meditation as the primary method of Buddhist practices, is essentially to induce altered states of consciousness (ASC) and then take advantage of some characteristics in ASC to attain enlightenment. Our study starts from summarizing four essential phenomena (hallucinations, paranormal phenomena, mystical experiences and enhanced awareness) in ASC. In a previous paper, we have proposed an original model to reveal the formation mechanism of different states of hallucinations and suggested that paranormal phenomena such as extrasensory perception are simply illusions that happen along with deep hallucinations. Mystical experiences occur in Samatha. Based on the experiential description, it can be inferred that the essence of Samatha is perception shutting down to activate a new mode of apperceiving, one totally different from the usual five sense mode of perception. Hallucinations also disappear because perception shuts down. Enhanced awareness is highly emphasized in this paper. In ordinary conditions, perception has a natural threshold for its sensitivity for the purpose of biological survival. But in ASC, awareness becomes more sensitive because the perception-filtering function gets weakened to allow the influx of more details, making the deep insight of the five skandhas possible, just like watching a slow-motion film. This means that, different from the common sense, the physiological basis of Buddhist Vipassana is not the greater concentration or more tranquility, but enhanced awareness in ASC. Furthermore, we introduce time dimension by putting forward that there are three stages in ASC: the process of loss of the self, the obliteration of the self and the process of recovery of the self. Although enhanced awareness appears since the first stage, the simultaneous hallucinations may interfere with it, making Vipassana impossible in this stage. Samatha happens in the second stage and most past materials focus on how to get rid of deep hallucinations to achieve Samatha in this stage. A close study of experiential descriptions of coming out of Samatha demonstrates that, for some unknown reasons, hallucinations would be temporally inhibited after Samatha, making enhanced awareness work fine in the third stage. Thus, the relationship between Buddhist tranquility and insight is brought to light: Vipassana after Samatha is the path toward liberation. Buddha didn’t attain enlightenment after achieving the fourth jhana and even the highest formless jhana, until he discovered this point six years later.