The Question – Why?

Why combine the Dharma with entheogens? Why the Dharmayana?

Here’s how I see it. 

I’m a psychotherapist. I love my job and I am proud of my profession. I’ve seen that there are a lot of wonderful and important things that therapists can do. Some things, however, are beyond our powers.

One such thing is the creation of true and lasting community. 

We can create therapy groups. And those are excellent and needed. But they are not community. Not in the truest sense of that word.

They are not the breaking of bread. They are not the light of true hospitality. They do not offer the possibility of walking through life together, nor the possibility of giving joyful praise to the goodness of creation, nor the ability to experience that goodness throughout the full course of one’s days, sharing it with people that love you.

They can help us to heal and to grow, but we need more to flourish.

That “more” used to be provided, for many centuries, by the church and the synagogue in the lands we call the West. And for some, these institutions, and others like them, are still able to provide that daily bread. But for many, this deep and vital nourishment can no longer be found anywhere.

Despite our five hundred year long march towards progress, something vital is missing.

In the United States, among people under thirty-four, suicide is the second cause of death, after accidents. Life expectancy is falling for the first time since World War I. The very planet that sustains us is slipping through our fingers. More and more people feel that the water of life is slowing to a trickle and that the barren wasteland is spreading, creeping into every corner of our lives.

Loneliness has reached epidemic proportions. And the market wants us to be lonely. When we are alone, we want more distractions, more poison, more circus, more anesthetic – anything to not have to feel.

The Dharmayana is a cup, no more than that. A beautiful cup from which to drink the clear and cool and thirst-quenching, strength-giving water of life.

Its goal is to help us to heal and flourish and belong. Its goal is to connect us to nature, to spiritual friendship and to mystical experience, to give us a direct path to the ground of being and direct sight of the interdependence and unity of all existence.

Connected in this manner, we can walk in joy. The water of life can flow. The dead land can bloom, our hearts can open, our spirits can rejoice. And from that point and through that path, we can learn, again, the rhythms of the earth and we can hear her generous teachings. Connecting to the source, combining these two sets of tools, we will love the earth completely, in the most sacred depths of our heart and in the very deepest marrow of our bones. We will rejoice with her, revere her and respect her. We will treasure her and all of her children, including ourselves. 

Then we can be well. And we can care for the seven generations to come. And we can walk through life with dignity and honor.

The teachings of the Buddha, the ancient path he said he found and cleared and pointed to, are beautiful. His teachings on love, kindness, compassion and mindfulness have been empirically tested and have been shown to help us to be happy and well. The maps of consciousness developed by the Buddha and his students and his students’ students, are priceless, wonderful, extraordinary, detailed and sublime. These teachings have been passed from warm hand to warm hand, like yummy biscuits cooked by grandma, from generation to generation, for two and a half thousand years. 

In fact, the sangha, the community of practitioners the Buddha formed, is the oldest organization on earth. Its roots are deep and sturdy. It is a good rock on which to build a well-kept, happy home. 

At the same time, entheogens have not only been used by humanity to make direct contact with the sacred since time immemorial, they are now also being tested in the best centers of medical research in the history of our species and are demonstrating their efficacy as cures for depression, anxiety, trauma, addiction and fear of death. They connect us directly to the earth and sky, and, once connected, we begin to really pay attention.

And so, there is really nothing simpler or more logical than taking these two sets of spiritual tools, these remarkable spiritual technologies, and bringing them together. 

The earth is burning. There’s no time to waste. We must adapt and we need help to do so. 

All we need, to receive this help, is to reach out.

It’s there, in those sweet and ancient teachings. It’s there, in our endlessly generous plant allies.

Together, we can sing in harmony with the universal melody. We can move our bodies to the universal rhythm. And, together, with all the wondrous and infinite mystery of the creation we call home, we can celebrate and give most rapturous thanks and breathe and learn and dance, for all the days to come.