COMMUNITY INTEGRATION CIRCLE FOR ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS

With Guest Speaker: GEORGE WOODARD
Topic: "Addiction, Buddhism, and Psychedelics"

"I was a student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche from 1979 until he died in 1987. I stayed with his organization until 1996. Like a lot of his students, I imitated his behavior instead of hearing what he was teaching. I crashed and burned and had to get sober in 1999. I had stopped practicing meditation and went through a divorce. When I stopped drinking and smoking pot, I met Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche, my teacher now and I have been with him ever since.

The first time I tried to stop drinking a psychiatrist told me I was depressed and that I had been self-medicating with alcohol and he put me on Prozac, which for me was like a miracle drug, just because I felt normal for the first time in my life. 20 years later, I started reading about the resurgence of psychedelics, got off all medications, and started growing my own mushrooms and microdosing. In conversations I have now with old Buddhist practitioners, I am struck by two things. One, a whole lot of them are psychonauts but don’t talk about it so much because of the Buddhist restrictions on intoxicants, which they believe as I do, doesn’t include psychedelics, if there is proper integration of the experiences. Two, there was a lot of sanctimony about psychedelics but when pressed, a lot of these long-time meditators were taking all kinds of prescription drugs, including SSRIs.

I am very interested in the areas where Buddhism and psychedelics help each other."

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Have you experienced a powerful altered state of consciousness that you are having a hard time integrating into your life? Perhaps you have recently done a psychedelic journey or sober meditation retreat?

Whether your altered state of consciousness results from psychedelics or meditating, we invite you to attend our free integration circle at Judson Memorial Church in New York City.

Our circle is a safe, non-judgmental, and confidential space to share and process non-ordinary states of consciousness through peer-to-peer support and meditation. 

We open the sharing circle with meditation followed by a guest speaker.

We are grateful and honored to be community partners with Judson Memorial Church, in Greenwich Village, New York. With their support, we have been able to offer this community service free of charge since 2019.

We hope to see you at the next circle!