How does one explain ego death to all of the ego’s reading that could never imagine their own death?
As the Zen phrase goes, “the eye can not see itself“.
The thinking mind can’t step outside to know anything beyond itself.
It was the end of my 4th plant medicine ceremony, and I’d had a particularly rough time.
If you’re interested to learn more about my plant medicine work, I’ve published my experiences with Ayahuasca and San Pedro here
It had been a really hard ceremony, a lot of emotions and past trauma had come up, I was angry, tired, worn out, I’d cried and screamed a lot, I’d vomited more than usual, it was particularly hard on my body that time, and I’d spent a lot of time complaining to Javier, the Curandero or “medicine man” who lead the ceremony.
I was so full of anger, pain, tears, frustration, conflict and nausea for most of the day. I’m done, I hate this, I don’t know why I agreed to this but I’m not doing it again ever, I said, waiting for him to talk me down and reassure me.
There was also a lot of swearing.
Instead, he turned around and said, “when are you going to stop all this role play? When are you going to stop complaining and suffering and playing the victim all the time?“
Really? This only added to my rage. Who are you to say that in the face of my suffering? What do you know about my suffering?
Every part of me rejected what he’d said.
Well, almost every part, except for that little part that knew he was right.
I spent the rest of the ceremony fixated on this idea of role play. Yes, it is all role play, but that’s just me, I mean that’s everyone, how do I not do that? That’s all there is.
The ceremony didn’t get any better, and the effects of San Pedro last well over 12 hours. It was about 6 in the evening and Javier had invited everyone back to his house for dinner. I declined. I wasn’t in any mood to sit and talk and be happy, I guess I’m just playing the victim, so I went back to my accomodation which was in the retreat centre next door.
Now, San Pedro has a habit of wearing your mind out to the point that it gets very pliable and fluid and quiet.
So, I made a fire in the fire place, and just sat and stared as I went over the day’s events.
My mind had become very quiet, and I just sat there with a lot of strange feelings and emotions for what seemed like an eternity.
Suddenly a thought comes up, “I’ve been sitting here for over an hour, not one of them who was in ceremony today or Javier cared to see if I’m OK after the day I had?”
Then the next thought, “Oh wow, that’s the role play he was talking about, that’s the victimhood“
And the next thought, “To hell with the lot of them, I hope they’re having fun“
There’s the angry disappointed parent role
Who are all these characters in my head? Where did they even come from?
Then just stunned and shocked silence followed. Nothing but this present moment and vast awareness. No voice, no dialog, just expansive consciousness.
Wow, my mind is dead
I laughed at the irony of my mind popping back up to tell me that it was dead.
Then more silence, minute after minute of pure presence and awareness. I sat there, quite dead but somehow still alive.
“This is awesome, just total silence” – my mind popped back up to say.
And of course, each time it reappeared to speak it seemed more and more absurd and foreign to my true nature.
Now for some an experience of ego death is quite final and quite complete.
For me though my mind very much started to reappear in the day or two that followed until I once again became fully identified and lost in it for many years that followed as I struggled with very challenging health problems and I continued to process and dissolve some very heavy past trauma that had arisen.
BUT, from that point on, these moments of awareness and ultimate silence would arise at times just to remind me once again of who I really am.
