A Phenomenology of Zero Ontology: Jhana, Cessation, Awakening, 5-MeO-DMT and the Great Perfection

Introduction

It was with great pleasure and delight that I received Andres’ invitation to take part in and help to facilitate portions of this year’s High-Energy Awareness Research Team retreat. Three years prior, I had briefly attended the 5-MeO-DMT focused event in Canada. My summary impressions from the discussions then and personal experimentation with the substance can be found here. Reading it first may provide useful context for the following.

Our intent was very, some would say overly, ambitious for the 8 weeks allotted: compare and contrast jhana and 5-MeO phenomenology and iteratively draft working models of the structural changes to the phenomenal field across the relevant state-space, up to and including baseline changes such as awakening. As, unlike many of my colleagues on the retreat, I don’t have the mathematical acumen to helpfully hypothesize as to the formal structure of the experiences, I here will instead provide looser, though hopefully still informative, rich written descriptions.

Within the remit of mechanistic explanation my working hypothesis is that a sentient being’s phenomenal field is a nondual, empty self-display of consciousness. This awake field is recruited by natural selective pressure in biological organisms such as us for homeostatically and reproductively adaptive processing keyed to optimization of field-symmetry, which I take to be the system’s implementation of valence as per the Symmetry Theory of Valence. What states such as the jhanas, cessation, rigpa, and 5-MeO show is that structural simplification and symmetrification yields maximal valence in two limiting cases: conscious subject-object collapse and concomitant full-field dereification with otherwise ordinary sensorimotor function intact or else total coherence via global asymmetry cancellation resulting in a complete cessation of consciousness.

At a first pass, then, abiding awakening, as opposed to transient immersion in altered states, can be fruitfully understood as the absence in a conscious system’s phenomenal field of the structurally simplest asymmetry: this fundamental bifurcation, resistance, and grasping between experiencer and experienced from which the recurrent and stressful reification of space, time, self, and world and behaviors based on such dependently arise. Don't take my word for any of this, though. Excise the second arrow and see for yourself, if such calls.

Purists of all camps may dislike my free mixture of influences, which I will not here defend on doctrinal or other grounds, though I have interspersed scriptural references, quotations, and citations throughout for rhetorical effect and as an invitation to take your own investigations into the sources further. Take the following for what it is: field-reports and conjectures from one meditator and psychonaut.

Let’s now traverse the jhanas through cessation and awakening, waltz through 5-MeO, and conclude with wishes for the future.

Jhanas & Cessation

The descriptions here are reflective of my own phenomenology progressing through a stable and deep jhanic arc from a high resting baseline of samadhi, though not so deep as the states described in the Visuddhimagga and practiced by some contemporary Theravadin lineages, e.g. Pa-Auk Sayadaw et al. I’ve written in some detail about access concentration through variants of the first jhana before here. Moving through the progression I’ll have less to say as each state is structurally simpler than the previous, advancing until all traces of thought, body, self, world, subject, object, space, and time are extinguished in the limit of cessation.

I recommend reading this short sutta as a complement.

As other output from the retreat will show, there is quite the heterogeneity in the details of people’s experiences which is belied by the linear and simple taxonomy of 8 progressive states you’ll find in traditional literature and much contemporary discussion. The best peer-reviewed literature taxonomizing the variety I’m aware of is this 2024 article from Sparby and Sacchet. See also Daniel Ingram’s discussion here.

Part of our work together was creating visual replications of the states under examination. You can see mine here:

A cartoonish vibe-code though it is, it includes gesturally correct toy models of all 8 jhanas and the arc of a high-dose MeO trip through come-up, peak, and re-formation.

All that being said, unto the blissful breach!

Access Concentration

I sit down comfortably and upright, mindful of all sensations throughout my body. I smile gently. All the somatic field flows, flickers, and fluxes like so many pulsating pixels making up a gaseous cloud of energy. Sparks of piti-sukha sizzle throughout. Breathing in, I feel flush, warmth, and expansion through the whole somatic volume, from the rising of the abdomen to tingling in extremities. Breathing out, the energy-swells settle into a more ordered, coherent, stabilizing and uniformly distributed fizz. Localized attention brought to the passage of air at the entrance to my nostrils is felt as an energized, vibrating patch of tension. My visual field lights up bright white. I hear a high-pitched ringing. As I settle and rest gently with the attention at the nostrils distinction between in and out breaths drops off along with any sense of cold or heat. The breath-sensation refines to a vibrant and ultrasmooth, seemingly singular texture. In peripheral awareness piti-sukha, a mixture of blooming, buzzing bliss and smooth, soft, delicious happiness ramps up throughout the bodily volume without clear internal boundaries or segmentations. The longer I stay and saturate here, the more stable, energized, and intense the state will become, the accumulated momentum of which will carry over into the subsequent jhanic arc.

Before the more detailed descriptions, a simple analogy I’ll sometimes use when describing or teaching these states: for the first, imagine floating suspended in a luxurious jacuzzi with all the jets on full blast. For the second, the jets are turned way down, a comparatively calm burble while the warmth of the water is more predominant. For the third, all the jets are off, and the water has cooled. You got a bit hot, there; it’s now soothing and deliciously still. For the fourth, you’ve transitioned magically into a float-tank. Perfect stillness, peace, and quiet.

A pedagogical note: if you have the luxury of adequate time on retreat try allowing the following transitions to unfold by simply steeping in each jhana long enough for the shifts to occur without intention. Traversing the sequence forwards and backwards intentionally, as well as skipping steps up and down is likewise informative for fluency and eventual mastery.

First Jhana

With piti-sukha already active throughout the body, I release localized attention on the breath at the nostrils and tune to the distinct frequency of piti. It erupts as a column of crackling ecstasy up the center of the bodily field and snaps into coherence and even distribution throughout. If the intensity of the piti and depth and stability of absorption passes a threshold the body disappears entirely and there is just the ill-defined field vibrating with piti-sukha predominating. There may or may not be ancillary mental activity occurring as well as involuntary twitches and excess bodily heat and sweating depending on how deep the access concentration leading in was and how long I remain marinating in the state. If there is twitching, hot flashes, mental chatter or imagery etc., it will diminish and cease eventually as the state matures and refines.

Second Jhana

Tuning away from the piti and exhaling a little longer deliberately, letting it lessen in intensity and bubble away, switching instead to the sukha, I transition to a much more settled, subtle, and coherent state. The warm, deeply pleasurable and satisfying glow of sukha predominates. Structurally, the first four jhanas are quite similar, in my experience, excepting the ratios and intensity of piti-sukha. See Cube Flipper’s article for more and more detailed discussion, as well as the interview they conducted with me the day after our retreat concluded.

Third Jhana

The last of piti fades entirely away, and only the embers of sukha now soothe: a cool, preciously calm contentment envelops. Embodied peace unlike anything I personally have felt outside meditation.

Fourth Jhana

Sukha drains out and all that remains is perfectly lucid, stably clear awareness and stillness. The body, if it is still present up to this point, is wispy and transparent, and with the agitation of piti-sukha disappeared, the bright whiteness lighting up my visual field is salient again. The phenomenal field all through is bright, malleable: a perfect platform and workspace.

Boundless Space

When first learning to make the transition I would expand my attention out and past any felt resistance until the boundlessness opened, whereas now I tune to it as a familiar aspect and steadily absorb until all traces of the body drop out. The whiteness of the visual field goes black, and any remaining differentiation of the textures of the six senses ceases as limitless extension is felt, eventually without any distinguishment between up, down, front, back, side to side, along with any perspectival markers of near and far. Immense, unspeakable, silent vastness.

Boundless Consciousness

Tuning to the knowing quality of the space itself it’s as though the endless expanse lights up, and though without pronounced visual change the state is brighter, somehow, and while still boundless spatiality is not particularly salient.

Nothingness

Noticing that there is literally no thing in the field, there is an absorption in that. As though presence refined reveals only absence. No thing, no one, a pure, seemingly dimensionless vacuum.

Neither Perception nor Non-perception

Somehow this no-thingness is itself a tensing, and when this too is released there is only a faint hum and unlocalizable staticky shimmer and flux about which it is almost impossible to say anything: not percipient of any thing, not even no thing.

Cessation

In the limit the system may fully cohere, synchronize, and cease. No cognizance or content at all. Lights out, out, out: gone, gone, gone deeper than the deepest dreamless sleep. For a theoretically relevant and congruent discussion between Roger and Andres from some years back about the phenomenon, see here.

Awakening

When, after a timeless time, the phenomenal field re-polarizes and reforms from no where or when there is an incredible opportunity for it to recognize itself and its fluctuations as empty, dependently arising, spontaneously dynamic, and utterly unreified nondual display.

Awake.

Unbound.

Extinguished.

Thirst quenched: released in the end of craving, clinging, and becoming. Seeing there is no gap the subject as well as every object craved collapses, and without a ground for clinging no one thus becomes.

The Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama:

It’s hard to see the unaffected,
for the truth is not easily seen.
Craving is pierced
in one who knows;
for one who sees,
there is nothing.

• Ud 8:2, Nibbāna Sutta

I can’t resist a rhyming pun. Having played upon David Pearce’s speculation in the title, here it cashes out: this end of investigation is arrival at a phenomenological configuration in which there are no ‘things’ at all, no fixed ontology whatsoever, with all metaphysical accounts zeroed out, the awake field is unfixated and free, as Mipham Rinpoche puts it poetically:

Mind’s nature is indivisible emptiness and clarity,
Inexpressible and indestructible, like space.
In seeing it, there is no separate one who sees;
There is but a single, all-encompassing sphere.
Even looker and looking are one and the same.
This view of seeing all at once is unsurpassed,
A centreless, limitless, exceptional experience.
In this fruition in which what has to be done has been done,
There’s no seeing at all, and any wish to see,
Any deep longing to discover the view,
Is naturally destroyed from its very depths.
To arrive at such contentment and evenness
Is to be touched by brave Mañjuśrī’s beneficent light.

• The Nature of Mind

To Māluṅkyaputta:

When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Māluṅkyaputta, there is no you in connection with that. When there is no you in connection with that, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress.

• SN 35:95, Māluṅkyaputta Sutta

The View from Tepoztlán, taken on an excursion away from QRI Headquarters:

5-MeO

Blasting off at Tandava:

I first tried 5-MeO 3 years ago, some 7 years into relatively intensive Buddhist practice in and outside of full-time training in Zen and Theravadin monasteries, by then having already attained fluency in the jhanas as outlined above and undergone many cessations, some with duration lasting at the longest up to 25 minutes or so, alongside increasing familiarization with rigpa through Dzogchen teachings and practice. You can see my brief biography here for further context, and I’ve written previously about watershed experiences in my own path here, if you enjoy such stories.

I’ve since explored and experimented with the drug over a hundred times up and down the dosage curve via various routes of administration. I am confident claiming, at least in my own nervous system, that its effects moreso than any other psychedelic I have tried bear the most similarity to traditionally sought-after contemplative terrain, and it can be cautiously combined with traditional practices to good results. I should say at the outset, however, that nothing in my experiences combining 5-MeO and traditional practices compares to the stability and wieldiness of very deep sober samadhi, e.g. even the 1st jhana by the criteria of Pa-Auk Sayadaw’s lineage as I’ve experienced it, which I have described in the previously linked Substack article.

I will proceed by describing in some, though not exhaustive, detail due to limits of space and time what I’ve tried and tend to experience at micro, low, medium, high, and breakthrough doses, concluding with a fuller account of the final experience with the substance during the recent retreat. I’m not recommending anything here, I hope it’s clear. With both intensive meditation practice and any psychedelic use, your life, heart, body, and mind are your responsibility and your risk tolerance is your own. For better and worse I’m happy being a guinea-pig and hazarding this sort of experimentation.

An important methodological note: I can’t in principle or in practice fully dissociate the effects of the drug in my experience from the cumulative results of years and many thousands of hours of meditation, and how in any moment I modulate my attention and awareness while under the influence. A benefit to our collaborative efforts is highlighting the heterogeneity between experiences and experiencers here as well as with jhana.

Micro

At the lightest end, there is a slight bodily tingle reminiscent of and similar, if not fully identical, to piti-sukha I experience in access concentration, and a slight brightening of the visual field and deeper color-saturation. Greater malleability of the field, as well, similar to sober samadhi. When I try practices involving visualization coupled or not to the somatic field, e.g. creation and completion in deity yoga, tummo, etc., the imagery and somatic energy flows I can generate and manipulate are more vivid, stable, and clear in comparison to my resting baseline. As in sober samadhi, I can volitionally tune and intensify different frequencies of the field and enter 5-MeO-influenced jhanic state-space rapidly, up through variants containing the relevant factors of j1-8.

Low

There’s a marked increase in the bliss and happiness pervading the bodily volume, and felt bodily boundaries, even with eyes open, are likelier to entirely disappear than at lower doses. The visual field brightens even more and, seemingly coupled to interactions of any remnants of localized attention and somatic energy flows will either fuzz or fade or else assume a radiant, crystalline, sharply defined character. Volitional modulation of attention is still possible and pliable. Any practice I’ve tried combining works well.

Mid

Fine volitional manipulations of attention and energy become less workable, here, as the intensity increases and the field moves towards more complete synchronization and coherence. The bliss almost certainly dissolves bodily boundaries, which can be somewhat reformed by engaging motor activity. Dancing and stretching up through relatively high doses has been a true delight: finding and riding the minimum viable tension to engage spontaneous action, as in sober samadhi-in-motion.

High

Motor activity and any attentional modulation become undesirable even if not impossible. Eyes open or closed there is blissful dissolution of residual bodily, energetic, and attentional structure. At any point, even at low doses if the mind so inclines, though especially starting here, if eyes are closed we begin moving into formless white-out territory.

Breakthrough

The culmination of experimentation with 5-MeO on the retreat for me was a 22mg fumarate (equivalent to about 15mg freebase) intramuscular injection, after having had a breakthrough and high follow-up dose via vaporization the day before. Since two breakthroughs two or so years back, during each of which I lost consciousness entirely, on both of those occasions and every time since at similar doses the experience unfolds in roughly the arc that follows. This is difficult to describe, as is everything thus far, but I will do my best.

Microphenomenologist James Sanders, at my request, interviewed me as I was still coming down, which you can listen to here if you want a fresh and more detailed reporting:

The come-up via IM is significantly slower than vaporization, and so for several minutes I enjoyed and relaxed into steadily rushing and expanding waves of overwhelming, shuddering bliss, dissolving body, mental jitter, and any attentional twitching. Everything eventually whited out and then passed a threshold: several times the state collapsed into and repolarized out of an achromatic, space-less, time-less, nondual configuration of the field, booming back at indeterminate intervals with slight dithering local asymmetries in black and white.

As the peak passed and the field began to reform, from achromatic void came black, white, and then, reorienting to the faint sense of body, space, time, and environs, opening eyes there was an explosion from the simplest organization to a stunning array of rainbow, latticed concentric spheres, rather like this depiction:

Image credit: https://www.acircleisdrawn.org/?page_id=559

From these rainbow visions the ‘ordinary’ phenomenal field re-assembled over some minutes as the energy throughout decreased. Stunning, truly. The visions are starkly similar to what I’ve experienced through sober tögal practice.

For more perspective, earlier on the retreat we were fortunate to interview one of my teachers on the subject of Dzogchen and dark retreat, which you may find relevant and interesting, available here.

Nondual, spontaneously self-arising, self-liberating dereified rainbow display: awake, empty, energetic, and compassionate in nature. Delight! Please enjoy and make use of this and my colleagues’ more rigorous accounts for your own and others’ benefit.

Conclusion

I hope the foregoing has been of some interest, and that our preliminary work together will be of use in the burgeoning science of consciousness and awakening now taking shape. As yogis, Buddhist and otherwise, have realized for millenia, it is quite possible and desirable for consciousness to live free from the confines of fixating a subject objectifying the world, clinging to life in fear of death. Such is as true today as it was when Siddhartha walked the Gangetic plain. May our modern scientific endeavors make awakening as easily and openly available to all who wish it, and free us all and any who come after from all suffering.

Ehipassiko!

Hakuin Zenji's Song of Zazen:

All beings by nature are Buddha,
As ice by nature is water.
Apart from water there is no ice;
Apart from beings, no Buddha.
How sad that people ignore the near
And search for truth afar:
Like someone in the midst of water
Crying out in thirst,
Like a child of a wealthy home
Wandering among the poor.
Lost on dark paths of ignorance,
We wander through the Six Worlds,
From dark path to dark path–
When shall we be freed from birth and death?
Oh, the zazen of the Mahayana!
To this the highest praise!
Devotion, repentance, training,
The many paramitas–
All have their source in zazen.
Those who try zazen even once
Wipe away beginning-less crimes.
Where are all the dark paths then?
The Pure Land itself is near.
Those who hear this truth even once
And listen with a grateful heart,
Treasuring it, revering it,
Gain blessings without end.
Much more, those who turn about
And bear witness to self-nature,
Self-nature that is no-nature,
Go far beyond mere doctrine.
Here effect and cause are the same,
The Way is neither two nor three.
With form that is no-form,
Going and coming, we are never astray,
With thought that is no-thought,
Singing and dancing are the voice of the Law.
Boundless and free is the sky of Samadhi!
Bright the full moon of wisdom!
Truly, is anything missing now?
Nirvana is right here, before our eyes,
This very place is the Lotus Land,
This very body, the Buddha.