JUNGLE DHARMA: The Interweaving of Buddhism and Ayahuasca
David Coyote

“As long as there are practitioners who go to the forest to practice, the way of the awakened ones will never die.”

–The Buddha

IT CAN BE USEFUL TO THINK ABOUT spiritual and cultural traditions, such as the Buddhadharma, as spontaneously arising, self-organizing, living beings of their own: in other words curiously similar to plants. They have roots in the Earth, they grow and their branches spread, they flower and fruit and drop their seeds, sometimes quite far from the original soil. The seeds sprout, flourish and adapt to new conditions. Seeds of the Buddhadharma have dropped into many contemporary hearts. We are as gardeners doing our best to cultivate them, each in our own way: in Sangha, in lineage, in our daily lives and in our own native cultural soil.

For me, this process has led to over thirty years of intensive study and retreat, which has included ordination in Asia and lay practice in America. I’ve learned several languages, received numerous initiations, practiced yogas and have lived in many communities as well as alone in the woods. Like many others, my spiritual journey began with the intense shock of suffering: in my case, the death of both parents. This gave rise to a deep questioning about the purpose of life and a search for teachings and a path—a deep thirst for healing and liberation and a willingness to try any means that worked well and skillfully—preferably one with roots. I was quickly drawn to Buddhism.

My first teacher was a Korean Zen master. He had arrived in the West in the early 1970s and his first students were young hippies and seekers. He introduced them to koan practice, bowing, sitting and chanting. At one student’s request he even tried LSD. He called it “special medicine” and thought it might have some use for practitioners, maybe used once to break the hard shell of their concepts. But his own tools were “the great question,” hard training and a deep Bodhisattva vow—not medicines, however special they might be.

My second teacher was a Tibetan Vajrayana master. Through him, I was introduced to the intense devotion of the way of the Tibetan yogi and the vast array of skillful means available in the lineage. Rinpoche’s teachings were tantric and at times our practice included the transformation of alcohol into amrita. Having been requested, he too tried LSD. His comment was, “Good for visualization practice.” As with my Zen master, Rinpoche saw these substances as interesting and possibly useful, but nothing he was interested in pursuing.

I met a third teacher many years ago and she is just as strict and demanding as a Zen master or Rinpoche. Sometimes wrathful, sometimes peaceful, she has her own lineage and wisdoms, her own gifts to offer. She is the plant teacher Ayahuasca. Through the guidance of various ayahuasceros and many travels south that have come to total several years’ time spent in the Amazon jungle, her medicine has been part of my Dharma practice ever since. I have needed this “bitter practice” to take me deeper into my body and to clarify my emotions; to actually feel the Earth I’m living on.

Siddhartha Gautama walked into the jungle where he lived and practiced for six years. Finally, he sat under a tree for days until one dawn, as the morning star appeared in the sky, he awoke to his true nature. Imagine being that intimate with the trees, the plants, the animals, the waters, and living that closely with the Earth for so long. The Buddhadharma arose in the wild and since that time has produced a tradition of practitioners who have also lived and practiced deep in nature—in forests, on mountains, in deserts and on islands. What could be more fitting than the Dharma meeting and interacting with another tradition that also arose in the jungle? A tradition of indigenous peoples, almost destroyed, and then ignored by their conquerors? Maybe having the humility to receive their tradition and its sacred plant medicine can help post-industrial people to finally arrive on this land; to finally come home.

I share my perspective, thoughts and experiences because the dharma seeds in some practitioner’s hearts may flourish as mine did in Ayahuasca’s wild and indigenous love. I have come to feel that a clear and openhearted engagement with this native tradition (which like the Dharma is both thousands of years old and has come a great distance to meet us) can help those of us who are in need of roots and brave enough to receive her teachings. It can deepen our dharma practice and help us to truly find our own seat on the Earth.

This isn’t the first time that the Dharma has traveled and met with other traditions. When Dharma teachings came to Tibet as Vajrayana they met the indigenous shamanic tradition of Bön and a uniquely Tibetan Buddhism appeared. Arriving in China, the Dharma “met and married” Taoism with its nature worship and alchemical roots and the child of that union lives on as Zen. In coming to a new place there is always a meeting, always an exchange of gifts, always new growth.

The Practice

Like the Buddha Way, Ayahuasca is fundamentally a practice, an experience, something that we do. In so doing we are transformed, purified, and opened to the essence of our body, heart and mind. As with meditation, there are lessons to be learned, concepts to release and a balance to maintain. For those who are ready, this ancient practice is an immediate and powerful embodiment of Dharma teachings.

Ayahuasca is perhaps different from other entheogens in that it is a very embodied Nirmanakaya experience, partially because the brew is a purge. The native healers’ explanation is that Ayahuasca works by finding the crossed energies, the blockages, the illnesses of body and mind and clearing them out of the system physically and energetically. This energetic opening can be experienced in a very yogic manner. We may become aware of energetic blockages in the body that are released and result in involuntary kriyas or movements. We may feel the chakras and nadis—the energy system of the subtle body. Sometimes the channels open easily; and other times, there may be an extended and painful process of contacting blocked emotional energies or life experiences that led to one’s energy body having shut down.

Often there are powerful Sambhogakaya visions, which offer healing or give teachings. These visions can be the traditional jungle spirits of Jaguars, Anacondas, plant spirits or of Ayahuasca herself. (In the tradition of my indigenous teacher, she is embodied as a beautiful woman.) Practitioners may also have visions of their dharma teachers, of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and teaching deities such as Tara or Kuanyin. There can be experiences of karmic life review which may be biographical or may resemble the past life remembrances that experienced yogis report. We may have visionary conversations and interactions with friends, enemies or family members that lead to forgiveness, clarity and openheartedness.

For people with proper training, the end of an ayahuasca ceremony can be an amazingly fruitful time. After the powerful cleansing energy that the experience typically begins with, followed by the intense visionary current which arises, there are moments of utter stillness, the lucid openness of Dharmakaya.

While untrained participants may just drift in relaxation, the meditator can enjoy an easy familiarity with this open, limpid and lucent state. At times there may be an experience of our essential nature. In general we move from the coarse to the subtle, both in one session and over a series of sessions. First the purging and clearing, then visions, and then the open and still space of awareness reveals itself.

A Possible Approach

For Buddhists called to the jungle practice, a firm grounding in our Dharma practice is essential. Since the two experiences mirror each other so extensively, our practice helps in the preparation beforehand, the navigation during and in the integration afterwards. And again, integration is key. While certainly not the only one, perhaps the most useful perspective is that of Tantric practice. In fact there are scholars, such as R. C. Parker, who claim that visionary plants were once part of or even central to Vajrayana practice in India. It’s easy to view Ayahuasca as an indigenous yidam. Seeing her that way, she may manifest in both wrathful and peaceful aspects.

There are two different approaches to working with ayahuasca. In one the dose is high and the emphasis is on emotional, energetic and karmic cleansing. The practitioner’s capacity to stay grounded and centered is very important. Since the sessions can be very intense, the guide’s role as a healer is quite important. In the other approach the dose is low, and the emphasis is on interaction with our higher-level structures of self and intentional meditative practice. In this style, the guide’s role as teacher comes forward. Navigation is easier and there may be more self-reflection, life lessons and states of calm abiding in open presence.

Ayahuasca is a visionary path and the parallels with deity yoga are many. One interesting twist is that in an Ayahuasca ceremony the visions are usually self-arising and spontaneous. But a trained practitioner might find it easy to guide them and use the experience to deepen an ongoing sadhana practice. Sometimes the visions that appear are the turbocharged manifestation of ordinary mind, what Trungpa Rinpoche called, “supersamsara.” Other times people are graced with “pure visions,” which actually do seem to reflect contact with one’s ancestors, teachers, protectors, yidams or spirits of nature. These visions can open our awareness to the dreamlike appearance of the phenomenal world. The experience of having our own samsaric projections reflected back to ourselves can be just as valuable and far more humbling than those of a “higher” nature. The work of recognizing and releasing our own thoughts is equally, if not more, powerful at night in the jungle as when sitting on one’s cushion after a morning cup of tea. The inescapability of having to deal with our projections is a powerful feature of this practice. For those with a yoga practice of winds and channels, many spontaneous openings of energies and chakras arise that can be engaged and may enhance one’s ongoing practice.

In many ways, an Ayahuasca ceremony is like any practice or retreat, but its sudden, intense, and deep nature requires more attention to integration than other practices. It offers potent states of yogic and meditative experience, which are ordinarily available only to practitioners who devote years to retreat practice. Because of this quality, preparation and integration with our daily practice and daily life is clearly much more important than with an ordinary meditative practice. The purifications, insights and teachings must be put into practice in our life. The yogic openings must be exercised and extended. The experience of being embodied as a human here on our native Earth must be lived.

Preparing well and being in good company when drinking the Ayahuasca is the recipe for a powerfully beneficial experience. Respectful rituals of preparation with refuge, generation of Bodhicitta and calling on the protectors are all very supportive. Ideally a circle of yogis and yoginis would meet periodically to take their places in the medicine mandala of Mother Earth’s self-arising net of healing, wisdom and love.

For an experienced Dharma practitioner, an Ayahuasca ceremony can be an excellent way to “test the depths” and conduct a kind of stress test of one’s practice. Do you feel crushed by the oppressive weight of your karma? How does your ego respond to the feeling of supreme understanding and power? Are there obstructions you have missed in your practice? Since most of us living in the modern world are not able to leave our families, homes and jobs for a year or more of intense retreat, working with Ayahuasca is an opportunity to have an experience of the profound depth of our heart and mind.

For example, we have all received teachings on compassion and love. Many people engage in meditations which develop loving-kindness and Bodhicitta. But how deeply do we feel them? How deeply in our body is the experience occurring? How would it feel to have our heart bursting with compassion? It is a powerful experience indeed to have buried memories of our own losses and grief arise and be led through the subsequent opening of our heart chakra and thinking in a transcendent way; having a transpersonal experience of actually being some other sentient being is even more so. In that field of being, engaging in loving-kindness or Bodhicitta meditation can touch our heart at a depth that is extremely transformative. At that moment we embody the teachings: we are living them, breathing them, and being them.

A number of Buddhists are finding great benefit in the teachings of this jungle tradition as a complementary practice. It addresses the absence of a more fundamental relationship with the Earth and our own body that traditional Dharma assumes everyone has, but that our modern culture has forgotten. Unlike with some other substances, most Ayahuasca practitioners experience her as a wisdom being who is present with them and is guiding their experience. This can give rise to experiences of communion with the embodiment of the jungle or with all of nature herself.

In my own spiritual journey, I’ve struggled with how to integrate my Dharma practice with deep emotional healing. I’ve also had difficulty translating the teachings from traditional Asian teachers to my life experience, with its social environment of “de-natured,” post-industrial, capitalist existence. The deepest benefit I have received from my relationship with ayahuasca has been to realize another “kaya” to go with the three traditional ones. And that is the “Gaia-kaya.”

To have sloughed off the painful and distorted view of being some kind of disembodied object in a purposeless machine-like world is the kindest, most redeeming gift imaginable. To have some visceral sense of how it was for the Buddha living in the jungle—breathing Mother Earth’s air, drinking her water and sitting on her body, gives me the courage and inspiration to take my own seat and practice. That sense of our own embodiment and of the Earth as a living, breathing being in whose embrace we live our lives is something that our Asian teachers grew up with and that the traditions assume we already have. But many of us in the West lack it and without this seat, based in our bodies on this Earth, our Dharma seeds won’t grow to their full potential. In some ways this meta-teaching is Ayahuasca’s greatest offering.

All of this, for me, has been an amazingly powerful “upaya,” or skillful means. And the more powerful the means, the more skill required to use it correctly. So, careful preparation beforehand, clear and skillful guidance during the experience and integration afterwards are all of the utmost importance.

Those happily walking the traditional path of Dharma teachings, meditation and realization obviously have no need of something so strange as this bitter brew from the jungle. For them, practicing the teachings exactly in the way that they were received seems best. But for others of us there is much to learn by seeking out more ancient ways as well. It may turn out to be a sidetrack or dead end for some but it is worth exploring nonetheless, worth sending out scouts to report back. As a Mahasangha, we will all benefit.

I’m not suggesting changing the Dharma. The Dharma doesn’t change but the skillful means certainly do—they have to grow and adapt as our lives change. Used wisely, the Ayahuasca experience is a safe and powerful tool that can lead us to fascinating edges of our practice. And the best learning happens at the edges, in the darkness out beyond those things we think we understand, in the great open jungle-like space of “not knowing.”

As the great Zen Master Dizang once said, “Not knowing is most intimate.”