I recently spoke with a friend who has begun taking prescription serotonin for minor depression/mood imbalance. Their description of how the medication changed their experience and perception reminded me a lot of how some zen concepts have been described. This person discussed notions such as:
-Feeling like your true, natural self
-Experiencing life directly, instead of through various situational "filters"
- Not having any "turbo lag" (their word) between experience and reactions/thoughts/speech
-A quieting of the "narration" of life experiences via thoughts and mental chatter
-An ability to trust intuition instead of analysis
-Better able to "turn off" thoughts/mind when not actively using them
-No longer feeling like you're observing yourself going through existence, but are one with it
Which leads me to wonder, how much of zen practice is simply chemical? I suppose some would say its all chemical because that's all we really are: walking bags of chemicals. Others seem to understand it as something more mystical.
Regardless, does this person's new medication-catalyzed perception of life seem to be pointing to the same kind of understanding as zen? Any thoughts?
Submitted May 30, 2019 at 11:27PM by brahmmyboy http://bit.ly/30SbL01
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