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Psychedelics have been around in human culture
since before recorded human history.

I remember that our grandparents talked about
these mushrooms with great respect.

I learned that the mushrooms produce wisdom.
That they cure sicknesses.

I call them 'holy children'.

Psilocybin, extracted
from a variety of Mexican mushroom.

What does this mushroom know
that we don't?

What does it do that we can't?

The good news is:
psychedelics are all about connections.

Indigenous communities
have known that for centuries.

We felt that the mushrooms talked to us.
A voice that came from the other world.

It's an important drug in terms of research into
the treatment of mental and emotional disorders.

So we have something that's a Pandora's box.

It has tremendous potential for good,
if used wisely, like atomic energy.

It's... Can't you feel it?
Everything is so beautiful and lovely and...

and alive.

I mean, I'm part of it.
Can't you see it?

It was one of the most important
areas of research in psychiatry...

but then the psychedelics became used in more
non-medical settings by the counterculture.

Their goals were to end the war in Vietnam,
spread the use of psychedelic drugs...

achieve equal civil and social rights for all...

and question the material system
that their parents had raised them in.

And then there was this massive backlash.

America's public enemy number 1
in the United States is drug abuse.

In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is
necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive.

Here we are sitting, we would not
be sitting here without me having taken...

some psychedelics
in a crucial phase of my life.

And it totally changed my life.
It really totally changed my life.

And then I ended up, by circumstances,
in a Zen Buddhist monastery...

in California.

And I stayed there for ten years
and lived a monk's life.

And I actually came back to Switzerland in '89.

I was away from psychedelics
for many years.

And then, I wanted to check out
the psychedelic scene in Switzerland.

And Franz was obviously the person
investigating psilocybin scientifically.

Look there, there is the university.

Since Aristotle, we think about the self.
About the mind. About the matter.

And how these things belong together.

My specific question was always
trying to understand the gap...

between the psyche
and the body or the brains.

I have had the idea to compare deep meditation
with psychedelic state for a long time.

Good morning.

It's great.

You are the volunteer? For today?

You like the art?
-I love it.

We're going to make some pictures of your brain.
Functional pictures. Is that okay for you?

Perfect.
-Okay.

'Psychedelic' comes from 'psyche', a Greek
word meaning 'breath' or 'consciousness'.

'Delic' comes from 'making clear' or 'showing'.

Psychedelics shows you the nature
of the consciousness.

Alright, John, can you hear me?
-Yes.

Okay, we start registration now.
Please could you start, when you hear the beep...

the focus meditation for the next ten minutes.
Thank you so much.

I approached him with the question
whether he thought we could organise a retreat.

A Buddhist kind of meditation retreat...

in which we could administer, legally, psilocybin.

When I first met Vanja, and we talked about
the possibility to do efforts together...

his spiritual knowledge and my science
knowledge and to learn from each other...

I realised this was the right person,
because he was soft, open, interested.

Had no objections to bring science
into a very silent Buddhist setting.

Not everybody would do that.

He was very open to that.

I was fascinated
that they have been looking at the brains...

for all these years, from the outside.

And we have been looking at the brain
from the inside, for all these years.

Here we study the effect of psychedelics
in, for instance, depressed patients.

So we study how psychedelics
can have an effect...

on healing in those kinds of patients.

But with the study we have done with Vanja,
where we have looked in healthy subjects...

we were interested to know how meditation
training enhances the effect of psychedelics.

As we know, setting is such an important aspect
of an experience with psychedelics.

And the hospital setting is quite different...

from a setting in a temple or a monastery,
outside in nature.

When we designed the meditation study,
we had to think...

how we can bring all together
the researcher and the practitioners.

And we also needed a location.

And here, Vanja came in
with the Zen centre on Mount Rigi.

It's the mountain I saw every day
when I woke up as a child.

Just went on the balcony.
Saw Mount Rigi.

They call it the Queen of the Mountains.

Most mountains are male,
and some are female. And the Rigi is.

Maybe she's laying here like
a nice female body. I could imagine that, yes.

The queen of the mountains.

When you look at it,
it looks like a sphinx, I would think.

If you look from Lake Lucerne,
the Rigi lays there like a sphinx.

With the legs and then the head.
It really does look like a female.

Then we had to think:
How can we keep them overnight for a week?

We needed also a location. A kind of hotel.
We need to feed them.

And here, we also had two MDs
in case of emergency.

We had about four to five psychiatrists.

Nobody would give you permission
to do it for religious purposes.

Based on all common regulations
in different European countries and the US...

the use of psychedelics
has to be embedded in a study.

One group getting blinded,
they didn't know what they'd get.

Psilocybin.

The other group got sugar.

It was a placebo.
So the placebo group.

So, that was the constellation.

For your career, it probably was not very
helpful to work with these substances, so I...

really respect the fact that he did.

As one of the very few, as far as I know,
worldwide, for that long...

he was able to do that work.

So, if we have a neuron...
Oh, it doesn't work.

To me, really, he's a scientist,
with an accordingly complicated brain...

I think that the scientists have.
I'm not such a clever thinker.

If anything, I think as little as possible.

And I feel that the scientists try to think
as sharp as possible.

During the past twenty years,
we have discovered that in the brain...

if you have a neuron in the cortex,
and you have here...

on the apical dendrites
maybe 2A-receptors...

important for the action
of psilocybin or LSD or even DMT.

The psychedelics interact because of similar...
They fit into the structure.

Also other receptors, like glutamate receptors.

That psychedelics
lead to an activation of this cell.

And that this has an effect
on other cells in deeper layers...

that then release glutamate on this...

apical dendrite.

And that in turn leads to alteration
of the neuroplasticity...

and then, the brain builds up new connections
between neurons.

Finding more or a different kind of wiring,
that's neuroplasticity. Constantly changing.

I said: I have an objective.
I want to do this.

And I 'misuse' science... Science
can misuse us too. They have their agenda.

To have a real deep
spiritual mystical experience is...

You could say, is the...
How do you call it?

The high point of one's life.

All of life sort of crystallises in that...
That we really are, and that we really realise...

how enormous this thing is,
and how magical and how mystical and...

Every time we talk about...
But we are in good company.

All the mystics over the centuries from
all traditions have come to acknowledge...

that it's very hard to say anything about that.
It is beyond intellectual understanding.

Art, science and spirituality,
for lack of a better word...

are three ways of approaching the mystery.

Science tries to describe it,
the art tries to express it in all kinds of ways...

and as far as I can say, the spirituality,
of course we also try to express it...

but mostly,
we're concerned with the experience of it.

And they always say: Science is art.

I always wanted to create something
by bringing things together...

that I hadn't explored yet.

We are here
at the university clinic of psychiatry.

The famous Burghölzli,
one of the biggest clinics in Switzerland.

One of the oldest clinics.

There were big names here.

Everybody knows Carl Jung
as the man speaking about deep psychology...

and the unconscious
from a different view than Freud.

At that time, when LSD was discovered, the
first clinical testing or trials were done here...

because Hofmann had discovered,
by quasi-accident, LSD.

This is Albert Hofmann.
In the early times, we met at his home.

First we discussed:
May it be possible to reactivate the research?

Is somebody doing something?
There was nobody doing something.

Even in our clinic, they had stopped.

I realised: These kinds of drugs really open up
the psyche in a different way...

than tranquilizers that make you quiet.

I had the good fortune
to spend a whole day with Albert Hofmann...

the inventor, or, not inventor...

through whom LSD came into this world.

He looked at me and said:

These sacred substances belong
into the hands of meditation.

I think meaning that...

ultimately, these substances are medicines,
but not for the sick only.

They are medicines for the healthy,
if there is such a thing.

We will never forget the first time.

I was about 24.

In the beginning I tried to
rationalise everything and to understand it.

Because I'd read already so much about it
and heard about it.

And even had talked
to Albert Hofmann about it before.

So I was well prepared, but...

I was a kind of post-hippie.
I was a bit too young to be a hippie.

This was my hero, John Lennon.
Funny, we had similar hair.

It started with popping up of patterns
of cards with flowers...

that popped up about thirty centimetres.

I thought: I can't believe that. It's flat, but now
it's three dimensions. You're looking through it.

I experienced myself as a Buddha,
sitting in full lotus.

Not nearly being able to...
I've never meditated, I've never really studied...

I knew Buddha
as an Eastern religion or something.

But I physically experienced myself
as a sitting Buddha.

I'm a typical representative
of a whole generation, a hippie generation.

I was brought up very protected,
in an upper-class household.

That's in January '55.
We are again on the Rigi.

My whole family has been in business,
textile business, for generations.

It was very clear that I wanted to become
as successful, rich and powerful...

as I could.

And then, well, I guess you could say...

that in that experience, I discovered that...

above the king, there's...
Whatever you call it.

A holy man, or a wise person.

That there is something...

That to be the most powerful person
is not the ultimate goal in life.

I had to go and search.

We all had heavy motorcycles.

I wore a chain of boar teeth around.

And I had a helmet with horns. Somewhere
I'm sure we can find something of that sort.

Yes, it's a Harley.
When I was a hippie, I had a...

1400 cc Harley.
An old one. Chopped. Chopper.

Even with the reverse gear.

But then it was also very confusing.

Because you come down, down
from the mountain, out of the sacred space...

and here you're confronted and you find
yourself even more confused than before.

Because there were no teachers around,
no elders.

I ended up, by circumstances,
in a Zen Buddhist monastery.

I became a total abstinent for 25 years.
I didn't...

Short of maybe some green tea
and occasional cup of coffee, no substances.

But I knew I had to go back
and look into these experiences.

Because they were so powerful
and so important in my life...

and changed my life, as I would say,
in a positive way, as I feel it...

that I had to go back and look at them.

Which I did, about ten years ago.

Also with the clear question
whether these substances could be used...

in a beneficial way...

for training people, or training the mind.

Investigating what it means
to be a human being.

I never had a Harley.
-They're nice machines.

But I'm glad I don't drive anymore.
And flying I'm also done with.

Next, I will...

smoke these molecules...

and ask for assistance and power...

of the mushrooms
that grow on these mountains.

They have already been used
by us humans for thousands of years...

and have been requested
for guidance and inspiration.

So to speak as a...

Here we have some representatives
of our mushroom friends...

who are ultimately our elder siblings...

and who exist much longer
on this planet than we do.

I will take one symbolically.
Homoeopathically.

Maybe two.

Now I will ask you...

to step forward one by one
and you will get your satchel.

They all look alike.
Some are active and some are placebos.

Take them to your place
and we will take them together.

We made a timeline.
And we had...

day one, day two, day three,
day four, day five, day six.

And we thought: Oh, we also want to
do science, in terms of neuroscience.

We're going to scan them.

Put them in an fMRI scanner...

before they go into the retreat,
and one, two, three, four, five...

seven...

Okay, so we can start the sequence.

He was, for me, a crucial person. But even
if he would have not been such a nice person...

I still would have stuck with him.
Because I needed him.

I needed science
to do what I wanted to do.

Which had nothing to do with science.
My question was to ask...

these experienced, long-time meditators,
my peers, so to speak...

that had no experience with psychedelics.

My question to them is:
Is that helpful to you?

Fifty percent, half of the participants,
got psilocybin, the other placebo.

So, at the end of the day, we need a number
of measure what they have experienced...

psychologically,
how deep meditation was.

So the critical day was day five.
They got the drug.

It's all right.

These people have
kind of spiritual thoughts about it.

It was not just the plant,
it was the ghost in the plant.

So now it's...
I would say it's the molecule in the plant.

It's not anymore out of mushrooms, nowadays.
It's synthesised from scratch.

Synthesized molecules, it's also a little bit
different. It's not the ghost of the plant.

It's the ghost of the chemist who makes it,
but this may be related to the ghost of the plant.

May all sentient beings be happy.

Thank you.

The time has come to take it in.

Then we will turn around,
with our face to the wall.

And we will start our first Zazen session.

I wish you a good trip.

And patience for those
who have a placebo.

We do this for a higher cause,
for the greater good.

And for this, the contribution of the placebo
is just as important.

There must be something enormous,
continuous...

which is the basis of everything.

Something underlying the whole cosmos.

The foundation of everything that exists.

We certainly cannot prove it at the moment,
but I think there's some evidence...

that consciousness would be the basis.

Consciousness is something very fundamental.
Like energy and matter.

Consciousness is something like
that information that's read out by brains.

And it's like a canvass, an empty canvass.

It's a structure through the universe.

And on that canvass,
things are formed, organised.

Some language we use is physics,
some is chemistry.

It's just how these things behave
in that organisation.

So the picture on the canvass
is the content of consciousness.

Of flowers and mountains.

So the information pops up.

So of course, these beautiful trees,
old trees...

and their roots,
that are so visible here...

remind us that much of life
is going on underground.

We see the tree is about as much above
as underneath the earth.

They say about a third of what the trees
get from the sun...

they pass on right through as food to the fungi.

And in exchange, the fungi deliver
the nutrients to the trees.

So it's a totally interconnected network
of information.

The roots do not connect directly,
but they have this mycelium in between.

These mushrooms are
like the network underground of information.

And of course, what we see
from the mushrooms is only the fruits.

The actual living being is underground.
We don't see it.

That's probably where our ultimate
deep connection is. It is in the invisible.

They pass on information between the trees.
Once something happens to one tree...

they can communicate that
to the other trees and let them know...

through the mushrooms' mycelium.

They really are our elders,
our elder brothers and sisters.

It says 'rock gate temple'.

'Sekimonji.'

And on this side, it says 'whole world temple'.

If approached respectfully
and under good conditions...

these substances have the power
to actually facilitate...

the real deep spiritual mystical experience.

When you are in a psychedelic session, it can
get pretty scary, especially at the beginning.

Or even as an experienced person.

Then to remember:
This is just production of my brain.

I have nothing to fear.

Somebody sits next to you and reassures you
it's all going to pass anyway.

But you know that, as a meditator.

You walk in the fog,
and you don't know exactly where you're going.

You know that you want to go
to a mountain peak.

And we have textbooks that we follow
and we have maps from other searchers.

But you haven't been there, and don't really
know: Shall I listen more to this description or...

But then, actually, for a little moment,
the clouds part.

And you actually see the mountain.

With psychedelics, or with a deep mystical
experience of any other way you get it...

you actually see the mountain.

The mist that you walk in and you aim
for the mountain top, you actually see it.

It's not a description, it's not a picture of it.
It's not...

You actually see it and you know it's there.

When we assess the facets of altered states...

one important facet
we call oceanic boundlessness.

And this has sub-facets.
Different facets.

As the term says, 'oceanic boundlessness'
means 'spreading out your self'.

The self-boundaries meld with the environment.

Merge. But in a positive way.
Still keeping attention and overview.

Welcome to my humble abode.

Mystical experiences, peak experiences...

most of us have those
in a younger age.

I was maybe six or seven.

On Mount Rigi, with my mother, walking.

And all of a sudden, things became
so vibrant and alive...

and joyous and intense.

Laying in the grass, and the grass was freshly
cut. And the smell of the grass was so intense.

Smells or sounds, you know,
a pebble hitting something and...

All of a sudden, it's an awakening.

And one of these
is the increase of emotions.

Up to bliss.

And ecstatics. Ecstasy.

So that's the emotional part.

I had a mystical experience.

There was a closeness to nature.

So immersed in nature.

When I was hunting salamanders
and all these little animals.

Then we have a part altered time and space.

Time can completely vanish
and people say: I'm in eternity.

It hit me like that.
And then...

What is it? What is it?

When you look into the eye of a child,
it's all wonder.

Then of course, we have to get used to it.

As a little child, we can't feed ourselves,
we can't wipe ourselves.

So we have to somehow restrict our wonder...

to the practical things to do
that we survive.

The price we usually pay is that we forget
the total mystery of it, the total wonder of it.

The ecstatic quality of this existence.

I was lying on a meadow and all the butterflies
came and I was collecting butterflies.

I'd take them home.

I had little houses made of LEGO.

I had bees,
I had a wasp at the butterfly house.

That was a little fantastic world.

But then I had to close the windows and
they had not enough oxygen at that time, fresh air.

Better just to look at them, not take them home.
They died, by the way.

Hello, little friend.

It may be a little bit unusual territory for you.

Maybe take off to a safer place.

Science can open up
as much as psychedelics can open us up...

to appreciate the mystery or to be in awe.

If you look at the simple complexity
of a molecule, it's a cosmos in itself.

If you really look at this
and really begin to understand...

the trillions of interactions, biochemically...

then you can only see it
in the light of the evolution...

how many millions of years
it took to build it up...

and that it's in harmony
and you cannot just take...

The other is the ego boundaries.

So the normal ego boundaries go down.

And that is in parallel with the feeling...

of unity.

Unity or oneness.
It's also often described as oneness.

So we measure both
how people feel connected with others...

or with environment, with nature.

If I look at the human species...

then I'm very worried.
I think we are...

Destroying our biological base
that we are depending on to live.

We are still animals that need air to breathe,
that need water to drink...

and have food...

and we are seriously threatening
that kind of balance.

The so-called First World
is going to collapse.

We are so stuck in this materialistic world view
that we need something that really...

can get us out of it.

I would not be surprised
if psychedelics play a major role in that.

Klärchen is the mother.

Her partner was Francis.

Saint Francis was in a relationship
with Saint Clarissa.

So we called the original couple here
Francis and Clare.

Maybe there's a hope
that psychedelics will lead...

to changes on a political level,
that people say:

We have to change how we think about business.
Or making business.

Pigs are by far the closest to the humans
of all the farm animals.

A pig is basically a horizontal human,
or vice versa.

If it comes to inner organs, we even transplant
hearts from the pigs to the humans.

Valves of the heart. So the whole organization
of their body is basically the same as a human.

And we treat them so badly. We really...
Pigs and...

It's terrible. So it's important that some pigs
can roam free.

Sister Theresia has been a Franciscan nun
all her life.

She took care of difficult children and orphans.

And then the next ten years,
she took care of heroin addicts.

And then she had a heart attack
and ended up here.

She discovered Zen,
and has devoted her life to the animals, totally.

For sixteen years now
she has been here.

And if my last hour comes, I only wish
I have somebody who cares as well as...

She lays with them until they die in the stable
and really...

feeds them and turns them around
and makes them comfortable.

It's very touching to see that.

So I'm very grateful.
We are blessed to have Sister Theresia here.

I think that the experience
with the substances...

doesn't create anything new,
but is more like a midwife.

It helps to make deep experiences...

even more conscious.

It's sad that it's illegal,
because it could help so many people...

who suffer.

Yes, it's a gift.

To merely realise what actually 'is'...

and what disappears
in our everyday thinking.

This is good.

Don't forget your breath.

Breath is the bridge that connects life
with our consciousness...

and our body with our thoughts.

We have emotions, we can think,
we have memories, we have perception.

They go hand in hand.

So that needs a very complex organisation
like the brain...

which is the most complex organisation
in the universe.

I really loved it.
We also had here each time...

a psychiatrist sitting and watching.
Very experienced.

He was sitting here and after these people
had psilocybin in a high dose...

he said: Look, look. They're just sitting here
as if nothing has happened.

He couldn't believe it.

In his groups, when he administers it,
people do all kinds of things.

And these people, most of them were just sitting.
So he was taken apart.

We did have one or the other person
that totally moaned ecstatically.

So the others were all thinking:
What's going on?

Later, in the evening and the next day, he said:
That was, from the very beginning, most ecstatic.

He was a person
who always suppressed things.

To feel comfortable to actually express it
freely like that was very important to him.

When we were sitting in that little shack...

all the animals came in and joined us
because we were meditating.

I believe these substances also bring people
close to themselves and animals sense this.

Obviously they do...

have consciousness.

Just different than we do.

Consciousness has been excluded
from the scientific research...

because it's so hard to get a grip on.
How do you measure consciousness?

may all beings be at ease

above, below and all around

whether standing or walking
seated or lying down

as long as one is alert
one should be resolved on this mindfulness

As we get more creative,
we can use the method of science...

to investigate consciousness more and more.

It's so obvious that all the animals, and
probably not only the animals, but as we said...

the mycelium and the plants,
they have an intelligence.

Quite obviously.
How they behave and react.

It's just a different kind of intelligence
that they have.

They can do things that we can't do.

Veggies.
Get some veggies.

Philosophy.

Matter matters.

For tonight's salad.

What have we learned about the retreat?

I think that they had
a very positive, deep experience.

My first time.

I was really surprised that monks who had
thousands of hours of meditation experience...

showed so much higher changes
than the placebo people.

I have to say,
I haven't landed completely yet.

What is reality actually?

It's not a hundred percent clear.

I'm exhausted.

That feeling was...

I would have loved to include you...

in my experience, but...

It is so difficult to express.
Pure energy.

It was all very overwhelming,
everything that came out...

but there was no fear.

This was my first drug experience.
What I can say for sure:

It was not an individual experience.
It was a collective thing...

so deep I can't put it into words.

It was very beautiful.

Did everybody get psychedelics?
-We don't know who got the substances.

Double-blind.

I had a good meditation in the morning...

before I took the substance.

But after a while I realised, or suspected...

that I had a placebo.

And that was a bit of a disappointment.

Then the Heart Sutra came into my mind:
'Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.'

And then I thought:
'Substance is placebo, placebo is substance.'

Something that really touched me deeply
from the beginning...

was the connectedness
with everybody in the room.

And especially with the placebo people.

That was something very special.
Life is something very special.

For me personally, the main success
is that we could even do it.

What it did, even years later,
it's five years now...

is improve the daily practice
that people have.

That has become more lively again.

All the time, I had this thin thread...

of consciousness:

Yes, this is Zazen we do...

and we are on Mount Rigi
and are doing some kind of experiment.

I mean, you know, the wonderful studies
that they do at Johns Hopkins...

and Roland Griffiths...

they had very similar things,
but they had all these...

also negatives, like fear and confusion.

To a certain degree.
Which we didn't have.

So then it would be... We could show whether
that actually has to do more with the set...

or because they're experienced meditators...

or whether it has to do more with the setting,
being out in nature, in a monastic surrounding...

rather than in a clinic.
-Sure.

And having a group session
rather than individual sessions.

Shall I continue?
The climax...

of my trip, I have to tell you,
that was the gong with you.

When you played the gong,
it contracted and then expanded again.

It was pulsating like a breath.

It was insanely beautiful.
And it really was a bit insane...

because I was sitting
and you were in my line of sight...

and then I thought for a long time:

I have the best view on you.

And I was inclined to say to the others:
'Come here.

From here you can see it better.'
And then I thought with my waking consciousness:

No, it's just me.

That was my experience.

After hearing your stories,
I have the conviction...

that I reacted very strongly on a placebo.

Because I have seen
neither layers nor colours.

Nevertheless, it was very intense.

I had the feeling that I was in a field.

An expanding field.

Either I had a weak dose,
or it was that field.

Or a strong placebo.

I remember that one of the placebo guys
said he felt with the people on the psilocybin.

They were deep in state.
And also a kind of carry-over effect.

Vice versa from placebo to psychedelics
and the other way around.

Sort of a transfer of minds.

I want to add something
to the placebo story.

As a commission member, I would have ensured
the placebo people weren't left empty-handed.

I think it's a bit unethical to recruit volunteers
for a psilocybin experiment...

with a 50 percent chance of not getting it.

The whole scientific method
is based on double-blind.

But this doesn't work with psychedelics.

After half an hour, you all knew what you had.

So the whole idea of double-blind
doesn't work here.

Of course, ideal would be
if we wouldn't have to do placebo altogether.

That's another thing.
-You think that's possible?

One could compare two different kinds of
psychedelics, if you want to have a comparison.

I was really touched, Vanja,
when you said...

the placebo people
can get psilocybin at a later stage.

That will be the healing for the placebo people.

Of course, you can say placebos work as well...

because it can also
be integrated in your meditation.

But if you make yourself available for
a psilocybin trial, you deserve psilocybin anyhow.

We found that in meditation,
certain areas of the default network...

which are concerned with enabling a self...

that the interaction of some of these regions...

becomes less connected.

These are two very important hubs or regions
in the default network.

That is important if you think about yourself.

Always when you think
about you versus others...

or you hear your name versus other names,
if it has to do something with your self...

then regions of the default network
get activated.

What we find in meditation study is
that psychedelics enhance that mechanism.

So we found that areas in the frontal cortex,
in the default part of the network...

and areas in the posterior cortex...

interact less
after people had psilocybin.

It helps to reduce egocentricity.
So that opens up to others.

You focus less on yourself.

And then the brain builds up
new connections between neurons.

It closes again.
The fog comes in again.

And you still have to do the whole journey
and the walking and so on.

But that knowledge will stay with you.

It's not something that you have to believe,
but you know it.

So that's one of the functions that psychedelics
could have, or have, for some people.

I think the use of psychedelics
and going into, let's say, a blissful state...

it's tempting to think that's the story.

But this is not the goal.
The goal is...

that in that state you see
how things are constantly changing us.

Nothing is permanent.

Well, that's the goal of the whole journey.

To be a regular person again,
at least in the Zen tradition.

Again on the marketplace.
Totally regular person. Nothing special.

Not to be...
Looks just like everybody else.

But it says: He touches a dead tree
and it falls into bloom.

So you are a transformed being.
That's the idea.

Perfect.

It's higher than the...
The wheel is higher.

We cannot turn back the wheel
and we are not in Mexico here.

We are in Switzerland and we have
our own philosophy, approaches and traditions.

But certainly we learn from the tradition,
from these shamans.

We look at these indigenous traditions
and they know a lot about it.

And we learn from them, we look at that,
but ultimately, we have to find our way.

We are in the 21st century
and we are in a modern world.

And we have to somehow...

Use that ancient lineage of knowledge...

to make it work for our situation,
which is different.

We're not living in a jungle and we're not living
in Japan in the 13th century.

Maybe if you lift it like that...
-Okay.

Yes.
-Then it goes on the wheels, right?

But they don't turn.
-No?

We go.

The wheels move, no?

It's a two-person carriage problem.

It's not a Zen meditation stuff, it's simply...
-Okay, we just carry it up.

Do what has to be done.

That's a whole lot of work.
-Exactly.

We have to be fully in this life.

We cannot escape this world.

But of course, the point is that we do live
this life, but with the knowledge of unity.

The aim is maybe not
to have this kind of experience...

but to have this kind of experience
integrated in your life.

That experience of oneness with nature.