Why do we actually meditate?
Once the process is described, a question remains that is as simple as it is uncomfortable: why? There is no single answer. Each person approaches the practice with different motivations, and one should be wary of anyone offering a closed objective. Even so, contemplative traditions agree on one thing: we meditate to be more present, to sustain attention, and to better understand how our own mind functions.
The procedure is simple in its statement and demanding in its maintenance. The mind tends to disperse into a chain of linked thoughts—what the Buddhist tradition calls “chatter”—and returning again and again to the point of attention requires consistency more than technique. There is no shortcut that can replace that patient repetition.
Two paths toward a less shackled mind
Cannabis also modifies mental processes, and some of those changes resemble, in subjective description, what those who meditate report: attention rests on small details, previously unnoticed nuances are perceived, and the habitual flow of thought is altered. Hence, historically, different cultures have associated both paths.
However, it is best not to confuse similarity with equivalence. Meditation works through a voluntary and sustained effort of attention; cannabis acts on the circuits of attention and short-term memory by modifying brain chemistry. The former is training; the latter is a transient pharmacological intervention. That the phenomenological result overlaps at some point does not mean that the mechanism, stability, or consequences are the same.
Literature on cannabis describes effects of emotional distancing and perceived stress attenuation, but also a highly variable response between people: in some cases, anxiety, rumination, or discomfort appears instead of calm. It is not a neutral or predictable tool, and that variability is exactly what the slow, reproducible practice of meditation lacks.
The “content-free” state: an idea that needs nuance
We spend our lives articulating sequences of thought. What would it be like to have nothing in consciousness? The question is slipperier than it seems. Consciousness occurs when two things connect: the perception of something—internal or external—and the perception of oneself. All of this happens on a physical substrate, networks of neurons communicating without pause.
That is why the popular idea of “blanking the mind” is misleading. What the traditions describe is not the literal absence of mental activity—impossible while there is life—but a different relationship with contents: ceasing to identify with every thought, not pulling on every thread that appears. When we do not get entangled with situations or our own reactions, the response becomes calmer because we are no longer dragged along by the circumstance. “I am myself and my circumstance,” wrote Ortega; the contemplative nuance adds that we can also choose how we relate to it.
Some traditions use mantras: repeated words that saturate meaning and displace the usual logical flow. The phenomenon has a daily echo: repeat the same word in a low voice for a couple of minutes—even your own name—and you will notice how it empties of meaning and begins to sound strange. That momentary loss of meaning illustrates to what extent the meaning we give to things is an active construction, not a fixed datum.
The uncontrollability of the mind and its emotions
One of the most curious—and problematic—properties of the mind is that it does not allow itself to be fully governed. We can decide to raise an arm or not; we cannot decide to stop thinking. Try not to think about anything for ten seconds. You will not succeed, and that is normal: the brain keeps its circuits in continuous activity, so that when you “open” the field of attention, anything occupies it.
The problem is that those chains of thought arrive tinged with the emotions that accompanied them: discomfort when remembering something painful, sadness at a loss, joy at a good moment. From the Zen perspective, what is not “here and now” distracts from the present. It is not that remembering is bad, but that we must recognize when the past prevents us from living in the present. Meditation, at this point, offers training: treating thoughts as what they are, phenomena that only exist in our heads and that only disturb us if we allow them to.
The goal is not indifference or emotional anesthesia. It is a more neutral and equanimous state in the face of problems, which preserves the reference point of calm without falling into disproportionate responses. Recognizing the difference between the serene state of practice and the activation of daily life is, in fact, what allows us to notice how much a situation is affecting us and to seek a point of regulation.
Receiving the experience: separating perception from action
Neither meditation nor any substance eliminates thought: it only ceases when brain activity stops. What can be trained is receiving an experience and letting it be, without the obligation to respond immediately. We are educated from the cradle to react to almost everything; allowing something to happen without acting opens a breathing space and, with practice, the possibility of responding only when necessary and in the right measure.
That exercise trains a useful attitude: separating perception from action. Think of someone who complains constantly. If we try to refute them, we will waste energy and likely end up angry. If, instead, we listen without arguing, we might come to see what function that complaint serves—often, avoiding having to change what one is lamenting. That is why our solutions are rarely well-received: solutions were not requested. Contemplating without reacting automatically does not mean passivity; it means that acting, or not, becomes a voluntary decision.
Critical reading
This text belongs to the realm of reflection and contemplative experience, not clinical evidence. It is worth keeping this in mind when reading the analogies between meditation and cannabis.
- Similarity is not equivalence. That two states are described similarly does not imply they share mechanisms or long-term effects. Meditation is reproducible and reversible; cannabis introduces pharmacological variables and highly disparate individual responses.
- Cannabis is not a reliable anxiolytic. What produces serene distancing in one person triggers anxiety or rumination in another. In people with a predisposition to psychotic or anxiety disorders, consumption can aggravate the condition. It is not an innocuous tool for “deepening” meditation.
- Beware of idealization. The idea of a state of absolute calm or a “content-free mind” is a useful metaphor, not a literally achievable goal. Taking it literally can generate frustration or experiences of depersonalization.
- Support matters. Working through difficult emotions in altered states of consciousness without a framework or adequate support can stir up painful material without containment. A guide with serious training is not an ornament: it is a safeguard.
As a conclusion to the series, the takeaway is modest: contemplative practice, sustained with patience and, when appropriate, with competent support, can be good training for inhabiting one’s own mind with more calm. Everything else—including the role of any substance—belongs to a terrain where prudence is worth more than promises.
