Acid meditation: “Tom. Never Knows” (Beatles)

Virtue, unification of mind, and wisdom or sila, samadhi, and prajna is the long-term way.

LSD hippies, drugs, addicts (shutterstock.com)

(Part 1) Ever just want to breakthrough already? You're not really a Westerner unless you're in a hurry and wanting to muscle it like some New Yorker on her way somewhere in Manhattan.

What is it going to take!? A long stint of virtue (sila), unification of mind (samadhi), and wisdom (prajna) -- who's got time for that?

Score a hit of acid or magic mushrooms, get on the mat, crank back the Time Machine, and turn up The Beatles. Not most songs, but this one? It may not be sustainable, but I'm in a rush.

LYRICS
Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream

It is not dying, it is not dying

Lay down all thoughts, surrender to The Void*

It is shining, it is shining

That you may see the meaning of within

It is being, it is being

That love is all and love is everyone

It is knowing, it is knowing

That ignorance and hate may mourn the dead

It is believing, it is believing

But listen to the color of your dreams

It is not living, it is not living

Or play the game "Existence" to the end

Of the beginning, of the beginning

Of the beginning, of the beginning

Of the beginning, of the beginning

Of the beginning

• See Part 2: Beatles’ acid trip: “Tomorrow Never Knows”

*The working title of this song was “The Void” [Ākiṃcanyāyatana in Buddhist cosmology, the “Sphere of Nothingness”].