Some Buddhists fall for “the peace trap”. All they want is to be calm and impassible. Preferably all the time. Nirvana is basically apatheia – the Stoic virtue of indifferent detachment. Shamanism is different. In ceremony we begin with meditation and with peace and quiet. We start with calm, with a balanced sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. But that’s just the beginning.
Shamanic rituals are intensely stimulating and energizing. You feel like everything is activated at the same time, like you are being flooded with life energy, filled with the holy spirit, singing the body electric. But then you need to calm down and come down. You need to soothe your overstimulated nervous system. You need to regain your balance. (What you don’t need is a kundalini emergency!)
The deeper spiritual lesson is this: seek peace but don’t be attached to peace. Life is a dance: peace and excitement, stillness and movement, equanimity and passion, joy and suffering. Shamanic training is training in the art of “coming up” and “coming down”, of intense flights and gentle landings, of self-transcendence and self-soothing.
Expect a wild ride but don’t make it an unnecessarily bumpy one through resistance. Go with the flow.
Peace.
bread of life 