The Night Buddha and Mother Ayahuasca Taught Me to Meditate

In October 2019, I sat with Ayahuasca for the first time.

Like many people who arrive at plant medicine, I carried questions, expectations, fears, and a lifetime of searching. I had spent 30 years studying spirituality, religion, philosophy, energy work, healing modalities, and consciousness. I thought I understood a great deal.

That night taught me how little I actually knew.

As the medicine came on, I found myself immersed in a profound visionary experience. Before me appeared the Buddha—not as a detailed figure, but as a simple black silhouette seated in the traditional lotus position. There were no facial features. No elaborate imagery. Just the unmistakable form of stillness itself.

Then she appeared.

Rising from behind the Buddha was Mother Ayahuasca.

She emerged as a magnificent Amazonian serpent, beautiful beyond words. Her scales shimmered with life and intelligence. Her eyes were enormous, luminous, and filled with wisdom. What struck me most was how feminine she felt. There was strength in her presence, but also gentleness, beauty, and grace.

She would rise above the Buddha’s head and sway slowly from side to side.

And she had only one instruction for me:

Focus.

Whenever my attention wandered, there she was.

Focus.

When my mind drifted into thoughts, stories, visions, or distractions, she would return.

Focus.

Again and again throughout the night, she brought me back to stillness.

Back to the breath.

Back to awareness.

Back to meditation.

At the time, I didn’t fully understand the significance of what was happening.

I thought I was having a visionary experience.

Years later, I realized I was being given a practical lesson.

The medicine wasn’t teaching me a philosophy.

It wasn’t asking me to adopt a belief system.

It wasn’t giving me a new doctrine to follow.

It was teaching me a skill.

Meditation.

Presence.

Attention.

The ability to remain centered amidst whatever arises.

In the years that followed, those lessons became invaluable.

As I navigated perimenopause, anxiety, panic attacks, tachycardia, health challenges, and significant life transitions, the greatest gift I carried from that ceremony was not a vision.

It was a practice.

The ability to observe my experience without being consumed by it.

The ability to return to the breath.

The ability to sit in the centre of the storm rather than being swept away by it.

Looking back now, I find something deeply symbolic in the imagery itself.

The Buddha appeared as pure stillness.

Mother Ayahuasca appeared as living wisdom.

One represented awareness.

The other represented nature, transformation, and guidance.

Together they taught a lesson that was far simpler than anything I had expected.

Be still.

Pay attention.

Everything begins there.

I often share this story because people assume spiritual growth must be complicated. They believe enlightenment, healing, awakening, or transformation require endless knowledge, endless techniques, endless searching.

My experience suggested something very different.

Sometimes the deepest teachings are the simplest.

Sometimes the lesson is not to learn more.

Sometimes the lesson is to become still enough to hear what has been there all along.

And every now and then, if you’re fortunate, a beautiful serpent rises from the darkness and reminds you to focus.

“This article describes my personal experience during a traditional Ayahuasca ceremony. I offer it not as a universal truth, but as a reflection on the lessons and insights that emerged from my own journey.”

~ Wynonah Dove