Question: I don’t like the fact that I smoke weed, but I absolutely can’t help it in some cases.

We won’t worry about weed per se. We’ll simply and kindly see it as a “coping mechanism”: it actually provided a temporary solution to some problems of suffering when you were younger. What’s now clear–and this wasn’t clear some years ago–is that it won’t put an end to dukkha. Therefore, you come, quite naturally, to the path of knowledge (jnana yoga).

You declare that, apparently, you can’t not smoke weed. Why is that? Let’s look more closely.

Smoking weed seems irresistible in cases where the current situation seems unbearable. You say that you’re not always craving weed, so we need to be clearer about those situations where smoking weed seems to be an obsession.

Ask yourself: “What it is seems unbearable in this situation?” Essentially, you say, you feel as if you’ve wasted your life–indeed, as if you’ve “shot yourself in the foot”–to use an American expression.

This is a good start. Now we need to go much deeper; we do so by looking at what’s “stuck” inside the body. Here’s a line of inquiry I’ve often followed:

1. Sit quietly and close your eyes. In fact, get very quiet.
2. Then use memory as a friend: “What is it that’s so unbearable about this situation that you feel the very strong urge to smoke?” I sit and wait for something to appear. I need to be patient here. Sometimes I’ll wait a good deal.
3. When a memory thought appears, let it get very vivid–as vivid as possible.
4. Next, turn inside the body, go to where it’s located, and begin to let this voice speak. This, I feel, is the essence of Focusing.
5. Once it’s spoken for as long as needed (you might say: “This one has been heard”), then all thoughts will subside. There will only be sensations.
6. Be with these sensations for a time.
7. Finally (you can’t do it wrong), gently and openly offer these sensations to the surrounding, loving space of awareness. Don’t do it with the intention of “getting rid” of them. Do it, rather, with a sense of heart-surrender, of openness.