Welcome
This site is for people who seriously practice meditation, question assumptions by default, and want clear, practice-based approaches to insight, awakening, and more.
If that sounds like you, you’re in the right place.
~ Michael Taft
Save the Date:
Michael’s Fall Online Retreat October 15-18, 2026.
Nonduality, a basic primer
Podcasts (long-form conversations)
Courses (systematic training)
About Michael
Meditation, False Insights, and Artificial Wisdom with Ruben Laukkonen
Host Michael Taft talks with neuroscientist Ruben Laukkonen about what extreme physical suffering can reveal about meditation, and why awakening may be less a grand attainment than “the grand disappointment.” They explore disenchantment, grace, synchronicity, and the possibility that faith arises naturally from our embeddedness in realities too large for us to comprehend. Ruben describes…
The Mystery of Consciousness with Michael Pollan
Host Michael Taft talks with bestselling author Michael Pollan about his new book, A World Appears, and the enduring mystery of consciousness. They explore the hidden biases of consciousness researchers, the limits of scientific materialism, the embodied nature of feeling, and what literature, meditation, psychedelics, and the arts can reveal that laboratory science cannot. The…
A Conversation with Joe Hudson
Host Michael Taft and guest Joe Hudson explore the crucial difference between awakening and liberation: why insight on the cushion does not automatically free us in relationship, shame, self-talk, or emotional reactivity. Joe reframes emotional practice as a path of awakening, inviting us not merely to accept difficult emotions, but to love them, feel them…