In this episode, host Michael Taft speaks with meditation teacher Loch Kelly about what comes after the first glimpse. They distinguish “waking up”—recognizing openness, stillness, the absence of a separate self—from “waking with,” in which… Read More »Awakening and Flow States with Loch Kelly
Days after narrowly surviving a catastrophic flood, meditation teacher Delson Armstrong joins Michael Taft to consider what remains when spiritual ideas fall away. Their conversation explores primal awareness, the spiritual ego, and Delson’s forthcoming collection… Read More »A Conversation with Delson Armstrong
The conversations range across awareness, freedom, anxiety, grief, awakening, compassion, the sense of self, and what practice looks like inside an ordinary life. They are not essays or prepared teachings. I kept the movement of… Read More »More Than Enough Room
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,… Read More »Meditation, False Insights, and Artificial Wisdom with Ruben Laukkonen
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,… Read More »The Mystery of Consciousness with Michael Pollan
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… Read More »A Conversation with Joe Hudson
And so to find those places where we really got that kind of energy and—not in a massively guilty or shameful or even you know fervorous way try to deconstruct it, but rather, just, in… Read More »Joy and Gratitude: A Practice in Nondual Presence
So, in one sense this is nondual meditation. We’re not focusing on something. We’re not trying to focus on something. That’s a different kind of meditation, which is fine. Nothing wrong with that. But here,… Read More »Letting Go of All Contraction
Host Michael Taft interviews meditation teacher Wystan about teaching awakening outside a strict lineage framework, cultural translation of Buddhist practice, why awakening does not “come with a Buddhist label,” the tension between preserving traditional forms… Read More »A Conversation with Wystan
Who’s even trying to meditate? Who is meditating? Just look—see if you can find that individual. All you find is vast spacious awakeness with no friction, no impedance, no constriction at all. It’s just boundless… Read More »Openness Energy Awake
Try to find to whom the experiences are happening. All you can find are sensations arising in space and feelings moving through timeless openness. All of it is the appearance. What knows the appearance? And… Read More »The Miracle of Existence
And if you sit with this for a little while, you may notice something odd, which is that the flow of body sensation in space is not really very different than the flow of thought… Read More »Self-Liberation of Thought and All Experience
There are important opportunities coming up. Midterm elections, marches, strikes, school board meetings, conversations with neighbors. It’s going to be sad, and enraging, and terrifying—even disgusting at times—but our practice has trained us to handle… Read More »Stay with the Grief