An hourlong guided meditation on the breath and pleasant sensations in the body, by Michael Taft for the San Francisco Dharma Collective. Often Michael’s guided meditations begin with 15 minutes of shamatha (focus and relaxation)… Read More »Just Shamatha
In this final class (4/4), Michael describes the role of emptiness plays in the model (hint: it is the central concept), and talks about how to work your way up the stack in reverse. This… Read More »Deconstructing Sensory Experience & Nondual Practice, with Michael Taft, Part 4
Nondual teacher and psychotherapist Stephan Bodian and host Michael Taft discuss how and why narcissists rise to the top of spiritual organizations, the ways that nondual traditions like Zen may be especially prone to teacher… Read More »Why Do Narcissists Become Spiritual Teachers, with Stephan Bodian
Michael Taft explains his system of understanding meditation experience. With guided meditations. In the third session of this class, we learn more about contacting sensory experience in greater and greater detail—particularly diving deeply into impermanence… Read More »Deconstructing Sensory Experience & Nondual Practice, with Michael Taft—Part 3
Part Two of a Four Part Class at San Francisco Dharma Collective. Michael Taft explains his system of understanding meditation experience. With guided meditations. In the second session of this class, we learn more about… Read More »Hacking the Stack, Pt. 2
Hourlong nondual guided meditation by Michael W. Taft at the San Francisco Dharma Collective. 0- 15 min – shamatha (relaxed focus) 15-30 min – resting in awareness 30 – 60 – Noticing the Vedanan (pleasant… Read More »Contacting Vedana
One hour guided nondual meditation by Michael Taft. When we make a sensory experience into an object, we simultaneously make ourselves into an object, too. Conversely, when we notice the emptiness of phenomena, we notice… Read More »Emptiness of Phenomena; Emptiness of Self
Hour long nondual guided meditation by Michael Taft at San Francisco Dharma Collective. 0 – 15 min – shamatha 15 – 30 min – contacting the Natural Mind (“dropping the ball” technique) 30 – 60… Read More »There but not There
Hour long guided nondual meditation by Michael Taft. – First 15 minutes: shamatha (focused relaxation) meditation. – Next effortlessly contacting the natural mind (i.e. “dropping the ball”). – Awareness noticing phenomena arising, without location, direction,… Read More »Experience without Separation
Deconstructing Sensory Experience & Nondual Practice In this first class of a four part series, Michael W. Taft discusses his model or map of sensory experience. Here he introduces the topic, then covers Levels One… Read More »Hacking the Stack, Part 1
Evan Thompson discusses his new book, “Why I Am Not a Buddhist” with host Michael Taft. Topics include the myth of Buddhist exceptionalism, how Buddhist modernism presented a false picture of Buddhism as a value-neutral… Read More »Questioning Assumptions about Buddhism, with Evan Thompson
Hour long guided nondual meditation by Michael Taft at the San Francisco Dharma Collective. First fifteen minutes are shamatha (relaxed focus). Then “dropping the ball.” Then inquiry into awareness. Want to learn more about nonduality?… Read More »Who Is Aware?
Nondual teacher and psychotherapist John Prendergast speaks with host Michael Taft about the heart area as an opening to infinite space, contacting the “dark matrix” of the ground, the body as a vibrant expression of… Read More »The Nondual Heart, with John Prendergast