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Nondual Freedom within Flow and Openness

You can say that awakeness itself, space itself, is breathing; space itself is thinking; space itself is becoming somebody who feels like they are doing something. But never fixating there. Flowing back into energy, back into boundless open awakeness without any ground at all; nowhere to land, no box to put it in. You may notice an exuberance, a kind of background joy, a kind of deep pleasantness that comes with just letting this flow of experience flow without ever crystallizing into any particular thing. Continuously aware of the groundless openness at the core of it, and yet, the vivid and exuberant display of all experience. 

nondual meditation

The Simplest Thing

When we’re caught up in thinking, it’s like we’ve put ourselves in a cage. The minute you drop engagement with the thought. Again, the thoughts can still happen, we’re not stopping, we’re dropping the engagement. The minute you drop the thought, you’re out of the cage! 

mahakala

The Magic of Vajrayana with Ken McLeod, Part 2 Transcript

My name is Michael Taft, your host on the podcast, and in this episode, I’m speaking, once again, with Ken McLeod. Ken McLeod began his study and practice of Buddhism in 1970 under the eminent Tibetan master Kalu Rinpoche. After completing two three-year retreats, he was appointed as resident teacher for Kalu Rinpoche Center in Los Angeles, where he developed innovative approaches to teaching and translation. After his teacher’s death in 1989, Ken established Unfettered Mind, a place for those whose path lies outside established institutions. His many published works include Wake Up To Your Life, A Trackless Path, and his brand new book entitled The Magic Of Vajrayana. And now without further ado, I give you part two of the episode called “The Magic of Vajrayana with Ken McLeod.”

aizenstat imagination

The Power of the Imaginal with Stephen Aizenstat

Host Michael Taft talks with “Boss Jungian of Planet Earth” Stephen Aizenstat about diving into the depths of our authentic creativity, finding purpose in the imaginal, the perils and promise of AI with regards to the human imagination, and asks the question: is working with the imagination simply a narcissistic bourgeois indulgence in this time of unprecedented worldwide existential peril, or might the imaginal actually be a source of our salvation?

Contacting the Spaciousness Within

Now, let this expression, this vibratory, vivacious, exuberant brocade of experience, reflect back on its own stillness, silence, darkness that is both its origin, its destination, and its current existence, and just feel grateful. Feel gratitude for this experience. Gratitude that anything is happening at all. The most unlikely thing in the world is that anything is happening at all. Gratitude for this moment.

Almaas

Nondual Love with A. H. Almaas

Host Michael Taft speaks with teacher, author, and founder of the Diamond Approach to Self-Realization A. H. Almaas on the topic of Nondual Love, the qualities of awareness itself, the five dimensions of our fundamental nature, the differences between individual love and nondual love, the importance of being human, and how to know yourself as a “boundless ocean of nectar.” 

The Magic of Vajrayana with Ken McLeod Transcript

My name is Michael Taft, your host on the podcast, and in this episode, I’m speaking once again with Ken MacLeod. Ken MacLeod began his study and practice of Buddhism in 1970 under the eminent Tibetan master Kalu Rinpoche. After completing two three-year retreats, he was appointed as resident teacher for Kalu Rinpoche’s Center in Los Angeles, where he developed innovative approaches to teaching and translation. After his teacher’s death in 1989, Ken established Unfettered Mind, a place for those whose path lies outside established institutions. His many published works include Wake Up To Your Life, A Trackless Path, and his brand new book entitled The Magic of Vajrayana. And now I give you the episode of Deconstructing Yourself that I call “The Magic of Vajrayana with Ken MacLeod.”

full moon compassion

The Full Moon of Compassion

The moon of bodhicitta, the moon of your own deepest already existing primordial purity. And so the light of this moon is reaching out and touching you with a sense of tremendous compassion. It’s very kind, very loving, it’s really open; it’s delighting in your presence rather than judgmental; and you feel a real sense of friendship and warmth and being known and understood. Furthermore, this moon is tremendously wise and confident. It has perfect confidence and authenticity. It is what it is. And you feel, again, these waves of wisdom, clarity, confidence, authenticity, even nobility pouring from the moon into you.

Hareesh

Tantra and Embodied Awakening with Christopher Wallis

Host Michael W. Taft speaks with Tantra scholar and teacher Christopher Wallis about the word “enlightenment” in English and the words in Sanskrit it is typically the translation for; the differences between awakening and liberation; karma, samskara, and the deep unconscious; the importance of spiritual practices that include the body versus a more mental orientation, the teachings of Abhinavagupta, and the centrality of embodied awakening.

noticing

What Is Noticing?

It’s this radiant, vibrant display in awareness rippling with color, light, sound, feeling, energy and yet also oddly unfindable or unlocatable and even what knows it is unknown. Now when I sound this bell. What’s the question? The question is what knows this sound?

Reverse Meditation with Andrew Holecek

Join host Michael Taft as he speaks with meditation teacher and author Andrew Holecek about “reverse meditation,” the practice of using difficult experiences as the focus of our meditation, how this moves us through our perceived limits and allows us to recognize the perfection of the moment, and allows us to make any situation a profound and excellent meditation.