Host Michael Taft speaks with clinical psychologist and life coach, Douglas Tataryn, Ph.D. about meditation and psychology. Topics include his work with meditation teachers such as Culadasa, the “wake up, clean up, grow up, and look around” model, Wilber’s integral model. working with trauma and the dark night, and his system of emotional processing known as the Bio-Emotive Framework. Douglas …
Awareness Aware of Awareness
One hour guided meditation by Michael Taft on contacting vast, spacious awareness. Ends at 1:00:54 Then dharma talk and Q&A. This is a variation on the age-old technique created by Dogen (1200–1253 c.e.) called eko hensho in Japanese. This means “turn the light around” or in other words to look at awareness using awareness. When attempting to talk about awareness …
Guided Sleep Meditation – Relaxation
Listen to this guided sleep meditation. It will help you to enjoy relaxed, natural sleep without drugs or medication. Guided by meditation teacher Michael Taft. Here is the audio-only version of the same meditation: Download audio using Right Click here. Duration: 33:53 Play this audio when you want to …
Loch Kelly on Awareness, Freedom, and Effortless Mindfulness
Host Michael Taft speaks with Loch Kelly on nondual practices, contemporary forms of ancient awareness techniques, dzogchen, mahamudra, advaita, the role of psychotherapy in awakening, the need—or not—for a guru, open-hearted awareness, internal family systems therapy, and more. Loch Kelly is an author, meditation teacher, psychotherapist, and founder of the non-profit, Open-Hearted Awareness Institute. Loch teaches in a non-sectarian lineage …
Dissolving into Vast Spacious Awareness
One hour guided Nondual Meditation by Michael W. Taft. Begins with breath awareness, then contacting vast, spacious awareness, then dissolving into awareness with each exhale. Finally, noticing the vivid and shocking quality of sensory display. Ends at 1:02:45 Followed by a talk about the differing philosophies of the three Buddhist vehicles, and Q&A.
Best Meditation Books 2019
by Michael W. Taft There are zillions of books on meditation, but there are very few I would recommend, especially for somebody just starting out. Below you’ll find just the books I feel are the most helpful and clear; the best meditation books in 2019. Mindfulness Meditation Books Currently, by far the best book for learning to meditate in the …
Three Vehicle Investigation
A Guided Meditation with Michael Taft In this guided meditation, Michael W. Taft investigates experience through the lenses of the Three Vehicles of Buddhist practice. After an opening breath meditation and focusing exercise, we contact vast, spacious awareness (i.e. Mahayana emptiness), proceed to observe the arising of experience (i.e. Theravada vipassana), and then notice experience bursting forth from emptiness with …
Transcript – Culadasa on Meditation and Therapy
Note: you can listen to the original podcast interview here. Michael: Welcome to Deconstructing Yourself, the podcast for modern mutants interested in mindfulness, meditation, awakening, Mahamudra, and much more. My name is Michael Taft, your host on the podcast. And in this episode, I’m speaking with meditation teacher, neuroscientist, and author John Yates, known to the world as Culadasa. Culadasa …
Culadasa on Meditation and Therapy
In this special episode, Culadasa talks about the domains of meditation and psychotherapy, where their areas of effectiveness overlap and where they don’t. He also shares a powerful personal story of his own emotional processing work after awakening—why it was needed and how it helped. Culadasa has been practicing Buddhist meditation for over four decades, and is the director of …
Allowing Vast, Open Awareness to Do Vipassana
Michael Taft leads a guided meditation at the San Francisco Dharma Collective, demonstrating how to contact vast, spacious awareness. Then using that awareness to do vipassana. This technique completely flips around the usual method of doing vipassana, bringing an experience of crisp, clear, bright, vivid, equanimous that is utterly effortless. Meditation lasts one hour, ending at about 1:01:00 Then dharma …
Directly Investigating Awareness
In this guided meditation, Michael Taft leads practitioners at the San Francisco Dharma Collective through a progressive series of shamatha exercises, followed by vipashyana on awareness itself. Often we think of vipashyana (vipassana) as applying to sensations only. For instance we might investigate a body sensations phenomenologically. However, we can also investigate awareness itself. Often this takes the form of …
Awareness Has No Center
Guided meditation (about 55 min) on emptiness by Michael Taft at the San Francisco Dharma Collective. Noticing that awareness has no center, and that every part of awareness is equally aware. From the viewpoint of Mind, all content arises in awareness. Self and world arise in the field of awareness. This means that awareness has no center point, no place …
The World Is Inside You
Guided Meditation with Michael Taft The world of our perceptions is a fabrication of the mind. We do not perceive the external world directly, but rather through the inputs of our sense organs. This input is then assembled (i.e. fabricated) in the brain (based on memory, best-guesses, unconscious biases, etc.) and then projected into the conscious mind. Most nondual meditation …