This is week three of an eight week collaboration between Michael Owens and Michael Taft. Each Sunday, Michael Owens will teach on a(t least one) chapter of the VNS. Then the following Thursday, Michael Taft… Read More »Vimalakirti 3B/8 – The Inconceivable Liberation
Writer, translator, teacher, and business consultant, Ken McLeod speaks with host Michael Taft about Coronavirus, social distancing, nature doing what it does, overcoming cultural conditioning, enlightenment as a “system change,” practices for overcoming cultural conditioning… Read More »Vajrayana, Compassion, and the Importance of the Teacher, with Ken McLeod
This is week two of an eight week collaboration between Michael Owens and Michael Taft. Each Sunday, Michael Owens will teach on a(t least one) chapter of the VNS. Then the following Thursday, Michael Taft… Read More »Entering the Dharma Door of Non-Duality: The Vimalakirti Experience – Michael Taft – Part 2/8
Sometimes the best meditation practice is simply to surrender. This post is about how to let go. For many years, I took my meditation practice very seriously. I dedicated a significant portion of my life… Read More »Just Let Go — Surrender Everything in Meditation
Guided meditation by Michael Taft, inspired by Chapter One of the Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra. This is week one of an eight week collaboration between Michael Owens and Michael Taft. Each Sunday, Michael Owens will teach… Read More »Entering the Dharma Door of Non-Duality: The Vimalakirti Experience, Part 1
aka: Ultra-dropping the Ball Guided nondual meditation by Michael Taft, in an undisclosed location, for the San Francisco Dharma Collective. For the last 30 meditations or so, we have often used Michael’s technique, called “dropping… Read More »Dropping the Ultra Ball
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