Michael Taft leads a 55 minute guided meditation at the San Francisco Dharma Collective. Relaxing attention until awareness is even in all directions, and the mind appears like sky. Interested in nondual meditation? Click here sky photo by Bill Tyne
Let Go of Grasping – Guided Meditation
Michael Taft leads a 50 minute guided meditation on not grasping onto anything (essentially a variation on shikantaza). Followed by Q&A about pain, suffering, grasping, the 4 Noble Truths (actually just the first two), and the importance of being the kind of dog who drops the ball More on Letting go. photo by Ashtyn Warner
Befriending Your Mind
In this guided meditation, we dive again into the territory of meditating on the activity of the mind. It’s not about controlling, dominating, changing, or stopping your thoughts. Instead, it’s all about making friends with the 3 lbs. of yogurt sloshing around in your cranium. Extra-length 50 minute guided meditation. Followed by Q&A session featuring the “bait ball” metaphor of …
Meditation for the End of Civilization, with Rick Hanson, Ph.D.
Host Michael W. Taft speaks with bestselling author and meditation teacher Rick Hanson about how to maintain resilience in the face of the coming potential collapse of civilization, the problem with agriculture, meditation methods to build inner strengths, Rick’s upcoming book Neuro-dharma, and more. Rick Hanson, PhD, is a psychologist, Senior Fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC …
What Is the Best Meditation App in 2019?
Wondering what are the best meditation apps? Look no further. Here you will find the best meditation app for your needs. The last decade has seen a revolution in the millennia-old traditions of teaching and learning meditation. With the arrival of the smartphone, there has arisen the possibility of the a meditation teacher that is always available, always with you, …
How to Escape the Observer Trap
Michael Taft leads a guided mindfulness meditation (from beginning until about 45:00). Variations on open monitoring. Then a Q&A that covers escaping the observer trap (i.e. the feeling of being the one controlling the meditation) as well as comments about the the history of modern Vipassana. Includes gift of radical permission to experiment with your practice in whatever way you …
Am I Awake Right Now?
by Michael W. Taft Sometimes when we talk about awakening, we are talking about an event in the past, with the implication that that awakening is permanent or still happening. “I got awakened two years ago, and now I am awake.” It’s as if you said, “Look at my cool tattoo, I got it two years ago.” This is not …
The Liberating Practice of the Fire Kasina – with Daniel Ingram
Author and meditation teacher Daniel Ingram speaks with host Michael W. Taft about how the Fire Kasina practice can be used as an insight practice. Subjects include: the background of kasina practice in the Thervada tradition, using kasinas to go into jhana, how vipassana practice interacts with jhana practice, meditation on the Three Characteristics, and detailed instructions for doing the …
How to Enter Jhana – a Guided Meditation
In this program at the San Francisco Dharma Collective, Michael Taft leads a guided meditation (approx 44 min long) on the method for getting into the first jhana. Then a talk on how to to get into jhana, followed by a Q&A session. Contains the rare teaching of how entering a jhana is like going to an Iggy Pop concert …
Meditation, Madness, and Psychology, with Tucker Peck
Tucker Peck, meditation teacher and clinical psychologist, talks with host Michael Taft about how whether awakening (both in the traditional “stream entry” sense or in other definitions) actually “fixes” a person’s psychology or not. Topics include: the validity of the Progress of Insight model, Tucker’s hellacious Dark Night experience and the dukkha ñanas in general, when to switch from shamatha …
Buddhism as Complete Culture
by Shaun Bartone What I found stifling about Western Buddhist practice is the obsessive focus on meditation as the paramount practice. What is completely lacking in modern Buddhist communities is a culture that is creative and productive, that grows and transforms, that generates new cultural forms, new ways of life. The singular focus on meditation becomes, as Vince Horn called …
Deconstructing the Sense of Self – Feb, 2019
In this program at the San Francisco Dharma Collective, Michael Taft leads a guided meditation (approx 43 min long) on the “focus in” technique (aka “Deconstructing the Sense of Self”) . Then a talk on how to deconstruct the sense of self, followed by a Q&A session. Subscribe to Michael Taft’s Youtube channel to get more great videos as they …
DY 032 – “Embodying Awakening” – with Mukti
Nondual spiritual teacher Mukti talks with host Michael Taft about the debate between the Direct and Progressive paths of realization, working with energetics and embodiment, her childhood background in the Self Realization Fellowship of Paramahansa Yogananada, pointing out the sense of space in realization, her own experience of awakening, and more. Mukti is a spiritual teacher, whose name originates in …