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… Read More »DY 032 – “Embodying Awakening” – with Mukti
A Conversation with Erik Davis Note: This is a transcript of a podcast episode. If you find any mistakes, please let me know. Michael: Welcome to Deconstructing Yourself. My name is Michael Taft and in… Read More »Meditation, Psychedelics, and High Weirdness
Buddhist scholar Jayarava Attwood speaks with host Michael Taft about the history of the Pali Canon, how ideas about karma & dependent arising contradict each other, the shifting grounds under the apparent solidity of the… Read More »Deconstructing the Heart Sutra, with Jayarava Attwood
by Michael W. Taft Awakening and psychological growth are largely orthogonal. While one can definitely help the other, they are entirely different things. You can be very awake and still be a total asshole (as… Read More »Awakening & Psychological Growth
Michael Taft leads a guided meditation (about 40 minutes) and then answers questions from students. Topics center around aspects of attention in practice, using Zoom In and Zoom Out techniques — i.e. narrowly focused attention… Read More »Awareness and Attention
by Michael W. Taft The next time you’re talking to yourself, in your mind, ask yourself this question: Who or what is talking to whom? Are there two people in your head, one that is… Read More »How to Deconstruct Yourself
Michael Taft speaks with Erik Davis about author Robert Anton Wilson, anarchism in the 1970s, Terrence McKenna, P.K. Dick, psychedelics, cultures of awakening now and then, Zen practice, and more. Erik Davis is an author,… Read More »Robert Anton Wilson, High Weirdness, and Buddhist Meditation – with Erik Davis
(This is a transcript of a podcast interview. If you notice any mistakes, please let me know.) Chandra Easton and Michael Taft talk about gender and sexual misconduct in Buddhism, why compassion must be a… Read More »Feminism, Sexual Misconduct, and the Guru in Buddhism: An Interview with Chandra Easton
Host Michael Taft speaks with Joscha Bach about artificial intelligence; the sense of self; building a civilizational intellect; what it is like to be a mind?; the relationships between motivation, emotion, and behavior; the “cargo… Read More »What Can AI Tell Us about the Human Mind? – with Joscha Bach
by Michael W. Taft I recently went to the Fire Kasina retreat on Denman Island, in British Columbia. The group was hosted by Lama Shannon Stein, at a tiny Tibetan Buddhist retreat center on the… Read More »Fire Kasina Hints for Shinzen Meditators
by Michael W. Taft Walter Stace was a British civil servant who became an important author and a pioneer in the philosophy of mysticism. While serving in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) for many years, including… Read More »Nonduality, Stace, and the Analysis of Mystical Experience
Daniel Ingram and Michael Taft talk about the Fire Kasina practice, how making mental objects the focus can lead to deep awakening, balancing wisdom and faith, processing trauma with meditation practice, and how beauty can… Read More »Doubt, Faith, and Fun in Meditation Practice – with Daniel Ingram
by Michael W. Taft Western psychology has also described something that seems to be the nondual state, although it appears to have been a direct import from India. Freud first discussed what he called the… Read More »Nonduality, Freud, and the Oceanic Feeling