In this session, host Michael W. Taft and radical dharma author and practitioner Daniel Ingram discuss the Fire Kasina practice, meditation and magick, working with archetypal forces and entities, Daniel’s description of a fruition experience, siddhis and visionary experiences, Daniel’s wizarding worldview, and much more. We also discuss the second edition of his classic work Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, as well as his new book on the Fire Kasina.
Daniel Ingram is an emergency medicine physician and long-time dharma practitioner. He famously exploded the Buddhist world when he declared himself to be an arhat and published the seminal text Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: an Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book in 2008. He is also the main force behind the radical Dharma Overground website, which he founded together with Vince Horn, that specializes in a brand of unusually-frank discussion of meditation practice.
You can learn more about Daniel at his website, www.integrateddaniel.info.
You can download a free PDF of The Fire Kasina book here.
Show Notes
00:25 – Introduction and overview
2:10 – Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha 2, its purpose and release
4:55 – The fire kasina: what it is, what happens as concentration increases, and how it provides immediate feedback on the strength of concentration
8:01 – Fire kasina’s benefits beyond concentration: insight, crafting your reality, fusion of śamatha and vipassanā
12:57 – The awakening components of fire kasina practice, fruitions
17:28 – The ontological status of deities seen during fire kasina practice and the meaning of joint powers experiences
22:50 – Daniel’s fire kasina experiences and teaching the practice to others
29:42 – The line between madness and meditation
35:30 – Siddhis, synchronicities, and the collective unconscious
40:22 – Daniel’s cutting edge in practice and use of magick
51:24 – Dzogchen and the post-magickal
59:19 – Deconstructing sensory experience into fruition
1:10:44 – What meditation teachers get wrong: lack of warning about potential dangers
1:21:49 – The cross-pollination and experimentation the internet affords the meditation scene
1:24:51 – The Fire Kasina, a book with Shannon Stein
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Listen to more with Daniel Ingram.
Amazing character, I’ve just listen it today. And I started to link the practice of fire kasina with the practice of the Sunyoga, that I have learned from a yogi: Sunyogi Umashankar.
Thanks a lot
Glad you liked it, David. Interesting practice.
This simply an awesome and extremely informative interview, LOVE IT!
That was an extremely cool conversation. I especially appreciated the part about what is lacking in terms of blending in fore-warnings and a support network for spiritual meditation crisis etc. In conversation Daniel also comes over as much less aggressive and confrontational than he sounds in his MTCBT book. Also I don’t think he mentions his medical ER work in it. He shows a much more compassionate side here – the over-wprked helper syndrome. Great. Please keep it coming