There are important opportunities coming up. Midterm elections, marches, strikes, school board meetings, conversations with neighbors. It’s going to be sad, and enraging, and terrifying—even disgusting at times—but our practice has trained us to handle… Read More »Stay with the Grief
Host Michael Taft speaks with entrepreneur and meditator Stephen Zerfas on using technology to potentially enhance the learning of the jhanas, Zerfas’ background in meditation and jhana practice, and the vision of scaling adoption of… Read More »Jhanas, Technology, and Tradition with Stephen Zerfas
Host Michael Taft talks with teacher Shinzen Young about Shinzen’s decades-long dream of computer-based meditation instruction, his current creation of a rule-based, expert system based on Artificial Intelligence, the upcoming major upheavals in science and… Read More »Can You Learn Meditation from an AI? – with Shinzen Young
And so Earth energy is rising up spreading out through the trunk and branches and leaves of the tree. This ancient, grounded, humble energy that is paradoxically both humble and noble. And the branches of… Read More »The Tree of Earth and Sky
Sometimes when we’re just resting as awareness, doing nothing, we want it to be a certain way, we want it to be peaceful. But awareness itself is always peaceful. We want it to make sense… Read More »Meditating on the Stream of Thought
Host Michael Taft speaks with author, science journalist, and psychology nerd David McRaney about what sorts of conversations actually cause human beings to change their minds; the fascinating on-the-ground research of groups like Street Epistemology… Read More »Changing Minds with David McRaney
Host Michael Taft speaks with artist, bodyworker, and philosopher Guy Sengstock about the origin and creation of Circling practice, how the asynchronous qualities of new technologies have created a deeper hunger for basic human contact,… Read More »A Conversation with Guy Sengstock
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… Read More »Deconstructing the Sense of Self – Feb, 2019
In this episode host Michael Taft speaks with meditation teacher, neuroscientist, and author John Yates, also known as Culadasa. Topics covered include: Are more people achieving stream entry these days?, a clear definition of stream… Read More »DY 022 – “Are More People Achieving Stream Entry These Days?” – with guest Culadasa
In this episode emotions researcher and meditation teacher Eve Ekman speaks with Michael W. Taft about embodied emotions, the difference between suppression and healthy expression, impermanence of sensation and moment by moment contact with emotion,… Read More »Emotions, Stress, and Heartbreak – with Eve Ekman
In this special one-year anniversary episode, Shinzen Young talks with host Michael W. Taft about becoming a meditation teacher, the unrealistic paradigm about what meditation delivers, Shinzen’s codependency disaster, Bill Hamilton, the great unsung hero… Read More »Why Good Teachers Go Bad – with Shinzen Young
Leigh Brasington speaks with host Michael W. Taft about Dependent Arising. Dependent Arising, also called Dependent Origination, is a Buddhist theory of reality that is famously complex, arcane, important, and fascinating. In this episode they… Read More »Deconstructing Dependent Arising – with Leigh Brasington
A transcript of episode 10 of the Deconstructing Yourself podcast. Taft: Welcome to Deconstructing Yourself, the podcast for modern mutants interested in mindfulness, meditation, awakening and more. My name is Michael Taft, your host on… Read More »Culadasa Interview: Attention, Awareness, and the Great Adventure