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Mu

Roger Thisdell on Centerlessness, Cessations, Defabrication, Valence, and Insight

Oct 3, 2022
01:32:14

Roger Thisdell is a long time meditator who over the years has managed to increase his baseline of well-being to a level much higher than the norm. Rodger's mind now features a permanent sense of centerlessness where there is a lack of the sense of an epistemic agent at the center. He aims to help others achieve similar well-being, unperturbability, and freedom from suffering.  

Follow Rodger: https://www.rogerthisdell.com/

Join the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Mu_Podcast 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5VYkm1iU0tmbBvJohdTZcv?si=4be5c4df79fc4aa8 

ApplePodcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mu/id1640125881

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LucasFMPerry

Timestamps: 

0:00 Intro 
3:15 What is suffering? 
4:29 What is contraction? 
8:12 Why does contraction entail suffering? 
9:21 The relationship between truth and freedom
10:58 How do we defabricate experience? 
13:57 Rodger’s spiritual path 
15:21 Practices for defabricating experience 
17:37 What are the stages of awakening 
18:34 Different paths to the same thing? 
24:23 What’s Rodger’s current experience like?
29:16 There is only negative valence and its attenuation 
35:16 Does taking a bunch of MDMA not add positive valence? 
37:35 The void at the center of the soul 
39:18 Meditation instructions 
46:37 How does insight work? 
49:56 Insight practice on the sense of separate self 
54:57 The will as a way of maintaining separate self
57:55 Cessation, true nature, and neither perception nor non-perception 
1:04:35 Practicing the jhanas 
1:16:25 Cessation and nirvikalpa samadhi
1:19:47 Is the void preferable to highly defabricated consciousness? 
1:24:11 How does this all fit into the 21st century? 
1:26:40 Using insights from meditation for architecting new minds 
1:28:48 Immoral behavior as a failure to see the truth 
1:30:23 Where to follow and find out more about Rodger

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