In this episode special guest Leigh Brasington, Buddhist meditation teacher and author of ‘Right Concentration, A Practical Guide to the Jhanas’, joins the ongoing conversation featuring:
- Shinzen Young, meditation teacher and neuroscience research consultant
- Chelsey Fasano, a Columbia University neuroscience student,
- Dr Jay Sanguinetti, Assistant Director for the Center for Consciousness Studies and Research Professor at the University of New Mexico
In this episode Leigh shares his work with jhana meditation and neuroscience, summarising his 2013 paper ‘Case Study of Ecstatic Meditation’ and showing his brain scans in profound states of samadhi.
Dr Sanguinetti offers his own interpretation of Leigh’s scans, and Chelsey asks why mystics report states of nothingness as so much more satisfying than the mundane pleasures associated with the reward systems of the brain.
Listen in as Shinzen and Leigh, old friends with decades of elite-level meditation experience, engage in far reaching discussions of samadhi, , the nature of spiritual insights, deathlessness vs immortality, bliss and the cosmic leela, and what foundational math debates about set vs category have to say about Buddhist notions of paticca-samuppada.
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Video version: https://www.guruviking.com/ep110-case-study-of-ecstatic-meditation-leigh-brasington-shinzen-young-chelsey-fasano-dr-sanguinetti/
Also available on Youtube, iTunes, & Spotify – search ‘Guru Viking Podcast’.
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Topics Include:
00:00 - Intro
01:22 - Leigh overviews his work in jhana meditation and neuroscience
06:10 - Leigh’s brain scans in jhana states
10:26 - What are the jhanas?
15:32 - Dr Sanguinetti comments on Leigh’s brain scans
17:50 - Samadhi and the positive feedback loop
26:53 - Shinzen and Leigh on foundational math, set vs category, and paticca-samuppada
39:42 - Why is no-self so fulfilling?
47:00 - Shinzen and Leigh on death
54:07 - Jhanas are just the warm-up
01:00:01 - What are spiritual insights and why are they so rewarding?
01:08:29 - Dr Sanguinetti comments on nested levels and jhana practice protocol
01:16:30 - Retraining the default mode to nothingness
01:22:34 - A test of spiritual liberation and sensory deprivation hallucination
01:33:19 - Attention both amplifies and inhibits
01:35:37 - ‘The Emperor’s New Mind’
01:38:37 - SODAPI
01:40:59 - Bliss and the Cosmic Leela
01:50:47 - Three Gates of Liberation
01:55:31 - Immortality project vs deathlessness
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Previous episodes in this series:
- https://www.guruviking.com/ep72-shinzen-young-and-chelsey-fasano-tantra-neuroscience-and-true-enlightenment/
- https://www.guruviking.com/ep76-shinzen-young-chelsey-fasano-2-the-science-of-enlightenment/
- https://www.guruviking.com/ep81-shinzen-young-chelsey-fasano-3-orgasm-epilepsy-mystical-experience/
- https://www.guruviking.com/ep86-bliss-enlightenment-fristonian-physics-feat-chelsey-fasano-shinzen-young-dr-jay-sanguinetti/
- https://www.guruviking.com/ep94-the-enlightenment-button-feat-shinzen-young-chelsey-fasano-dr-jay-sanguinetti/
- https://www.guruviking.com/ep103-dopamine-meditation-fibonacci-feat-shinzen-young-chelsey-fasano-dr-jay-sanguinetti/
To find out more about Leigh, visit,
- https://www.guruviking.com/ep18-leigh-brasington-guru-viking-interviews/
- http://www.leighb.com/
- Case Study of Ecstatic Meditation: fMRI and EEG Evidence of Self-Stimulating a Reward System - https://www.hindawi.com/journals/np/2013/653572/
To find out more about Shinzen, visit:
- https://www.guruviking.com/ep37-shinzen-young-pandemic-edition-guru-viking-podcast/
- www.shinzen.org
To find out more about Chelsey, visit:
- www.chelseyfasano.com
To find our more about Dr Sanguinetti, visit:
- https://www.guruviking.com/ep102-dr-jay-sanguinetti-cults-science-the-dalai-lama/
- https://www.jaysanguinetti.com/
For more interviews, videos, and more visit:
- www.guruviking.com
Music ‘Deva Dasi’ by Steve James
Guru Viking Podcast