Deconstructing Yourself

In this episode, I talk with Jessica Graham about her book Good Sex, the #MeToo movement, the power of self love and acceptance, a beginner’s guide to spiritual awakening through sexuality, mindful masturbation, aspects of puritanism in Buddhism, the meditative way to work with "love drugs," and much more.Jessica Graham is a spiritual teacher, sex and intimacy guide, and author. Jessica began studying meditating in earnest a decade ago and started teaching soon after. Jessica is also passionate about exploring sexuality and helping others heal, evolve, and awaken sexually. She is the author of Good Sex: Getting Off without Checking Out .Jessica is also an award-winning actor and filmmaker. And, of course, Jessica is the author of many of the articles on the Deconstructing Yourself blog.Read Jessica's series of posts on Mindful SexVisit Jessica's website You can support the creation of future episodes of this podcast by contributing through Patreon.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thomas Metzinger and Michael W. Taft discuss having moral integrity with yourself, intellectual honesty in the pursuit of spirituality, the overlapping goals of science and spirituality, the possibility of a fully secularized spirituality, neurofeedback and virtual reality, mortality denial, the simulation hypothesis, and a whole bunch more.Thomas Metzinger is full professor and director of the theoretical philosophy group and the research group on neuroethics/neurophilosophy at the department of philosophy, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany. He is the founder and director of the MIND group and Adjunct Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute of Advanced Studies, Germany. His research centers on analytic philosophy of mind, applied ethics, philosophy of cognitive science, and philosophy of mind. He is the editor of Neural Correlates of Consciousness and the author of Being No One and The Ego Tunnel.Thomas Metzinger’s website.A video of Metzinger’s Spirituality and Intellectual Honesty talk.Read an interview with Thomas Metzinger, entitled “What Is the Self?“Show Notes0:25 – Introduction2:53 – Interesting times in the world4:12 – Summary of Thomas’ talk, “Spirituality and Intellectual Honesty”7:46 – Impact and divided reactions to “Spirituality and Intellectual Honesty”12:43 – Internal moral integrity: belief formation & authority17:05 – Needing a teacher, master or guru21:10 – Surrender, Western enlightenment and the “crazy corner”24:13 – Getting science to say something interesting about human experience26:08 – Neurofeedback glasses for walking meditation; taking meditation into life30:00 – Virtuality and nothingness, consciousness as virtual reality34:03 – Suchness; spirituality as de-immersion from conscious experience, meditating on artifacts36:20 – The feeling of being real, transparently and opacity38:55 – Hyperreality & derealization: hallucinogens, religious ecstasy and seizures40:42 – VR meditation, getting in touch with virtuality42:28 – Reaching earlier brain processing stages through meditation or hallucinogens45:43 – The Ruining Innocence podcast: a half-serious criticism of taxonomies and discussing meditation49:33 – Thomas’ thoughts on the Arrow of Attention; correlates in neuroscience53:20 – Mindfulness of inattention and avoidance, pitfalls of mindfulness56:07 – Discussing Douglas Harding: the Headless Way and immersion; more discussion of the Arrow of Attention1:00:14 – The self as a visual metaphor; the pre-3D lump of sensations and motor babbling1:03:23 – Thomas’ recent studies of subjectivity: the epistemic agent model of self1:09:48 – How it transpires that the Self is not conscious1:11:34 – Questioning science’s value for practice; the moral imperative of trying to improve contemplative practice1:15:12 – Thomas’ critique of the perennial philosophy; strategies of mortality denial1:22:07 – The simulation hypothesis; thoughts in the mind of god1:25:41 – Is suffering real, and how deep does reality go?1:29:05 – A hypothetical merging of science and subjectivity1:31:29 – OutroYou can support the creation of future episodes of this podcast by contributing through Patreon.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Michael Taft interviews A.H. Almaas, creator of the Diamond Approach to Self-Realization. They discuss attachment to the non-dual viewpoint, unilocal awakening, the role of instinct in spirituality, integrating awakening with philosophy, and more.

Culadasa talks with Michael W. Taft. After decades of Buddhist practice, Culadasa exploded on the scene a few years ago with his groundbreaking book The Mind Illuminated, an incredibly comprehensive guide to meditation. It’s an erudite mixture of neuroscience, traditional Buddhist practice, and Culadasa’s own ideas about how to gt the most out of practice. In this episode we talk about his definitions of attention and awareness, how his system compares to that of his friend teacher Shinzen Young, how the meditative brain works, dealing with aging and death, and much more.Learn more about Culadasa and his teaching at culadasa.comShow Notes0:15 – Introduction and overview 2:30 – Culadasa’s system vs. Shinzen Young’s: stability of attention 7:55 – Sustained attention and effortlessness 10:20 – Culadasa’s system vs. Shinzen Young’s: sensory clarity and peripheral awareness 19:55 – Mindfulness as the optimal interaction between attention and awareness 22:55 – Conceptual overlays and the lower limits of conscious perception 32:50 – Attention selects objects from peripheral awareness 35:00 – The interactive role of attention and awareness in maintaining mindfulness in daily life 38:30 – How strong mindfulness affects emotions, wholesome and unwholesome behavior, and the practice of virtue 43:50 – The importance of the Eightfold Path post-awakening 47:20 – The Ten Fetter, Four Path Model: characteristics of paths and the dropping of fetters 59:49 – Spiritual development does not end at Fourth Path 1:01:57 – Old age, sickness and death are part of the Great AdventureYou can support the creation of future episodes of this podcast by contributing through Patreon.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What do the neurocorrelates of enlightenment, the activation of the posterior cingulate cortex, and the extinction of craving all have in common? They relate to the work of Judson Brewer. Jud talks with Michael W. Taft about his brain biofeedback machine, the neurophenomonolgy of effort vs. non-effort, the feedback loop of reward-based learning, working with the black hole of anxiety, self-referential thinking as a kind of addiction, and much more.Judson Brewer is an MD-PhD and a thought leader in the field of habit change and the “science of self-mastery”, having combined nearly 20 years of experience with mindfulness training with his scientific research.A psychiatrist and internationally known expert in mindfulness training for addictions, Brewer has developed and tested novel mindfulness programs for habit change, including both in-person and app-based treatments. He has also studied the underlying neural mechanisms of mindfulness using standard and real-time fMRI. His work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association, Fetzer Trust among others.Check out Jud’s recent book, entitled, The Craving Mind.In this TED talk, Jud describes how to “get out of your own way.”Show Notes3:37 – Has Jud found the neurocorrelates of enlightenment? 4:40 – The Default Mode Network and science, the PCC – Craving and tanha – Details of fMRI experiments 5:57 – Trying, Flow and PCC activity, contraction vs. expansion 9:36 – Jud’s own practice in the scanner, metta, calibrating the scale of exp/con 20:45 – High concentration vs. effortlessness – no force necessary – 7 factors of awakening 28:54 – What has Jud found? Excitement vs. happiness – a learning tool 30:30 – What we see with experienced meditators / Best use of his neurofeedback technology 36:09 – Michael’s experience in the device 38:30 – Neurophenomolgy effort vs. non-effort, and the feedback loop of reward-based learning – the perpetual Skinner box of relative rewards – anger vs. kindness 42:30 – Addiction – allcohol, cocaine, smoking – smoking tastes bad when you pay attention 45:50 – Paying attention to eating – Joie de vivre – PCC and digital therapeutics – apps 53:24 – The trickiness of the black hole of anxiety – Unwinding Anxiety app 56:20 – Do we have to practice abstinence or not? – Is addiction a disease? 1:00:27 – Jud’s new book, The Craving Mind 1:01:37 – Self-referential thinking as a kind of addiction – Instagram addiction 1:04:05 – Meditation from the Lab – Dependant Origination (PDF Download) – Siddhis You can support the creation of future episodes of this podcast by contributing through Patreon.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Daniel Ingram, an emergency medicine physician and long-time dharma practitioner, discusses the Fire Kasina practice, meditation and magick, archetypal forces, fruition experiences, siddhis, and his wizarding worldview. They also touch on the second edition of his book Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha and his new book on the Fire Kasina.

Meditation teacher and neuroscience consultant Shinzen Young and host Michael W. Taft talk about what mindfulness teachers are getting wrong, Shinzen’s Periodic Table of Happiness Elements, informed consent for awakening, effective strategies for dealing with the Dark Night of the Soul, and the phenomenon that Shinzen calls “Enlightenment’s Evil Twin.”Learn more about Shinzen Young at Shinzen.org.Also here is a pdf of Shinzen’s Periodic Table of Happiness Elements.Show Notes0:25 – Introduction and overview2:38 – Defining mindfulness, and what mindfulness teachers can improve on15:20 – Fulfilling the ethical duty to inform students about the possibilities and challenges of deeper meditation work20:05 – The Dark Night and DP/DR, and the amount of guidance students need to integrate emptiness25:24 – Addressing student concerns about becoming derailed or idle if they make spiritual progress28:24 – Clarifying what the Dark Night is, what it might look like, and how to address it prophylactically and remedially51:31 – More about what mindfulness teachers can improve on1:19:28 – Frosting Shinzen’s buns by shutting down a meditator’s no-self experience1:26:06 – Being careful not to set up barriers that keep people away from practiceYou can help to create future episodes of this podcast by contributing through Patreon.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Scientist, programmer, and author David Chapman talks with Michael W. Taft about metarationality, emptiness and form, nihilism, tantrism, dzogchen, Kegan’s stages of development applied to meditation, vampire romance novels, and the importance of being able to switch reality tunnels.David Chapman is a writer, computer scientist, engineer, and Buddhist practitioner. He’s been practicing Vajrayana Buddhism in the Aro Ter tradition for 20 years. David is a leading proponent of metarationality—a subject we’ll go into in some depth in this episode—and writes about it on his website Meaningness.com. Show notes1:43 – What is metarationality? 2:45 – What happens when you run off the edge of the map? 4:44 – Pattern and nebulosity, emptiness and form 6:45 – Story of scientist Barbara McClintock, and epicycles 13:30 – Donald Schön & design creativity 14:37 – Ways to deal with system failure, Nihilism 17:28 – Timothy Leary & Robert Anton Wilson, switching between reality tunnels 20:22 – Is metarationality just a larger rationality? 22:15 – David’s vampire romance novel, Ken Wilber’s novel Boomeritis 23:38 – What does metarationality have to do with meditation and Buddhism? 24:27 – Seeing the relationship between thought and reality 27:57 – Metarationality as a signpost of deep awakening 30:31 – Dzogchen and Advaita – are practices of view simply indoctrination? 32:17 – Metarationality as a path beyond postmodernism 33:09 – Fundamentalism as a huge LARP, Eternalism vs. Nihilism 36:06 – Spiral dynamics & Robert Kegan’s stages of adult development Link to Wilber/Kegan dialog (Warning: behind a paywall) 41:20 – What a Kegan Stage 3 group looks like in American Buddhist sanghas 43:23 – Transitioning to Stage 4, examples in relation to Buddhist practice and sanghas 44:22 – The edge of the map and the lack of support for Stage 5 in Buddhist communities 46:22 – Kegan Stage 4.5, rejecting systems for their limitations, and how to get to Stage 5 47:25 – The importance of intersubjectivity 49:20 – Future echoes of David’s teaching of metarationality 50:21 – Engaging metarationality in ways that don’t involve meditation, Bongard problems, and the word “intuition” 54:33 – Vipassana techniques for generating intuition 57:43 – Do we need gurus/lamas to transmit deep understanding? 1:04:20 – Students covering up their teacher’s crimes 1:05:33 – The desire to be metarational and the dangers of self-diagnosing your Kegan stage 1:07:54 – David’s background in artificial intelligence and philosophy 1:10:19 – Is AI dangerous?You can help to create future episodes of this podcast by contributing through Patreon.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode I talk with mindfulness teacher and co-founder of the Buddhist Geeks project, Vincent Horn. Vince is part of new generation of teachers translating age-old wisdom into 21st century code. In this session, Vince and I discuss the radical sense of experimentation, the Great Unbundling of the Dharma, ways the mindfulness and awareness practices complement each other—which is turning out to be something of a theme on the show lately—, the perhaps greatly exaggerated reports of the death of Buddhism, what Buddhism and meditation can offer the Silicon Valley worldview. as well as a scintillating juvenile foray into enlightened scatology.Learn more about Vince at Buddhist Geeks.Show Notes0:25 Introduction and overview1:52 – Vince talks about Buddhist Geeks, his interest in mindfulness and his teaching project at meditate.io3:45 – Vince's meditation and teaching background, working with somatic practices and vipassanā, and his time at Naropa University8:16 – What's exciting and interesting in mindfulness now, radical experimentation in the new generation, the unbundling of the Dharma11:38 – Playing with the core meditative elements (concentration, inquiry, etc.) of different traditions14:45 – Defining mindfulness and awareness, and how they work together24:45 – Has Buddhism weeded out all meditative dead-ends or is experimentation and knowing for oneself useful? Can we discover things that haven't been done before?28:22 – Technology and making sense of what practice is while rapid change is occurring30:34 – Scatology: literal and figurative shit33:50 – Human relationships: self, other, and “individuality first” in practice37:00 – The co-construction of reality, and social noting42:15 – Meditation's reinvention in the 1800s and 1900s, and the arising of noting in response to colonialism44:54 – Is Buddhism dying?49:33 – Silicon Valley, immortality, and Ray Kurzweil57:36 – The juice of the unknown and a shift in the way we know things1:04:40 – As many types of nonduality as dualities1:07:16 – Vince and Emily's teaching synergy, one-on-one teacher meetingsYou can help to create future episodes of this podcast by contributing through Patreon.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Meditation teacher Shinzen Young and host Michael W. Taft talk about the relationship between mindfulness practice (as it is usually defined) and nondual-type practices (or non-practices, if you like), the way that focusing on the details of experience relates to focusing on awareness itself, micro-sessions & nano-nirvanas, the thinness and lightness of the screen of awareness and much more. Learn more about Shinzen Young at Shinzen.org.Show Notes0:25 – Intro 4:12 – How does Advaita/Nonduality relate to Mindfulness? 7:45 – Shinzen defines modern mindfulness and the component parts of contemplative practice (concentration, clarity and equanimity) 9:51 – Michael’s simplified working definitions of mindfulness and advaita 10:37 – Shinzen asserts that mindfulness and advaita converge towards the same thing, under his own understanding of mindfulness 16:08 – How to investigate one’s own awareness through mindfulness; Shinzen’s quadrants of practice 20:50 – Appreciation practice (“note everything”) or “regular mindfulness” 22:54 – The arrow of attention 26:31 – Classical mindfulness in the Burmese tradition: penetrative awareness and working with the arrow of attention 31:48 – Outside time and space: what the arrow of attention reveals 34:06 – Shinzen defines primordial awareness in materialist, reductivist terms: the sound that’s not sound 39:15 – Are nondual experiences externally real, or do they reflect only subjective experience? 45:05 – Shinzen’s conjecture: connectivity vs thingness; cones of association 51:38 – By what criterion is connectivity assumed to be fundamental to reality, not only subjectively experienced? 56:55 – How appreciation and self-inquiry practices converge 1:01:01 – Reconciling the fruits of mindfulness and nonduality: differences in perception and language vs. differences in experience 1:06:25 – Deconstructing the arrow of attention in a nondual setting 1:07:50 – Micro-cessations vs lights-out cessations; the lightness and thinness of the ordinary 1:11:55 – Shinzen’s many-layered experience of cessations; the sphere of experience and the void 1:18:08 – Bigger cessations 1:19:38 – Disambiguations: what does it mean to be feather light and paper thin, and what are the characteristics of micro-cessations? 1:23:56 – The lightness of immediate experience 1:29:30 – OutroYou can help to create future episodes of this podcast by contributing through Patreon.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.