Dedicated to liberation in all its forms, Deconstructing Yourself is passionate about fearlessly investigating, attempting, and questioning all things to do with awakening, meditation, mindfulness, brain hacking, consciousness, neurofeedback, and more.
Your host Michael W. Taft interviews some of the most interesting thinkers, authors, and teachers around, as well as other offerings. In this hard-hitting, radical, and fun podcast we look at secular post-, non-, un- Buddhism, Vajrayana, nondual Hindu Tantra, philosophy, the neuroscience of the sense of self, neurofeedback and the consciousness hacking movement, aspects of artificial intelligence, entheogens, and much more.
If you’re looking for fresh directions, free from dogma and conformism, think of the Deconstructing Yourself podcast as the radical cafe where you can hear from the most interesting luminaries either from the outside edges of dharma, or a fresh take from more traditional teachers. If you’re interested in more, check out the Deconstructing Yourself website at https://deconstructingyourself.com.
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.com
Show Notes
0:15 – 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 Adventure
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