Skip to content

All Articles

Stillness

Touching the Stillness

Now, from this space of still, silent, wide awakeness, notice the flavors of sensation and movement in the body. They’re not still—the feelings of energy, the feelings of regular sensations, the movement of the breath and the beating of the heart, and so on. All the stuff that’s not still—notice that it is not in any way separate from that stillness. They’re different—one is moving, and one is still, but they’re never separate. We could almost say that the movements, the sensations, expressions of the stillness. Hear the sounds of the world around you. They’re different than the silence—it’s sound, it’s noise, so different from the silence, but never separate. Not in any way separate, ever. You can’t have the sound without the silence. They come together. 

Avoiding

What Are You Avoiding?

Then, on an in-breath, the moon comes right into our heart, becomes our own heart, shining in the sky of the mind. Radiating peace in all directions, love and joy in all directions, to all beings in all universes. The disc of the moon starts to grow smaller and smaller, but as it grows smaller, it becomes stronger and stronger, the light becomes brighter and brighter. And the power of love and joy and warmth and kindness and caring radiating from that light becomes even more beautiful, more touching, even more gentle. Until the disc of the moon becomes just a point of white light, infinitely bright, and endlessly compassionate. Then it vanishes into the boundless awakeness and compassion that have been here since beginningless time

chamunda

Digging into Experience and Experiencer

Good. Now, ask yourself, what is aware of thought? What knows thought?—And then, look. Look comprehensively. Try to find what knows thought. It’s interesting, that if you’re really looking for what knows thought, it’s very hard for any thoughts to arise. It’s kind of fascinating. If you find yourself caught up in thought, the minute you notice, try to find what it is that knows thought—and just keep looking. Every thought that arises, what is it that knows that thought? What is it that knows that next thought? Find it. What knows that next thought? Find it.

Metivier

Meditation and Memory with Anthony Metivier

Host Michael Taft talks with author and memory expert Anthony Metivier about using memory techniques to enhance meditation, memorizing and reciting scriptures in dead languages as a spiritual practice, using the ancient Memory Palace technique in combination with intense imagery, recall rehearsal, Giordano Bruno, Aristotle, learning foreign languages, the Ribhu Gita, and more.

nondual presence

Sit in Simple Presence

can lead you through a thousand really complicated—extra triple complicated—techniques, but it all comes down to: can you just sit with how you’re feeling or not? One of the moves that is very important here is to notice that if we continuously narrow our attention tighter and smaller, and tighter and smaller, it actually gets kind of harder to sit with what we’re feeling. Whereas, if we let our attention be naturally very wide, naturally open, which is what it’s like when we’re not intentionally squeezing it tight, but we let it be sky-like, broad, it makes it much easier—there’s just so much more room for stuff to happen. So, to whatever extent possible, without forcing, or shoving, or attempting to make your awareness big or something, just let it naturally be open. Just in the way that you can hear the whole room around you without trying to hear it; in the way that with your eyes open, if you don’t narrow them down on purpose, they just take in all of the peripheral field. In the same way, we just let our general awareness be wide open, which is what it’s like when we’re not tightening it.

Nondual thoughts

Dissolve All Thought in Space

Notice how really, really, wide open things are. If you’re engaged with machinery of thought, you’re way stuck down inside your mind, but, when you disengage and just come into being, it’s really broad, it’s really open, it’s really relaxed, and free. What’s it like when you step outside thought? It’s bright, it’s clear, there are feelings, there’s a body, it’s open, it’s fresh, it’s timeless, it’s boundaryless. So, for yourself, without any words, and without engaging the thinking at all, just notice what it’s like. Just notice–we’re not thinking about it–we’re just noticing. If somebody said, do you see the bird in the tree over there? You don’t think about it, you just look.

Nondual Awakeness

You Are Effortless Boundless Awakeness

So, if that awake space, that Gnostic, boundlessness, is apparent, then come to an even deeper sense of presence in that. It’s not a thought, it’s not a feeling, it’s not a sight or a sound, it’s not a special experience. It’s just the space of experience itself, the awake space itself. There’s no thought that can get at that. There’s no way of looking that gets at that. It is the looking. If you try to be the one finding it, the one looking at it, that’s just some thought and feeling pretending to look at it. It is the looking, it’s just experience itself. 

Radiantly Awake Space of Love

Can you notice, as you sit in simple presence, that the room is part of that simple presence—it’s not somehow separate. And that every conscious being in this room is part of that simple presence, they are not really separate on that level. You can just directly notice it, so it’s not like some kind of thing you have to believe in, just notice it.

Podcast-Shukman

Original Love with Henry Shukman

Host Michael Taft talks with meditation teacher and author Henry Shukman about love, original love vs. original sin, wellbeing intense enough to be called “blessedness,” seeing your original face outside of time, the four zones of love, experience as inseparable boundless space, and much more. 

peter mcewen

Practicing Tummo with Peter McEwen

Host Michael Taft speaks with meditation coach Peter McEwen about the traditional Tibetan Buddhist practice of tummo, deity yoga, the subtle body, ways that tummo practice can go wrong, bliss and semen retention, existential terror and staying with disturbing experience, and much more.

effortless

Effortless Nondual Awareness

Now, look carefully, right now, where is the awareness coming from? What’s its source? It’s boundless, timeless–the entire world is arising within it. The entire sense of self is arising within it. Where is it coming from? Look. Look again. Where’s its source? Is there a fountain of awareness in the center of the head, or some kind of awareness tube with awareness rays coming out of it? Where is it coming from?