This week on the Mindrollling Podcast, Michael W. Taft drops in for a conversation about deconstructing our ego, bringing life into balance and dealing with afflictive emotions.
Michael W. Taft is a meditation teacher, bestselling author, and mindfulness coach. From Zen temples in Japan to yogi caves in India, Michael has been meditating for over thirty-five years and has extensive experience in both Buddhist Vipassana and Hindu Tantric practice. Learn more at deconstructingyourself.com.
Show Notes
Life Into Balance (Opening) – Michael reflects on some of the mindfulness practices and teachings that he has been introduced to by teachers like Shinzen Young and Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas. He shares his path to spiritual practice with Raghu and the two discuss the importance of bringing our lives back into balance with these teachings.
Learn more about the teachings of Shri Dhyanyogi Madhusudandas at dyc.org
All Roads Lead Home (12:00) – We look at the intersection of non-duality and Bhakti yoga, traditions which both Raghu and Michael have practiced and studied. The two discuss how these seemingly opposed traditions can inform and enrich one another. They highlight the pitfalls found in all traditions and how practicing different disciplines can help from falling off the path.
“These are all wonderful traditions but, simply put, non-dualism can be not only the perfection of awareness but it can be the perfection of spiritual bypassing. It can be so easily misused to decide that there is nothing we need to do because everything is already perfect. Therefore, I don’t have to help my neighbor or even fix my own personality, it is already perfect. This kind of spiritual bypassing arises in all traditions, but for whatever reason non-dualism lends itself to that.” – Michael W. Taft
Listen to Michael’s conversation with Chris Grosso about taking a multidisciplined approach to mindfulness in the modern age on Ep. 50 of the Indie Spiritualist Podcast
Deconstructing Yourself (25:05) – Michael shares some of the practices that help us deconstruct our ceaselessly self-referential mind and be unchained from our fears.
“If you look carefully, our sense of self is this bundle of thoughts and feelings that are trying to avoid certain things and get certain other things, that’s what we call ‘me.’ Whether its strong meditation practice or maybe even a particular kind of psychedelic experience you can begin to notice very clearly, without even that much training, that those thoughts and feelings are just sort of happening.” – Michael W. Taft
Mindfulness and Emotions (40:05) – How can mindfulness allow us to defang our afflictive emotions? Michael and Raghu close with a discussion about what happens when we integrate our spiritual practice and cozy up to what makes us uncomfortable.
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Image via Bruce Rolff