One-hour guided nondual meditation by Michael Taft
Meditation sequence:
1:30 – Posture guidance
3:57 – Rousing bodhicitta
5:17 – Shamatha with an object (breath) and guided leisure
21:14 – Dissolving on the outbreath
40:47 – Shamatha without an object
50:43 – “Just look!”
55:40 – Return to shamatha without an object
1:01:46 – Dharma talk etc., lasting about 30 min.
If the things we experience in meditation have any relevance in any respect, then they ought to be evident to us directly. It’s something just like the old Philip K. Dick line, “Reality is that which, if you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” In other words, the reply to all of your meditation questions, life conundrums, spiritual problems, and so forth is directly evident to you. It doesn’t matter whether you recognize the “correct” answer or not. Just search for yourself, right away! That’s the pith instruction for this meditation, and—should you resolve to make use of it that way—for all times generally.
After getting focused and spending a while within the unsupported concentration state (i.e. Shamatha without an object), Michael guides viewer through a series of inquiry questions. You won’t find the proper answers to those questions in your memory, nor through fascinated by them. It’s like being asked if it’s raining outside. One of the best solution to answer the query is to open the drapes and easily search for yourself, to not look it up on an app.
Too often we take the stance that spiritual teachings and meditations are about learning the appropriate answers after which remembering them and with the ability to regurgitate them on demand. That is just brain-washing, and doesn’t represent insight. Insight comes from looking (-sight) inside (in-) directly. Because the Buddha said, “see for yourself.”
Michael strongly emphasizes the phrase “just look!” time and again to encourage you to chop through the timidity, the hesitance, the need to “do it right,” the necessity for answers. To chop through the addiction to the pondering mind, and the necessity to depend on linear rational conceptualization. Just look! Now!
Contribute to creating more of those videos: https://patreon.com/michaeltaft
