Glimpses of enlightenment through nondual meditation (with Michael Taft and Jeremy Stevenson)

1. Shift Identity to Awareness

Cultivate a fundamental shift in identity from identifying with the ‘small self’ (body, thoughts, emotions) to identifying with bright, clear, open awareness itself.

2. Dissolve Self-World Separation

Work to dissolve the perceived separation between ‘self’ (the observer) and ‘world’ (the observed), allowing this fundamental duality to drop away permanently.

3. Recognize Awareness-World Non-Duality

Aim to recognize the deeper non-duality where pure awareness is not separate from the world’s ’effulgent display,’ seeing all phenomena, including personality, as a rich dance of emptiness and form.

4. Clear Deep Unconscious Baggage

Beyond achieving stable non-dual awakening, focus on clearing out all ‘knots and difficulties’ or ‘karma’ in the deep unconscious to achieve liberation from unconscious control and reactive behaviors.

5. Set Down Personal Reactivity

To deepen non-dual recognition, practice setting down the ‘person’ — your likes, dislikes, and structures of reactivity — and approach experience from a fundamentally different, non-personal place.

6. Unlearn Conceptual Labeling

To access pure awareness, practice unlearning the habit of layering mental concepts, labels, and orienting ideas onto experience, allowing the pure light of awareness to shine through.

7. Release Deeper Unconscious Concepts

Beyond verbal labeling, work to let go of deeper unconscious concepts, such as the sense of the body being solid and real, or the distinction between inside and outside experience, to further deepen non-dual recognition.

8. Observe, Release Mental Labels

Engage in a meditation practice where you observe all your experience, notice when you are labeling or creating concepts, then consciously let go of them to return to watching raw experience.

9. Process Sensations Without Labeling

When experiencing intense sensations (e.g., cold), process them directly without labeling or resistance; this can transform the experience, removing the suffering element while maintaining intensity.

10. Witness Personal Self, Don’t Identify

Maintain your personal history, language, and job skills, but practice not identifying with them as the seat of your identity, instead witnessing them externally as any other sensation.

11. Reduce Habitual Reactivity

Reduce your habitual reactivity to external circumstances and internal states, as this leads to a significant transformation in behavior and how you perceive problems and goals.

12. Systematically See Through Concepts

If you’ve glimpsed non-duality but can’t reliably return, practice a systematic method of seeing through the conceptualization of various objects, including the sense of self, until the process becomes automatic and accessible at will.

13. Scaffold Non-Dual Practice

Instead of non-striving and doing nothing, approach non-dual practice with a scaffolded, step-by-step method to make it more accessible and easier to learn.

14. Shamatha, Vipassana, Non-Meditation Sequence

For beginners, follow a meditation sequence starting with shamatha (stabilizing the mind), then strong vipassana (seeing the emptiness of experience and self), and finally gradually dropping into non-meditation or effortless openness.

15. Frequent Awake Awareness Access

If you can access awake awareness on demand, practice dropping into that state as many times as possible throughout the day to broaden the duration and circumstances of access.

16. Integrate Awareness into Daily Life

After initial practice, actively integrate meditation insights and awareness into all aspects of daily life, including relationships and work, to make it an everyday experience.

17. Attend Retreats for Initial Steps

For most people, attending meditation retreats can significantly help, especially with the initial steps of practice like shamatha, as it provides an easier environment for learning.

18. Leverage Prior Meditation Experience

If you have prior experience with dualistic meditation (e.g., Goenka style body scanning), recognize that this work can be leveraged and built upon in a non-dual practice, rather than starting from scratch.

19. Experiment with Meditation for Anxiety

If experiencing anxiety, try experimenting with meditation practices, as even early exposure can lead to a significant reduction in anxiety.

20. Explore Non-Dual Traditions

Explore various non-dual meditation traditions and teachers to find a path that resonates as the ‘most alive, free, beautiful direction’ for your personal journey.

21. Avoid Secular-Spiritual Dualism

Avoid getting stuck on the dualism between secular and spiritual approaches to meditation, as deeper practice reveals that this distinction becomes less sharp and less problematic.