Glimpses of enlightenment through nondual meditation (with Michael Taft and Jeremy Stevenson)
Spencer Greenberg speaks with Jeremy Stevenson and Michael Taft about meditation, mindfulness, non-duality, and awareness. They explore distinctions between meditation types and how non-dual awareness can free one from suffering.
Deep Dive Analysis
17 Topic Outline
Introduction to Meditation Journeys and Non-Duality
Distinction Between Sudden and Gradual Meditation Types
Understanding Non-Dual Awareness: Unlearning Concepts
Defining Non-Dual Mindfulness: Identity Shift to Awareness
Absence of Small Self and Dissolving Separation
Non-Dual Awareness: Always and Already Available
Distinction Between Awakening and Liberation
Experience of Pain and Suffering in Non-Dual States
Personal Transformation and Profound Well-being
Michael's Personal Journey and Psychedelic Experiences
Complementary Nature of Effortful and Non-Dual Meditation
Levels of Non-Duality: Transcendent vs. Form and Emptiness
Disagreement Among Non-Dual Teachers and Traditions
Challenges and Timeframe for Stabilizing Non-Dual Awareness
Approach for Beginners and Role of Retreats
Comparing Non-Dual Path to Traditional Enlightenment States
Connection Between Non-Duality, Spirituality, and Religion
5 Key Concepts
Sudden vs. Gradual Meditation
Meditation can be divided into sudden (non-effort) or gradual (effort) types. Sudden paths focus on revealing something always present, while gradual paths involve step-by-step effort to achieve a state. Neither has definitively proven more effective over thousands of years.
Non-Dual Awareness (Level 1)
This is the initial shift in identity from feeling identified with the body, thoughts, and emotions to identifying with a bright, clear, open awareness. It involves the dissolution of the sense of separation between 'self' (inside) and 'world' (outside).
Non-Dual Awareness (Level 2)
This deeper level recognizes that awareness itself is not separate from all the 'self and world' arisings. It sees the purity of clear awareness and the 'mucky, dirty, effulgent display of the entire world' as non-dual, permanently intertwined, and animating all experiences.
Awakening
Awakening refers to the deep, stable, ongoing recognition of non-dual awareness, where one sees everything clearly as it is. It can be a gradual process of removing veils, with moments of 'oh' that are never forgotten, but not always irreversible or complete initially.
Liberation
Liberation is a state beyond stable awakening, where all 'baggage' from the deep unconscious (like karma or samskaras) is completely cleared out. This means one is no longer controlled by unconscious distortions or reactive triggers from the past, allowing for spontaneous flow of experience.
10 Questions Answered
The main difference lies in whether one is trying to 'get somewhere' (dualistic, gradual, effortful) or 'reveal something that's always been there' (non-dual, sudden, effortless). Non-dual schools usually explicitly focus on non-dual work, while some gradual schools may not include that level of work.
While rare individuals might 'get it' completely and permanently in a binary moment, it's much more common for it to be a gradual process of removing veils, where one gets it a little more deeply over time. Each moment of deeper understanding can feel like an awakening, but it's not always all the way or irreversible initially.
Awakening is achieving deep, stable, ongoing non-dual awareness, seeing everything clearly as it is. Liberation goes further, meaning all deep unconscious material (like karma or samskaras) is completely cleared out, freeing one from being controlled by unconscious reactions or past conditioning.
In a conventional sense, it frees one from suffering because the 'person' who would resist pain is seen through. However, physical pain (like hitting a thumb with a hammer) still occurs, but the experience of it is radically different, more spacious, and less characterized by aversion or identification.
Non-dual awareness does not eliminate difficult emotions; they may even arise more intensely and clearly. However, they are experienced as a kind of energy or movement, non-problematically, from a radically shifted perspective. Awareness itself is inherently open, welcoming all experiences with a deep sense of well-being and joy, rather than cold neutrality.
No, non-dual teachers are not all talking about the same thing. Different traditions and teachers may focus on different levels of non-duality, such as the non-duality of self and other (Level 1) versus the non-duality of awareness and the world/form and emptiness (Level 2), leading to different goals and interpretations.
Achieving stable, ongoing awakening at a deep level takes a long time and is achieved by a very small percentage of people, even among those who invest significantly. However, glimmers of the experience can be relatively quick to attain.
To reliably drop into a very deep, clear view of non-dual awareness for at least a second or two, it typically takes a couple of years of consistent practice with good training for someone who is pretty talented. Momentary, less deep glimpses can be achieved more quickly.
For most people, retreats are very helpful, especially for the initial steps like stabilizing the mind (shamatha), as it's easier in a dedicated environment. However, the ultimate goal is to integrate non-dual awareness into everyday life, relationships, and work, which cannot be done on retreat.
Michael Taft believes that in the end, non-dual practice collapses the distinction between secular and spiritual. The deeper one goes, the less sharply separate and less problematic these distinctions become, as the fundamental awareness in which everything arises is experientially a non-materialist way of seeing things.
21 Actionable Insights
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.
6 Key Quotes
If I were to be as clear as possible, I would say, it's what you're unlearning to do.
Michael Taft
What we want is to not be identified with it in any way. All the stuff of your normal life is still, you know, it's not like brain damage or something is occurring. It's all still there. You're just, it's just not seen as the seat of your identity.
Michael Taft
It's not like, Oh, I'm just going to be regular old me, but I'm going to be this Superman who has this non-dual awareness. It's almost the opposite. It's like, instead of Superman changing from his Clark Kent suit into Superman, it's more like takes off the Superman suit and there's just space. It's just wakeful space left, right?
Michael Taft
The person that would be resisting the pain, which is what the suffering is about, is completely seen through. So it's very common that people think this means you're just in some kind of bliss state.
Michael Taft
The awareness itself doesn't have those emotions. But neither is it just a kind of supreme, cold, distant neutrality. Awareness itself is inherently openness. And it's inherent, that's why it's often called, described as spacious.
Michael Taft
Every path claims to be the top, the best, the fastest, the most complete, the easiest, all of that. So, of course, which person is going to say, oh, yeah, I love my path. It's, it's lesser. It doesn't really do the full thing, but I love it. No one is ever going to say that.
Michael Taft
2 Protocols
General Non-Dual Meditation Sequence for Beginners
Michael Taft- Work with shamatha (stabilizing the mind a little bit).
- Strong emphasis on vipassana, seeing the emptiness of experience, the sense of self, and many layers of conceptualization.
- Gradually start dropping into non-meditation, effortless openness, and working with that.
Stabilizing Non-Dual Awareness (Once Glimpsed)
Michael Taft- If you have the ability to drop into at least some level of awake awareness on demand, just do that as many times as possible, all the time.
- Continuously use this access over and over and over again.