Julian sits down with the Arahant Daniel M. Ingram in this far ranging discussion of Meditation and the possible highs and lows, including things like experiencing a 'dark night of the soul.' Daneil is the author of the book Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book
0:00-4:43 Housekeeping, Julian shares about his recent solo meditation retreat
4:43-10:15: Intro to Conversation with Daniel
10:35- 2:08 - Conversation with Daniel Ingram
We discuss the following topics:
- Daniel's work to research meditation for mainstream psychology and modern medical science
- The risks of idealizing a single Guru and basing your entire path on one person
- Julian shares a bit about my practicing with Reggie Ray and my appreciation and also disagreement with his teachings
- The possibility of real transmission and the real value of authentic lineage
- The phenomena and practice of magic and the importance of being able to shift between different contexts and ways of understanding
- The ways in which practices such as sending out healing light can actually be helping others beyond our own personal imagination and experience
- Daniel recommends the following books: The Power of 8, The Intention Experiment, Real Magic
- The power of opening up to healing and blessings from divinities
- Daniel's thoughts on past and future lives
- Amazing story of Daniel interviewing a patient who had multiple near death experiences due to being one of the first people to receive a pacemaker. And his descriptions of his near death experiences are fascinating.
- The sadly pervasive afflictions of self directed negativity, negative self talk, and poor self esteem
- Daniel personally saw pediatric emergency hospitalization cases double because of social media - kids presenting in psychiatric crisis due to social media's influence
- The pervasive and deluded sense of 'you need to do this in order to be ok as you are'
- Music and Meditation
- The importance of Effortlessness in the realization of our true authentic nature
- The Possibility of millions of people learning basic mindfulness and meditation techniques that could lead to seeing through the false self on a vast, societal wide scale. This is both Utopian thinking and very possible.
- How the Modern Mindfulness movement ignored the extreme Highs (such as the possibility of awakening) as well as the Lows of Meditation practice (things like the 'dark night of the soul') in order to sell the mushy middle.
- What it takes to genuinely scale this in a repsonsible, honest way.
- EPRC (Emergent Phenomenology Research Consortium)
- Julian shares about his experience working in the mental health field and people who have had psychotic breaks at least in part form things like fasting and meditation
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