16. Building an Awakening Practice (w/ Roger Thisdell)

Feeling stuck in his meditation practice and looking for guidance from a 4th Path adept, Brendan talks again to Roger Thisdell, someone who has attained a new default experience of mind as permanently centerless and without the sense of a singly, positioned epistemic agent (i.e., what in traditional language might be called "enlightenment"). Both thought it might be helpful to explore some instructional guidance in a podcast setting, where the process could be shared for others' benefit. In this context, Roger asks some probing questions and offers some helpful tips and suggestions for cultivating awakening.    0:00 Introduction  2:54 Brendan Describes His Path and Motivation towards Waking Up  9:12 (Clarifying Nonduality)  12:22 Brendan Tries to Describe His Phenomenological Sense of Self  16:47 Shifting Perspective through Thought  21:50 Symbolizing Awakened Consciousness 29:45 Beyond Equanimity: Zeroing in on the "Self"  40:54 The Uses of Conception to Change Perception  42:39 Building Motivation  48:07 Fire Kasina  50:45 Being vs. Striving  54:52 Building Metacognition  59:11 Naming Our Motivations