There’s a new mind theory out there … The theory is worth paying attention to because, well, it’s about you. Or at least two of you: the careful, analytic you, and your misguided shadow, who spends altogether too much time in the “wrong” section of the bookstore. One of you is a Mechanist. The other is a Mentalist. Though you may not realize it, you are two foot soldiers on opposing sides of a battle that began in utero…
I hosted this panel at the 2013 Science and Nonduality conference in Holland. At least two of of the participants – Lisa Cairns and Gary Weber – claimed to be in a permanent state of nondual consciousness. For those who don’t speak the lingo, they are what some Buddhist might call “enlightened” – i.e., their sense of being a separate self has collapsed, and they now apparently reside in a state of open unfixed “oneness” – whatever you take that to mean. Actually, what the hell that actually means is the subject of this panel.
By the end of the twentieth century, scientists had scoured the far reaches of the material world. It was then that a few brave travelers turned in a different direction: inward!
Wrote this for The New Scientist . It summarizes some of the different states of consciousness we pass through over the day and night.
This talk from the Science and Nonduality conference is about how nondual books seem to work their magic on the reader’s consciousness, and how they might do so more effectively and more often.
Maybe meditation is something you want to pursue, maybe it isn’t. In this ten minute mp3 I lay out my own reasons for practice, and discuss an experience I had on retreat that brought the whole thing home to me.
An animated tour through waking, sleeping and dreaming consciousness, made by a Discovery channel animator after Head Trip came out. Features a fire-breathing dragon, a psychedelic tennis ball, a LOT of hand waving, and one very embarrassing pimp roll.
Any science of mind worthy of the name must try to isolate, describe, and understand the full continuum of changes that come about as a result of meditation and spiritual practice – including claims of awakening or enlightenment. Otherwise, the paradigm of the power of spiritual practice is missing its cornerstone.
An update of some of the intriguing scientific literature on ” lucid dreaming;” some of the experiments being done are so strange and improbable they read like Hollywood scripts. Includes one recent German study that established two-way transworld communication between waking and dreaming consciousness: you can get messages in, and you can get messages out.
Over the next year and a half, the CEC is moving towards becoming an actual physical place, a multidisciplinary centre in downtown Toronto dedicated to the exploration of consciousness in practice and in life. Click to read more.