Founder @fieldmeditation | Faculty @CUBoulder | Embodied Presence | Embrace Complexity |
Boulder, CO
Joined October 2009
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Learn Dzogchen with four experienced practitioners and scholars.
Most spiritual practices still point toward future attainment: something must change before we are fully present.
Dzogchen introduces a path with radical experiential implications ->
Link in 🧵
This looks great. Oshan is a patient and engaging conversationalist. I’m excited to tune in!
Trailer for my podcast series on transformative meditation experiences is up.
The rise of mindfulness told the story of how meditation soothes the mind. Pivot Points tells the story of how meditation begins to transform it.
Supported by @wakingup. More: pivotpoints.xyz
Peter McEwen retweeted
“I know that this really helps me. I’m just going to do something different.”
“I found that this works best for me, but I’m really looking forward to doing this other thing instead.”
Instead of doing the slow patient work that actually does the trick, I’m going to pursue a dopamine hit.
I want to avoid actual change and growth, while appearing to work on change and growth.
We should’ve gone with Michael’s title “Learn to Unclench the Sphincter of Your Soul!”
🎈❉ 😂
"Learn to Unclench the Sphincter of Your Soul!"
j/k
Unclenching can describe several kinds of letting go: softening bodily tension, releasing resistance to emotion, or easing the effort to manage experience.
In this one-hour symposium, Jonny Miller, Peter McEwen, and I bring perspectives from nervous system practice, nondual meditation, Tibetan yoga, and developmental psychology. We’ll explore how unclenching relates to awakening, what we mean by realization, how wellbeing relates to progress in practice, and where practitioners tend to get stuck.
Peter McEwen retweeted
Join the Unclenching Round Table ~ with myself @techgnostic & @OortCloudAtlas next Friday
→ luma.com/kykeqv9n
Join @jonnym1ller, @OortCloudAtlas, and me for an exploration and discussion of Jonny’s hit essay “How to Unclench.”
Expect perspectives from nervous system practice, nondual meditation, Tibetan yoga, and developmental psychology.
Nov 6 @ 2pm PT
Links in 🧵
Join @jonnym1ller, @OortCloudAtlas, and me for an exploration and discussion of Jonny’s hit essay “How to Unclench.”
Expect perspectives from nervous system practice, nondual meditation, Tibetan yoga, and developmental psychology.
Nov 6 @ 2pm PT
Links in 🧵
"I don't like the idea of singular understandings of complicated matters" @babblist
❤️ this scholar. Does a great job of meting out feedback re: splitting hairs 👉🏼 Nikāyas and traditional Buddhist canon. Also recognizes innovation in the traditional lit
youtu.be/wwRh7FroF3chttps://…
Peter McEwen retweeted
Many of us think we want to get away from tension.
But without tension, life doesn’t exist.
Literally. If you take the tension out of your body, you and all your cells will die.
Learning to dance with tension unlocks your vitality.
Excited to check out this new series with host Jeffrey Kripal and guest Eric Wargo! Who woulda' thunk it would make it to TV?
Peter McEwen retweeted
Precognitive dreamers, check out the new AMC+ series Archive X. I MAY make an appearance in Episode 3, "Dark Visions."
Host Jeffrey Kripal, producer Harris Fishman, and the team at October Films did an excellent job!
Peter McEwen retweeted
Full endorsement. Already Free by Bruce Tift becomes more profound with each read
okay so bruce tift's book is one of my favorite books ever and is lowkey lifechanging. here are some things I'm appreciating about it:
- attention is all you need...on your body sensations. it's funny how long we might spend meditating and still just refuse to go down into what the actual body sensations are like, without commentary, without trying to change them, without trying to bliss out, just being with them as they are
- "enlightenment", whatever it is, is not going to fundamentally change your humanity. an enlightened human is still a human, and humans have the following tendencies: they experience all the emotions (including the "bad" emotions like sadness anxiety fear anger envy), they feel physical pain, they get disappointed by life, and they are forever capable of hurting people or behaving unethically
- the book kind of feels like a spaced repetition exercise for embodied immediacy. on a surface level, he's kind of saying the exact same thing over and over again like a hundred times. but somehow, if you actually pay attention to it, you start to go, oh wow this is really doing something and it's hitting deeper and deeper every time
- he asks you to approach the contradictions of life "without hope of resolution," without hope of "solving" your experience of being a human, because your experience is not something to solve but rather is an endless, ongoing, often-challenging process. life will continue to be challenging at times, forever
- "without hope of resolution" to me also means, stop meditating with the hope of achieving something, with the expectation that it's supposed to make you feel good or you're supposed to be different in some important way on the other side of it. if you're meditating with the hope that you feel better, you are completely missing the point and are just playing an ego game [^1]. the point is to continue to build a tolerance for your experience as it is. "enlightenment is the ultimate disappointment"
- whatever we may believe about "enlightenment", you will continue to undergo further development as a human for the rest of your life, if you choose to
[^1] hold this view lightly, different people need different views at different times
Peter McEwen retweeted
okay so bruce tift's book is one of my favorite books ever and is lowkey lifechanging. here are some things I'm appreciating about it:
- attention is all you need...on your body sensations. it's funny how long we might spend meditating and still just refuse to go down into what the actual body sensations are like, without commentary, without trying to change them, without trying to bliss out, just being with them as they are
- "enlightenment", whatever it is, is not going to fundamentally change your humanity. an enlightened human is still a human, and humans have the following tendencies: they experience all the emotions (including the "bad" emotions like sadness anxiety fear anger envy), they feel physical pain, they get disappointed by life, and they are forever capable of hurting people or behaving unethically
- the book kind of feels like a spaced repetition exercise for embodied immediacy. on a surface level, he's kind of saying the exact same thing over and over again like a hundred times. but somehow, if you actually pay attention to it, you start to go, oh wow this is really doing something and it's hitting deeper and deeper every time
- he asks you to approach the contradictions of life "without hope of resolution," without hope of "solving" your experience of being a human, because your experience is not something to solve but rather is an endless, ongoing, often-challenging process. life will continue to be challenging at times, forever
- "without hope of resolution" to me also means, stop meditating with the hope of achieving something, with the expectation that it's supposed to make you feel good or you're supposed to be different in some important way on the other side of it. if you're meditating with the hope that you feel better, you are completely missing the point and are just playing an ego game [^1]. the point is to continue to build a tolerance for your experience as it is. "enlightenment is the ultimate disappointment"
- whatever we may believe about "enlightenment", you will continue to undergo further development as a human for the rest of your life, if you choose to
[^1] hold this view lightly, different people need different views at different times
Peter McEwen retweeted
Sharing my latest podcast with Dr. Gena Gorlin (@Gena_I_Gorlin) on why Marc Andreessen is wrong about introspection, self-authorship, how to actually update beliefs, and her upcoming book on "Builder's Mindset"!
People who criticize introspection are often in a confusion; they conflate repetitive, ruminative self-analysis with the reflection people need to make important decisions, spot blindspots, and grow
It's obvious one has to work *with* their psychology, especially as they encounter blocks. Anything worth doing at our edge will induce fear, and however we move through that will involve some level of introspection.
Introspection is a skill, and there are methods and frameworks available to develop that skil!
Of course, there are ways that we can stuck. Even valuable frameworks like IFS (Internal Family Systems) can leave us, at times, *more* stuck and in the same loops.
We discuss useful introspection, identifying rumination, more wholesome ambition, and how people actually can change.
Podcast links in bio! This is the first episode for the newly rebranded Attention Copilot podcast
Timestamps:
00:00 — Andreessen, Senra, and the case for introspection
04:29 — What is the builder’s mindset?
11:31 — Why we procrastinate on things we want
17:54 — The drill sergeant and Zen guru’s shared assumption
21:43 — Who chose the ladder you’re climbing?
38:22 — Are builders born or made?
45:16 — “Death is the default”, but default isn’t destiny
53:14 — Repairing problems and building a life
57:38 — Gena’s critique of Internal Family Systems
1:01:49 — How people change their mindsets through practice
1:06:47 — Why we fluctuate between our best and worst selves
1:16:01 — Relationships through the builder’s mindset
1:20:36 — Gena’s writing and forthcoming book
The Field is partnering with Dharma Lab to offer a free cohort experience exploring the intersection of neuroscience and meditation.
An amazing group, including Robert Sapolsky, Dr. Jud Brewer, Martin Picard, Sharon Salzberg, and Mingyur Rinpoche
Learn More:
pod.servicespace.org/apply/d…
