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Previously, I offered some thoughts about cessation and some notes from my own experiences. That post addressed a classical experience that is known from Eastern traditions. One term for it is "nirvikalpa samadhi." After learning of an Irish spiritual teacher named Gareth Duignan, I decided to watch some of his YouTube videos. I noticed he had a video on nirvikalpa samadhi and was curious. I sat with the video and something unusual happened. After a bit, I became aware of an

* Shadow of a black hole in Messier 87 galaxy. (Wikimedia) Recently, I've been reading some books and journal articles on meditation and spiritual practice, primarily in the Buddhist and Hindu traditions. Both of these very diverse and massive traditions include the possibility of the experience of cessation, when all perception and awareness--and by extension, experience--fall away into a black void or nothingness. (I'll muse about this black void in another post, as well as

This is what happens when I publish a post. I feel that I've written something true and personal and authentic. I immediately regret it and want to edit it or take it down. So, what happens in the three nanoseconds between those two events? The Superego wakes up and starts singing that old, familiar refrain: "Don't show off. Don't be a smartie-pants. Nobody loves a smartie-pants. You won't have any friends, and people will talk about you behind your back." I have learned that

A 2015 Hubble space telescope image featuring some of the oldest galaxies in the universe. ESA/NASA Most of us have probably played this game. "What one book would you take with you if you were going to be stranded on a desert island for who knows how long?" A friend asked me this a while back, and I knew immediately: the Avatamsaka Sutra, otherwise known as the Buddhāvatamsaka Sūtra, the Hua Yan Jing (花嚴經), the Flower Ornament Scripture, the Flower Adornment Sutra, or the Fl