Ep13: Mind Illuminated - Culadasa
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- čas přidán 14. 06. 2024
- In this episode I am joined by Culadasa, Dr. John Yates.
live video starts after the intro card
Culadasa is a meditation master with more than four decades of experience in the Tibetan and Theravadin Buddhist traditions. A former professor, he taught physiology and neuroscience for many years, and later worked in the field of complementary and alternative medicine.
His book ‘The Mind Illuminated’ has been described as ‘a rare and valuable treasure’ and has been enormously popular among dedicated meditators for it’s incredible clarity and usability even to very advanced stages of practice.
In this interview we talk about how Culdasa’s traumatic upbringing led to him to being homeless on the streets at 15 years old and why even years in Catholic seminary didn’t provide the answers he was looking for. We discuss his initially frustrated attempts at meditation practice, the colourful cast of characters of his teachers, and the one key discovery changed everything.
Audio version available on Soundcloud, iTunes, and Stitcher
- Culadasa’s traumatic upbringing
- Running away from home at 15 and the search for truth
- Entering Catholic seminary in search of the truth
- Experiments with psychedelics in the 60s
- Early attempts at meditation and learning Transcendental Meditation
- Discovering Buddhism
- What was lacking in the seminary
- Doctrinal disagreements with Catholicism
- Virtuoso Buddhism vs village Buddhism
- Living on the streets and recovering from a traumatic childhood
- Achieving a PhD with no high school education
- Glimpses of emptiness
- Meeting Upasaka Kema Ananda in Winnipeg, Manitoba
- Encountering Namgyal Rinpoche (aka George Dawson)
- Blending Kagyu and Theravadan practice
- Struggles with the Mahasi meditation technique
- Introduction to shamata (calm-abiding) practice
- Common misunderstandings about shamata
- Key distinctions about attention and awareness
- Revisiting Mahasi-style meditation
- Stages of samadhi
- Culadasa’s personal journey of insight
- How Culadasa attained stream entry
- Falling away from meditation and taking up shamanism
- Further path attainments
- Second path practice and meditation on mind states
- Craving and dissatisfaction
- Mara I have seen you!
- The mechanics of path attainments
- The two edged sword of the human mind
- Developing compassion
- Waking up, cleaning up, and growing up
- Implications of facing death
To find our more about Culadasa, visit: dharmatreasure.org/
For more interviews, videos, and more visit: www.guruviking.com
Music 'Deva Dasi' by Steve James
R.I.P. Culadasa. I continue to learn from him. 🙏
Thanks for your interviews. This one with Culadasa is as great as all of your other interviews. I appreciate that you speak to people with a huge variety of background. Some people I got introduced to by your interviews.
you asked the most intriguing questions, thank you for properly interviewing him!
Thank you! Happy you enjoyed the interview :-)
Best account by John is his going to a Mahasi retreat and being immersed in the bliss and joy of his training and being told to note it away.
thank you, definitely my fav. YT-interviews of these few masters
You're welcome, I'm glad you're enjoying them!
Excellent and clarifying interview - thank you both!
Excellent interview, thank you!
You're welcome! I'm pleased you enjoyed it :-)
Excellent, love Culadasa, thank you❤️
Your welcome
I really love these interviews, especially the Daniel Ingram one. Hats off to you, it takes two to tango ... you've done your research which makes for much more illuminating interviews.
Thanks James, I agree that it can be frustrating (and repetitive) when it's clear the interviewer hasn't really researched the guest.
Glad you're enjoying these!
@@GuruViking I'm excited to see who you have on in the future. Would love to see the likes of Shinzen Young, Michael Taft & Kenneth Folk make an appearance, I think they'd make for some interesting conversations.
All the best:)
@@jamestatham1510 Great suggestions! Already working on 1 of these 3 but will look into the others. :-)
@@GuruViking will you do a video about your own practice? You seem to have some level of awakening at least 2nd path. I'm curious how you got there and if you also do coaching
@@VeritableVagabond In addition to the interviews I do occasionally post videos from my POV - is there anything specific you'd like me to talk about? Also, I'm curious, what give you the impression of 'at least 2nd path'? Thanks for commenting! S
You make good interviews
Thanks Markus!
He did not finish the book he was talking about in the last part, Did he?
Hi GuruViking, was this interview before or after the 'cancelling' of Culadasa by the board ? Looks like he hasn't finished his work wrt Arahatship (let alone streamentry) iff he was unfaithful to his wife....
Even if he was unfaithful, he could still be deeply realized. Moral conventions have nothing to do with insight into impermanence, emptiness, self, and suffering. He may have had his reasons for behaving in ways you don't approve of. But that says nothing about his enlightenment.