What happens if you drop the mental labels, constructs and THOUGHTS about reality, and just look directly at your immediate experience? Strap yourself in because psychologist John Astin helps us see what’s right in front of us, now and always 🤯

John Astin is a meditation teacher, musician, and the author of four books on spiritual practice, including Searching for Rain in a Monsoon. He has a Ph.D. in health psychology and is an adjunct professor of clinical and counseling psychology at Santa Clara and Notre Dame de Namur Universities. Find his books, teachings, and more on his website. Here’s the interview with Donald Hoffman that we referenced and check out all our videos on consciousness, meditation, and awakening.

0:00 Introduction

9:01 The role of psychedelics, self transcendence & wonder

13:25 Awakening to non-dual reality

18:10 The miracle of our present experience

25:00 How words and concepts can’t capture experience

28:35 Conceptual vs. Experiential perspective: an exercise

34:10 Analogy to the vase illusion image: parts and whole coexist

49:28 The inconceivability of any experience, including emotions like worry and anxiety

58:29 The fractal/holographic nature of reality, the oneness of experience

1:01:28 Awakening as a sense of homecoming

1:05:15 The paradox of suffering and our frame of reference

1:09:50 “Relative” medicine vs. “Ultimate” medicine, clarifying the nature of pain

1:17:18 The impermanence of experiential phenomenon

1:26:40 The paradox of striving/seeking, allowing experience to be

1:29:00 Drifting reality and what is attention, the groundless nature of experience

1:33:28 The paradox of meditation and effort, the role of teachers

1:43:06 The dreamlike quality of waking experience

1:45:20 Zoom as an abstraction vs. in person experience

1:48:50 What is meditation? What is common to all experience: one taste

1:55:05 What is consciousness? Reality is “just this”; what is “presence”

2:04:55 All views are partial, the Alt-Middle, Integral perspective, thoughts are just thoughts

2:07:43 McGilcrist and left brain vs right brain, Jill Bolte Taylor

2:10:40 Wrapping up, links, and the book This Extraordinary Moment