Ep110: Case Study of Ecstatic Meditation - Leigh Brasington, Shinzen Young, Chelsey Fasano, & Dr Sanguinetti

Dialogues
Written By Guru Viking

In this episode special guest Leigh Brasington, Buddhist meditation teacher and author of ‘Right Concentration, A Practical Guide to the Jhanas’, joins the ongoing conversation featuring Shinzen Young, Chelsey Fasano, and Dr Jay Sanguinetti.

In this episode special guest Leigh Brasington, Buddhist meditation teacher and author of ‘Right Concentration, A Practical Guide to the Jhanas’, joins the ongoing conversation featuring:

  • Shinzen Young, meditation teacher and neuroscience research consultant

  • Chelsey Fasano, a Columbia University neuroscience student

  • Dr Jay Sanguinetti, Assistant Director for the Center for Consciousness Studies and Research Professor at the University of New Mexico

In this episode Leigh shares his work with jhana meditation and neuroscience, summarising his 2013 paper ‘Case Study of Ecstatic Meditation’ and showing his brain scans in profound states of samadhi.

Dr Sanguinetti offers his own interpretation of Leigh’s scans, and Chelsey asks why mystics report states of nothingness as so much more satisfying than the mundane pleasures associated with the reward systems of the brain.

Listen in as Shinzen and Leigh, old friends with decades of elite-level meditation experience, engage in far reaching discussions of samadhi, , the nature of spiritual insights, deathlessness vs immortality, bliss and the cosmic leela, and what foundational math debates about set vs category have to say about Buddhist notions of paticca-samuppada.


Also available on Youtube, iTunes, & Spotify – search ‘Guru Viking Podcast’.

Topics Include:

00:00 – Intro
01:22 – Leigh overviews his work in jhana meditation and neuroscience 
06:10 – Leigh’s brain scans in jhana states 
10:26 – What are the jhanas?
15:32 – Dr Sanguinetti comments on Leigh’s brain scans
17:50 – Samadhi and the positive feedback loop
26:53 – Shinzen and Leigh on foundational math, set vs category, and paticca-samuppada
39:42 – Why is no-self so fulfilling? 
47:00 – Shinzen and Leigh on death
54:07 – Jhanas are just the warm-up
01:00:01 – What are spiritual insights and why are they so rewarding?
01:08:29 – Dr Sanguinetti comments on nested levels and jhana practice protocol 
01:16:30 – Retraining the default mode to nothingness 
01:22:34 – A test of spiritual liberation and sensory deprivation hallucination
01:33:19 – Attention both amplifies and inhibits
01:35:37 – ‘The Emperor’s New Mind’ 
01:38:37 – SODAPI 
01:40:59 – Bliss and the Cosmic Leela 
01:50:47 – Three Gates of Liberation 
01:55:31 – Immortality project vs deathlessness

Guru Viking
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