Ep212: Path to Nibbāna - David Johnson
David Johnson is a meditation teacher and author of ‘A Path to Nibbana’, a complete meditation guide to TWIM.
Available on Youtube, iTunes, SoundCloud & Spotify – search ‘Guru Viking Podcast’.
David shares details about the life of his recently deceased teacher, Bhante Vimalaramsi, including their first meetings in the 1970s meditation scene, the last days of Bhante Vimalaramsi’s life, and the consequences of his death for the religious organisation he left behind.
David recounts his own life story, including twenty years of meditation in the Vipassana movement and a detailed description of how he achieved its version of stream entry.
David explains how practicing Bhante Vimalaramsi’s teachings showed to him that the stream entry achieved through Vipassana meditation is merely a mental blackout, and explains how to achieve true awakening through the practice of TWIM.
David also defines enlightenment, discusses psychic siddhi powers, and questions the enlightenment of figures such as Dipa Ma, suggesting their attainments were much less than widely believed.
00:00 - Intro
03:12 - Death of Bhante Vimalaramsi
09:12 - Meeting Bhante Vimalaramsi in 1975
11:42 - Disco killed meditation
12:24 - Becoming a millionaire and going to India
16:52 - David’s work as librarian of Bhante Vimalaramsi’s teachings
18:42 - Filming Dipa Ma and other famous teachers
21:22 - What’s next after Bhante Vimalaramsi’s death?
25:56 - David’s middle class upbringing in the USA
27:17 - Teenage interest in hypnosis
27:58 - Talking about guitars and music
30:29 - Attending Evergreen College, LSD, and Carlos Castaneda
33:04 - Bouncing between colleges
36:06 - Extensive experience in vipassana meditation
38:22 - David details passing through the progress of insight stages
45:54 - Did David achieve stream entry?
47:08 - Discovering the real stream entry
50:18 - Real stream entry vs vipassana black-outs
55:35 - The practice story of the Buddha
01:02:00 - The importance of tranquillising the mental formations
01:07:02 - The dangers of meditation and psychedelics
01:10:56 - Secularising meditation
01:13:50 - David asks Steve, ‘What is enlightenment?’
01:16:01 - David accuses Steve of eel-wriggling
01:17:11 - David defines enlightenment in terms of the 4 noble truths
01:22:19 - Dipa Ma was not as enlightened as she thought she was
01:29:29 - Dipa Ma’s mastery of psychic powers
01:34:16 - Going to hell after suppressing the mind with concentration
01:36:58 - How to evaluate your enlightenment level
01:48:04 - Why did Buddhism go wrong?
Previous episodes with Delson Armstrong and Bhante Vimalaramsi visit:
To find our more about David Johnson visit:
Music ‘Deva Dasi’ by Steve James