Meditation, Magick, and the Fire Kasina, with Daniel Ingram
In this session, host Michael W. Taft and radical dharma author and practitioner Daniel Ingram discuss the Fire Kasina practice, meditation and magick, working with archetypal forces and entities, Daniel’s description of a fruition experience, siddhis and visionary experiences, Daniel’s wizarding worldview, and much more. We also discuss the second edition of his classic work Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, as well as his new book on the Fire Kasina. Daniel Ingram is an emergency medicine physician and long-time dharma practitioner. He famously exploded the Buddhist world when he declared himself to be an arhat and published the seminal text Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: an Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book in 2008. He is also the main force behind the radical Dharma Overground website, which he founded together with Vince Horn, that specializes in a brand of unusually-frank discussion of meditation practice. You can learn more about Daniel at his website, www.integrateddaniel.info. You can download a free PDF of The Fire Kasina book here. Show Notes 00:25 – Introduction and overview 2:10 – Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha 2, its purpose and release 4:55 – The fire kasina: what it is, what happens as concentration increases, and how it provides immediate feedback on the strength of concentration 8:01 – Fire kasina’s benefits beyond concentration: insight, crafting your reality, fusion of śamatha and vipassanā 12:57 – The awakening components of fire kasina practice, fruitions 17:28 – The ontological status of deities seen during fire kasina practice and the meaning of joint powers experiences 22:50 – Daniel’s fire kasina experiences and teaching the practice to others 29:42 – The line between madness and meditation 35:30 – Siddhis, synchronicities, and the collective unconscious 40:22 – Daniel’s cutting edge in practice and use of magick 51:24 – Dzogchen and the post-magickal 59:19 – Deconstructing sensory experience into fruition 1:10:44 – What meditation teachers get wrong: lack of warning about potential dangers 1:21:49 – The cross-pollination and experimentation the internet affords the meditation scene 1:24:51 – The Fire Kasina, a book with Shannon Stein You can support the creation of future episodes of this podcast by contributing through Patreon. Listen to more with Daniel Ingram.