#112: The Illusion of Self: Nondual Meditation & Brain Science - John Dunne, PhD

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To understand the ultimate nature of reality is to understand the nature of our experience itself. And to understand the nature of our experience itself, we need to drop out of that dualistic perspective that is actually confusing us about the nature of reality. Enlightenment is already fully present in every sentient being. To be a sentient being is to already have what's called Buddha nature. There's a fundamental aspect of consciousness, or the nature of consciousness itself is enlightened. Mahamudra and Dzogchen, they both end up in what can be called sudden enlightenment. And both are practices that allow that to manifest, not create it, not try to make something happen. Contemplative practices and science benefit each other. And we're trying to create an institution that will do that concretely, and training leaders to lead differently. Today's guest wanted to be an astronaut. He enrolled at the United States Air Force Academy to get there. But somewhere between the dream and the reality, something broke. And he realized the frontier he was actually looking for wasn't out in space, it was inward. And that shift led him to study under some of the greatest Tibetan meditation masters alive, to earn a PhD from Harvard, and eventually to become one of the leading voices bridging Buddhist philosophy and modern neuroscience. Professor John Dunn now holds the Distinguished Chair in Contemplative Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he works alongside the inc…

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