This Extraordinary Moment: Meditative Inquiry w/ John Astin

40 Episodes
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By: John Astin

This podcast is drawn from weekly meetings hosted by John Astin, author of the book, "This Extraordinary Moment." In these recorded sessions, John introduces a novel approach to meditative inquiry that invites the listener into a deep exploration of moment-to-moment experience, one that reveals the myriad ways reality transcends everything we imagine it to be and points to the profoundly liberating implications of this discovery.

This That Is Doing Everything
Last Tuesday at 6:00 PM

This episode invites the listener to feel the mystery (of life, existence) that is doing everything, the "engine" or force underlying all that appears.


The Present Moment Can't Be Found (And Yet, Here It Is!)
04/26/2025

This episode explores the paradox of time, the fact that the moment has no duration, impossible to find as something identifiable owing to its ever-changing nature, and yet appearing as what we call, the world.


This One Presence
04/21/2025

In this episode, the listener is invited to notice that everything is present, that presence is the very basis of each momentary perception, regardless of its descriptive label.


The Mystery Doing Everything
04/11/2025

What is doing all this? What is beating the heart, breathing the breath, digesting food, making the sun shine, the leaves grow, the thoughts arise? The list is literally endless. This episode explores the mystery doing everything.


The Root
04/07/2025

This episode explores the "root," investigating what is most fundamental about every experience, namely its boundless, unresolvable infinity.


The Mystery Doing Everything
03/31/2025

In this episode, I invite the listener to notice what's doing everything, the mysterious energy that fuels each and every momentary arising.


Pure Magic
03/26/2025

Hi this talk, I explore the mysterious and magical nature of everything that appears.


Like Sunlight Filling Space
03/16/2025

In this episode, I explore a metaphor from the Tibetan tradition that likens reality to "sunlight filling space," owing to its ever-present, all-inclusive nature.


The Feeling of Everything
03/12/2025

In this episode, the listener is invited into the felt sense and presence of everything.


The Edge of You
03/05/2025

This guided meditation explores the presumed edges or boundaries we imagine separate us from whatever we think of as not us.


The Mystery of Presence
02/25/2025

In this guided exploration, John points to the sheer presence of everything that appears and the ultimate mystery that it is. 


This Infinity That You Are
02/20/2025

In this episode, John explores the boundless, infinite nature of us and everything.


I AM
02/13/2025

In this guided exploration, John invites the listener into the primal sense of existence/being ("I AM") to discover its all-inclusive nature.


This Beautiful Paradox
02/10/2025

This episode explores the paradox of Reality's being infinitely differentiated at the same time, never departing from Itself. 


Everything is the Miracle
02/04/2025

In this episode, John points to the omnipresent nature of reality.


Paradox of Separation
01/24/2025

In this episode, John explores the paradoxical sense of existing in a world made up of different parts and pieces in interaction with one another while at the same time, seeing that experientially, no separation or division can be found.


No Things
01/19/2025

This episode explores the way in which there are no findable things owing to the dynamic, ever-dissolving nature of reality.


The Great Completion
01/12/2025

In this episode, John highlights the fundamentally unresolvable nature of phenomena, revealing that there are no findable "things" owing to the ever-transforming nature of what appears. 


Being, the Home We Never Left
01/07/2025

In this episode, I point to the wholeness of life (which I describe as "Being") and how it is the only thing that exists and is impossible to ever be apart from.


This Knowing Pervading Everything
01/01/2025

This Episode explores the sense of knowing-awareness that pervades every moment.


The Body of Experience
12/26/2024

In this episode, I explore the transcendental "body," i.e., the undivided body of experiencing itself.


Unwavering Presence
12/16/2024

This episode explores "presence" (the presence of what is) as an unwavering, ever-present reality, regardless of how things are appearing.


This Aliveness
12/12/2024

In this guided inquiry, I point to "aliveness" as the common denominator underlying everything that appears.


This Magical, Mysterious Being
12/06/2024

This guided inquiry explores "being," the primal basis of each and every moment, and its ultimately mysterious, ineffable nature.


Unstoppable Flow
11/30/2024

This guided inquiry highlights the ceaseless, ever-changing flow of reality and the resulting impossibility of ever capturing its nature in thought.


The Miracle of Perceiving
11/24/2024

This episode invites the listener into an experiential exploration of the inconceivable miracle that's perceiving every moment.


The Questions are Made of the Answer
11/22/2024

The answer to our questions of where our fundamental well-being lies is found in the questions themselves for those questions, like everything else that arises, are made of this vast and inconceivable mystery that moves as everything. 


What Never Goes Away
11/19/2024

This episode explores the way in which despite all the coming and going of experience, there is something that is always present.


The Is-Ness
11/15/2024

This guided talk/inquiry explores the existence or "is-ness" underlying every momentary perception. 


The Natural State
11/14/2024

This talk/inquiry invites the listener to notice that nothing about what's being experienced needs to be changed for everything that arises is the natural state of things and reality's perfect, unavoidable expression.


The Ungraspable Nature of This
11/09/2024

This talk/guided inquiry points to the way in which reality is utterly ungraspable conceptually. 


The Presence That Welcomes Everything
11/07/2024

This talk/inquiry invites the listener to discover the ever-present presence of life itself that welcomes all its myriad expressions. 


This Effortless Shining
11/06/2024

This episode points to way in which every moment that appears, regardless of its descriptive label, is the shining forth of reality.


The Magnificent Display
11/02/2024

This talk/guided inquiry points to the way in which everything that appears, whether experientially or circumstantially, is the display of this one reality. 


Impossible to Ever Lost This
11/01/2024

In this talk/inquiry, I highlight how reality (the presence of what is) can never be lost for it is what we are and everything is.


The Simplicity of Being
10/30/2024

The title says it all :-).


Everything Is Experience
#5
10/30/2024

In this episode, I guide the listener into a perspective in which what we conventionally think of as the seemingly separate parts and pieces that make up the world are realized to be a seamless, undivided whole made of experience itself. 


The Edge of You
#4
10/28/2024

This inquiry explores the supposed edge or boundary of "us," revealing that when we look and feel into existence (or being) itself, we find no borders, no boundaries, no seams and the fabric of experience. What we find is an undivided, limitless expanse of being.


The Basis of Everything
#3
10/28/2024

This talk/inquiry explores the mystery of being as the fundamental basis of each and every moment.


This Aliveness That Is Everything
#2
10/27/2024

This talk/guided exploration points to the singular nature of reality as an aliveness that appears as every circumstance and experience.