Nonduality and the Ego with Jake Orthwein

Host Michael Taft talks with Jake Orthwein about the self as a construction, the distinction between no-self and emptiness, the crucial difference between having a functional ego and being identified with it, psychedelics and meditation and ego dissolution, the Buddha-nature vs. the True Self, dereification vs. defabrication, Taft’s distinction of nondual one vs. nondual two, and the importance of a healthy ego. Jake Orthwein is a filmmaker based in Brooklyn, NY, and a dharma student of Michael Taft’s. His most recent film, “Unraveling the Dream,” was produced in collaboration with the Waking Up app and focuses on the history and neuroscience of psychedelics. Jake's website You can support the creation of future episodes of this podcast by contributing through Patreon . See Privacy Policy at and California Privacy Notice at .

You can listen to Nonduality and the Ego with Jake Orthwein online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Nonduality and the Ego with Jake Orthwein is an episode from Deconstructing Yourself by Michael W. Taft.

This episode is 01:02:16 long.

This episode was published on Sep 21, 2025.

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