I started meditating because my life had fallen apart.
There comes a time when the stories you’ve been telling yourself no longer hold true. Your ego is torn between the life you’re living and the life you were meant to live.
This was that moment for me.
Some call it a mid-life crisis.
But it’s not, it’s a call to authenticity, a chance to align your life with your deepest values and aspirations.
And for some reason, it lead me to meditation.
Meditation is often represented badly.
Most people get it wrong.
It’s either sold as the most life-changing thing you can do, or a luxury saved for monks living in Himalayan caves.
The problem with these two extremes is that they’re misleading.
One implies that meditation will solve all the problems in your life. The other, that true meditation is saved for a select few, something out of your reach.
Both are lies.
Meditation is misunderstood because the people who profit from it are the very same people who complicate it. If something is complex and you have the solution, you own the market.
If you’re one of those people who have been led astray, I’ll save you a trip to Nepal and a few thousand dollars in courses and student fees.
Mediation is the act of being aware.
That’s it.
Anything else is a form of complexity added to push a specific agenda.
I’ve met a ton of people in this space and made some friends along the way. This is not a jab at them. There are many fantastic books, teachers, and resources available.
But I’ve been stuck in this loop before.
- Do you drift from one spiritual teaching to another without grounding yourself in any?
- Do you buy the latest book, highlight impactful passages, share quotes on social media and move on to the next book without applying the insights gained? Then repeat the cycle in search for the next book that will finally change your life?
- Do you spend a significant amount of money and time on retreats and workshops? While in attendance, have you experienced a temporary state of bliss? When you return back to regular life
- Do you fall into old habits, and within a a short time, feel the need to attend another retreat, hoping to regain that sense of peace and enlightenment once a for all?
If so, you might be stuck in the Loop of Enlightenment. A vicious cycle of consumption without application.
Education is great and teachings can be helpful, but insight is gained through experience.
Nobody can do the work for you.
I stress this now because I understand the irony of me telling you to stop seeking more information as I provide you with more information.
These insights I share are from my own experience.
Some will resonate with you and others will not.
And that’s fine.
Use what’s useful and discard the rest.
Earlier I said meditation is the act of being aware.
And by now, you might be asking yourself: what does that even mean?
In response, I’d say, you have to figure it out for yourself.
I can tell you that being aware is the ability to observe your thoughts, emotions, and suffering from a detached perspective without additional commentary.
And this would be good advice.
But if I get too specific in explaining the how to of being aware, it becomes a technique.
And the minute you have a technique you’re hooked. You’re caught in the loop again.
The best advice I can give you?
Spend time alone and see what comes up.
- Go for a long walk in nature.
- Lock yourself in your room and sit quietly for an hour.
- Spend a weekend in a cabin somewhere remote.
Seek solitude without distractions (that means no phone) and see what you find.
It doesn’t matter how you do it, as long as you do.
My intention is to share what I’ve learned and hope it will be valuable for you. But the obligation is on you to practice awareness in your own life.
Okay, enough preamble. Here’s what 1,917 hours of meditation taught me.
Your Mortality Is A Powerful Motivator
Most people are unconscious, overwhelmed, and lost.
They’ve become disconnected from what’s important and follow a script imposed by others.
- The media tells you how to think.
- Society guides what you value.
- Attention is bought and sold and you are the commodity.
Few people spend time reflecting on life, let alone the lack thereof.
In the West, death is a morbid topic. In the East, it’s the key to living with meaning.
How can you expect to live fully if you’ve never embraced death?
Everyone knows they are going to die. Intellectually, they do. But how many bury that fact?
The intellectual understanding of your mortality is not enough to create change. If it’s not visceral it’s not applicable.
So what happens?
You forget in your day-to-day.
- You make the same poor choices.
- Take people and things for granted.
- Waste time, get distracted, and chase the next cheap dopamine hit.
When death is on top of mind that all fades away and your priorities become clear.
The best motivator for living?
Embrace death daily.
There are many ways you can do this.
I learned a Buddhist practice called Maranasati, which consists of keeping death on top of mind and reflecting on it often.
It can be as simple as spending few moments throughout the day thinking about your mortality.
Visualize yourself at your funeral.
All of your friends, family and loved ones are in attendance.
What are they saying about you?
What dreams or goals did you leave unfinished?
What could you have done better?
Imagine you have 1 week to live.
What would be the most important thing for you now?
Would the things you’re worrying about still bother you?
How would you spend those last seven days?
Spend time in a cemetery.
Seriously.
This is a powerful practice. I pass by a cemetery on my way to jiu jitsu and it always brings me into a state of contemplation.
I’m gravitated toward thinking about the people who lay there.
They had goals and dreams and ambitions.
They felt anxiety, had financial stress, and bills to pay. And in the end, they all met the same fate.
What’s the result of all this thinking about death?
- It eliminates, or at least reduces procrastination.
- It clarifies your values and priorities.
- It motivates you to take action.
It’s also a healthy way to live.
Death is a natural part of life.
You are going to die, so it might be worth getting comfortable with this fact and allowing it to influence the quality of your life.
Your life starts when you learn to embrace death.
There Are Only Two Types of Suffering
The suffering that creates more suffering, and the suffering that ends suffering.
In Buddhism, the First Noble Truth is that life consists of suffering. This is a fact we are all aware of.
Suffering comes in many forms.
- The anxiety caused by financial strain.
- The stress of a divorce.
- The fear of living an unfulfilled life.
Even though we suffer, we have a choice in how we suffer.
Do you get caught up in your emotions and spiral out of control or face your suffering head on and end it?
Let me be clear before I go on. When I say end it, I’m talking about the cycle that leads to more suffering.
Not suffering itself.
Using divorce as an example:
Bob finds out his wife wants a divorce. He’s shocked and upset and starts drinking to numb the pain. His drinking gets worse and one day he shows up to work drunk and is fired on the spot. He can no longer make his house payments. He gets foreclosed on. But instead of taking responsibility he continues to drink while casting blame on his wife and sets himself on a path of self-destruction.
This is suffering leading to more suffering.
John finds out his wife wants a divorce. He’s shocked and upset but takes some time to reflect. He realizes he’s been a terrible husband and can see why his wife made this decision. He finds himself struggling to stay focused at work and his mind races at night. He’s heartbroken and hurt but uses this as motivation to change his behaviour. Through the suffering and pain he makes positive life-changes, makes amends with his wife, and starts creating new habits and values to live by.
This is suffering leading to the end of suffering.
Be like John.
There’s an important distinction.
The end of suffering doesn’t mean the end of pain or struggle or challenges.
The end of suffering means using your suffering in a skilful way so it doesn’t lead to more suffering.
With practice, even when challenges arise, they won’t feel as heavy.
They won’t impact you in the same way.
Suffering is not the same as pain.
We suffer when we allow our pain to create more pain. We end suffering when we allow our pain to help heal ourselves and others.
How you respond to your suffering will decide if you create more of it, or transform it to something beautiful.
Stillness Leads to Movement
Spending time alone is the best thing you can do for yourself.
- Meditation.
- Nature walks.
- Journalling your thoughts and feelings.
- Reflection and contemplation.
Solitude can feel foreign to the average person in our fast-paced modern society.
People often say they can’t fit meditation into their schedule.
There’s too much to do and no one seems to have the time to do it.
I was that person.
Then I took a moment to test how I spent my days.
It turns out that I was busy. Real busy. Real busy at making myself busy.
I had a job and responsibilities and those requirements were met. But there was a lot of time wasted throughout my day due to bad habits.
- Scrolling social media.
- Watching just a few episodes on Netflix.
- Jumping from one business idea to another.
My thinking was scattered and my energy was dispersed.
When life gets like this it can feel like you have no time to do anything. Meditation is the last thing people think of because we tend to base our output from our input. More hours equals more results, we reason.
But that’s not true.
It’s not only about the hours put in, it’s about the value of those hours.
Without clarity it’s easy to spend 12 hours being busy doing minor or harmful things.
Being busy is not the same as being productive.
Meditation allowed me to slow down so I could speed up.
It allowed me to spend an hour so I could gain back 4.
Meditation gave me the clarity to focus on what was important. It allowed me to be more productive, in less time.
2-4 hours of intentional, purposeful work is worth more than 12 hours of busyness.
Slowing down speeds you up.
Stillness leads to action.
Simplicity Over Complexity
For some reason people thrive off complexity. It’s a sickness. We tend to favour things that seem complex out of some sort of novelty aspect.
When given two options, a simple one and a complex one, we give more weight to the one which is more complex.
If it was simple, everyone would be doing it!
False.
Simple doesn’t mean easy.
That’s where people get it wrong. They think if something is simple it must not be effective. So they think complexity is the answer, and end up complicating things.
Most things in life worth striving for are simple in theory but hard in application.
Want to improve your health?
Exercise daily and make healthy food choices.
Want to publish a book?
Write everyday.
Want to process your emotions?
Find solitude and stay with the feelings that arise letting them pass through you.
These are all simple and effective ways to achieve the desired result.
But the execution is hard.
Instead we:
- Create or follow complicated workout routines, get discouraged, then quit.
- Look at a blank screen, get distracted, and justify it as writers block.
- Numb our emotions with cheap dopamine hits.
We add noise to the simplicity because we crave complexity.
And then we act surprised when the results we strive for never show up.
Remember this: Anytime something seems too complex, it’s designed to benefit those who created the complexity.
Simplicity leads to depth.
Complexity leads to burnout.
But don’t confuse simple with easy.
The work is hard but the effort is worth it.
Yesterday’s Truth is Tomorrow’s Prison
What’s helpful today can harm you tomorrow.
Three stories come to mind that underscore this idea.
The Two Monks and the Woman
Two monks, one old and one young, were traveling together. They came to a river with a strong current. As they were about to cross the river, they saw a young woman unable to cross on her own. The older monk offered to carry her across, despite the monastic rules against touching women. After they crossed, the younger monk was visibly upset. Hours later, he confronted the older monk, asking why he had carried the woman. The older monk replied, “I set her down at the riverbank hours ago. Why are you still carrying her?”
It’s important to let go of past actions and rigid adherence to rules when they no longer serve you. Clinging to a truth can become a mental prison.
The Parable of the Raft
The Buddha tells the story of a man who builds a raft to cross a river. After crossing, he wonders if he should carry the raft on his back since it was so useful. The Buddha explains that the raft (representing teachings or truths) was useful for crossing but should be left behind when no longer needed.
Spiritual teachings are tools for a specific purpose. Once that purpose is fulfilled, drop it.
The Story of the Zen Master and the Teacup
A university professor visits a Zen master to inquire about Zen. The master pours tea into the professor’s cup and continues pouring even after the cup is full. The professor exclaims that the cup is overflowing. The master responds, “Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”
You have to be open to new insights and wisdom. The way you do it is to empty yourself first.
Use a technique and then drop it.
The only eternal truth is death.
There are endless ways to live your life and endless truths people have.
Ask 10 millionaires how they made their money and you’ll get 10 different responses. Ask a spiritual teacher about the path to enlightenment and you’ll experience the same.
Life is a process of continuous self-examination.
Truths that serve us now, can become restrictive and harmful as circumstances change.
Enlightenment Is Not What You Think
If you’ve spent any amount of time in the spirituality space, you might have noticed a trend.
People do weird things in the name of enlightenment. They quit their jobs, travel to remote places, and renounce all possessions.
There’s nothing wrong with any of this.
Becoming aware can lead you to living with more purpose.
A change in career or devaluing of materialism can be sincere forms of a deepening of awareness.
The problem?
Most people don’t put in the real work needed to make lasting change.
Much of the modern spirituality movement is deceitful marketing tactics and clever forms of spiritual bypassing.
Let’s run through some common helpful spiritual ideas that end up doing more harm than good.
Always Thinking Positive
Insisting that you have to always be positive and deny or suppress negative emotions under the guise of maintaining a high vibration.
Forgive and Forget
Encouragement to forgive others quickly without processing feelings of hurt, anger, or betrayal, claiming it’s a higher spiritual act.
I’m too enlightened to be mad. So I will suppress my emotions and ‘forgive you,’ even though deep down I still resent you.
Spiritual Rationalizations
Justifying harmful behaviours or avoiding accountability by using spiritual concepts instead of evaluating your actions.
Yes, I lost my job because I was drunk, but everything happens for a reason.
Avoiding Necessary Conflict
Refusing to have difficult conversations or avoiding necessary conflicts under the pretense of keeping peace and harmony.
Sometimes you need to tell people to fuck off, explain how they hurt you and move on with your life.
Spiritual Narcissism
Believing that your spiritual practice makes you superior to others or exempt from ordinary human experiences and responsibilities.
I am too enlightened to pay my child support. After all, everything is an illusion.
Shadow Denial
Refusing to acknowledge and integrate the darker aspects of yourself, by projecting your undesirable thoughts, feelings, or traits onto others.
I’m not hostile, you’re being passive-aggressive.
These examples all come down to one thing.
Responsibility.
You are responsible for your life.
The enlightened person is not someone who avoids their responsibilities.
It’s the person who accepts them, works through them, and moves on with their life.
That’s why most of the self-help space is filled with books, courses and teachings geared toward what sells.
I want to write a book titled, Life is Hard Then You Die: Do the Work Anyway.
But it will never sell.
People want quick fixes.
For 3 easy payments of $49.99 you can find peace, serenity and lasting joy!
People want to renounce their responsibilities in the name of spirituality.
I’ve experienced my share of enlightened peopled.
One person left their spouse and kids to live among monks.
Another had an affair with their married spiritual teacher.
And one more, who racked up a ridiculous amount debt on retreats, courses, and gurus, then fled the country.
All in the name of enlightenment.
These people are all deluded.
They think enlightenment is over there. In someone, something, or somewhere else.
Enlightenment is dealing with life, head on.
The screaming kids, the highway traffic, and the missed mortgage payment.
This is real life and you are a real person.
This is the work you need to do.
This is the work you must do.
Thanks for reading. If you found some value, let me know here.
Until next time,
Chris
P.S.
I love to write in-depth content on important topics. These posts are short reflections and summaries of my longer pieces. To dive deeper and gain access to my complete letters, subscribe here.
Stay connected on X and Instagram.
