Don't meditate to improve yourself
Lessons from my personal journey with meditation
Starting a meditation practice was one of the best things I ever did.
I'm sure you've heard the above sentiment expressed elsewhere. It may even annoy you—a pithy, simplistic attempt at virtue-signaling, perhaps?
Why am I telling you this?
Meditation is a difficult practice to start, and I have heard from many close to me how they just can't get into it. My journey got off to a similar rocky start. There were years between the first dip of a toe and now, where it has become a core part of my life.
I'm writing this in the hopes that you might reconsider your own relationship with meditation and develop or grow a practice that could be life-changing.
Changing our relationship with meditation
Meditation has become widely accepted as a thing we 'should' do in order to improve our well-being, alongside exercising frequently and getting enough sleep. But it is often the hardest of the self-care practices to develop. How can you sit still for ten minutes when there's always something else that needs to be done? It feels like a waste of time when compared to all the other things we need to do.
The benefits of meditation in the research are clear. It can improve your focus and performance at work. It can help you regulate your emotional responses, reduce stress and anxiety, and improve your sleep. Some studies suggest that meditation can even play a role in reducing pain perception, thus improving the quality of life for individuals with chronic pain. And of course, it might even make you ten percent happier, as one of the popular apps claims.
But in my mind, these are all sideshows to the main event.
It is too easy to bring the same optimization brain that drives our economies forward into our spiritual practices. Meditation quickly becomes a tool for self-improvement—a habit to track, another item to tick off on our to-do list—as we default to a relationship that sees the self as some sort of personal development project, complete with goals, milestones, and a 10-point improvement plan. The end of this road is spiritual materialism, where gurus replace CEOs and 'enlightenment' replaces wealth.
Self-improvement is not the point of meditation.
If there was a goal to meditation, it wouldn't be to eliminate the mental chatter that blocks you from performing at the highest level. Rather, it would be to recognize the very nature of mental chatter—how it arises and passes away in an unceasing stream of thought—and to accept it as it is.
Meditation is not confined to sitting on a cushion with your legs crossed and observing your breath. It is about developing a quality of awareness that enables you to be a witness to your present experience. It allows you to suspend judgment and release control over trying to change things. Drinking your coffee, eating your food, and going for a walk can all be done with this quality of mind. It can serve as a powerful anchor in what is, at a foundational level, an uncertain world.
My personal journey with meditation
My journey with meditation started in late 2015. I was in the middle of a career change and was on the receiving end of a breakup that had derailed me. I was also stuck in the endgame of my charismatic Christian beliefs and felt depressed, hopeless, and alone in the world.
At the time, I still identified as Christian, and I had the unfortunate, misguided belief that therapy was an 'un-Christian' pursuit, indicating a basic lack of trust in God. Despite that belief, somewhere inside, a seed had been planted that the wisdom from eastern traditions was not mutually exclusive to my Christian beliefs. So, playing the odds of contaminating my faith, I decided to try a 10-day introductory course to meditation on Headspace, a popular meditation app, looking for some respite from my mind.
I was underwhelmed. The teachings felt vague and simplistic, and I didn't experience any positive benefit. It also didn't help that Andy Puddicombe's voice (the founder of Headspace), annoyed me. (No offense if you ever read this, Andy). I changed tactics and visited a meditation teacher for a one-on-one session. Again, the hang-ups that I was displeasing God with this exploration of the borderline occult were self-limiting, and there was a pervasive sense of unease.
Fate cast her die at that point, and I received a job in management consulting. This presented a new opportunity to craft an identity in a new belief system of capitalism and competition, as Christianity faded into the past. My search for respite from the mind itself dissipated as I proceeded to work ridiculously long hours for the next two and a half years, trying to please the new god of performance.
Thankfully, my body reminded me who was actually in charge, and I burned out. I decided to take a year off to do things that had been circling in my consciousness for a while. Plans included 'hitchhiking' on a sailboat across the Atlantic, training as a nature guide in the pristine wilderness of the Okavango Delta, and traveling to far-out destinations. But I wanted to get back on the meditation horse to start it all off, as once again a belief system had fallen away, leaving space for the uneasy void and futility of life.
A friend of mine had been working in a small town in South Africa called Worcester, which just so happens to be the location of the country's only Vipassana meditation center. Vipassana is an ancient technique of meditation, rediscovered by Siddhartha Gotama (the man often referred to as 'the Buddha') more than 2500 years ago, and preserved through a direct lineage of teachers. The last of those teachers, S.N. Goenka, founded the Vipassana organization, which organizes 10-day meditation courses at centers globally. There are no charges for the course, although students can volunteer to contribute to the costs after completion. This was important. In a world where mindfulness has been monetized and meditation is becoming big business, it can be difficult to know where to go and who to trust. The lack of a business model provided a helpful encouragement to show that there might be something of more substance there. So without knowing much more than that (probably a good thing), I signed up for a 10-day silent course in August 2018.
The course had a profound impact on me. I suffered mentally and physically over the 10 days, but I came out with a deeper appreciation of the nature of mind and a little more equanimity in the way that I approached my life. This has ebbed and flowed over the years, but I can firmly say that meditation is now a regular practice, and I'm grateful for having taken the plunge all those years ago.
Chasing states of mind
As always, there's more to that story.
A big part of the reason I was interested in Vipassana meditation specifically was because I'd had my first psychedelic experiences that year at AfrikaBurn, a regional Burning Man festival held in South Africa. These experiences had a profound impact on me, as they gave me access to states of mind that have gone on to serve as enduring references of 'what good looks like'. On MDMA, an ingredient of the party drug Ecstasy, I experienced a deep sense of self-love for the first time in my life. I will always cherish the experience, as I accessed a mental space of what it feels like to be fundamentally good and worthy of love and to feel an enduring sense of belonging in the world. On LSD, commonly referred to as acid, my mind was re-opened to the possibility that there might be something greater than myself, through encounters with difficult-to-articulate transpersonal phenomena. This led me to reconsider my then atheist beliefs, which were antagonistic towards any form of spirituality.
I'm cautious about glorifying so-called 'drugs' and joining the online army of spiritual seekers who evangelize the benefits without talking about the negatives. It's important to acknowledge that in most countries, these substances are illegal and pose a risk of criminal charges. MDMA has been shown to be neurotoxic if used too frequently. Anybody with a family history of psychosis or schizophrenia should avoid psychedelics completely, as they can have destabilizing effects (a phenomenon that I have also experienced viscerally). As a wise friend of mine has often said, 'the best trips make you appreciate your sobriety'. Do not take my personal account as an endorsement or exhortation. It is up to each person to take responsibility for the contents of their mind and to consider the potential legal repercussions.
After experiencing these powerful reference states, I went down the rabbit hole of altered states and their impacts on well-being. A common thread emerged: meditation can provide access to similar benefits as psychedelics. I also heard anecdotal evidence in discussion with acquaintances who told of their experience of analogous states on the Vipassana retreat itself.
Sam Harris says it eloquently here:
Meditation can open the mind to a similar range of conscious states, but far less haphazardly. If LSD is like being strapped to a rocket, learning to meditate is like gently raising a sail. Yes, it is possible, even with guidance, to wind up someplace terrifying, and some people probably shouldn’t spend long periods in intensive practice. But the general effect of meditation training is of settling ever more fully into one’s own skin and suffering less there.
Anyone familiar with meditation practice will recognize the deep irony in what I've said above, because at the very root of our suffering is this exact pattern of chasing or avoiding states. Suffering, or dukkha, in the Pali language of the Buddha, is a result of craving and aversion. Like, dislike, like dislike, as the cycle continues until the end of time. Trying to improve ourselves to some sort of reference state. Trying to avoid negative reference states. All of it in opposition to seeing life as it is, and accepting it without judgement.
Well, we all have to start somewhere.
So where do you actually start?
I am of the opinion that you need to have a tangible experience of the benefits in your own life to build a meditation practice. Otherwise, it will become something you resist.
At this point, it is easy to default to a one-dimensional perspective, and forget that we all have different contexts and thresholds for new experiences. Enlisting the assistance of chemicals and making a big upfront commitment worked for me. But doing acid at Burning Man or sitting an intensive meditation course will not be the path for most.
Maybe the commitment is smaller for you—a full evening workshop or a weekend retreat at a local Buddhist center is a great place to get started. This will then hopefully become an anchor to your practice, as you're no longer doubting whether there is a point to it all. I found that once the realization set in that I wasn’t just wasting my time sitting on a cushion, things started falling into place.
Perhaps for you it starts with the simple acknowledgement that there are barriers in your mind that can be transcended. Maybe you can reference a time in your life when you felt in a state of flow and your mental chatter dissipated to make space for an open awareness of the given moment. An intimate encounter with a partner or a meeting of eyes with your new-born child. Leave behind the notion that meditation is something you do for ten minutes on a cushion, and replace it with a broader definition of developing awareness in your everyday life. In this way, states of flow or connection could become helpful analogs.
Having said all that, many report that starting a regular seated meditation practice has also yielded benefit for them. There are many apps available to assist in this arena, and I have tried my fair share: Headspace, Balance, Atom, and Calm. However, I've always found myself coming back to ‘Waking Up’ by Sam Harris. The app has a treasure trove of curated content, including the full complement of Alan Watt's live lectures, and poetry readings from the inimitable David Whyte. Sam hosts conversations with prominent teachers and thinkers, and also features instructional courses on a number of topics going beyond meditation, such as time management, embracing discomfort, and addressing procrastination. It has become a trusted resource that stands above the 'fast-food' style spiritual teaching you often encounter on various pop-psychology podcasts. If you're looking for a starting point for your practice, I highly recommend the well-structured introductory course.
Maybe the cost of an app is off-putting, and all you need is a good timer and a teaching or two. Insight Timer is the perfect app for that. There are also hundreds of great guided meditations on the app, although it can be hit or miss if you don't know what you're looking for. Joseph Goldstein and Loch Kelly are some good teachers to start with, and Tara Brach has a number of excellent loving-kindness meditations.
The highest form of meditation
Loving-kindness meditation, you say? Yes, metta—the meditation we should actually all be talking about first. Of all the states of mind, I am convinced the most important ones are loving one's self, and trusting that one can handle the world as it is.
Everything else tends to be like a dog chasing a car. As soon as the dog catches the car, it doesn't know what to do with itself. This is the pattern of life—chasing things, attaining them, and immediately moving onto the next thing. There is a deep wisdom in the book of Ecclesiastes: ‘I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.’ (Ecclesiastes 1:14)
I believe the antidote to this madness is developing a deep connection with ourselves, rooted in self-love, which we can then extend to others. Metta meditation is one of the keys. It is the practice of developing a loving disposition towards one's self, and then extending the feelings of goodwill to others. It is a powerful practice that helps cultivate a safe home within, building trust that one is capable of holding hardship and suffering, and being open to love and kindness.
This is still an area of weakness for me, reference states and all. All of us carry wounds through life, and my scars have recently been scratched open. At some point, one needs to accept that there are no silver bullets, and that no one is coming to rescue you. Metta meditation is the ultimate act of self-soothing. If you're looking for resources in this area, the work of Tara Brach and Kristen Neff comes highly recommended.
The sceptic's conclusion
'But Dario, you don't know my mind. It cannot sit still'.
'You don't know what I've been through'
'The thought of silence for anything more than a minute is impossible'.
'I have ADHD, and there's no way I can meditate'.
'I don't have time to meditate'.
I'll give you one thing: I don't know what you've been through. But I do know that mind.
Let us share notes of how we have tried to tame the scatteredness; how we use talking as a defense so that we don't have to face the silence; how we tune into a podcast or a TV show to accompany a walk because we need to be doing 'something', and a walk is not enough of a thing. How we rush from appointment to appointment, stuffing our lives, as if boredom were a curse-word. Perhaps we can talk about how we've experimented with different doses of different ADHD medications, all to bring some calm to the chaos within.
Let me give you a spoiler: the patterns of your mind are not unique. If you do the Vipassana course, after the first day of meditation, you will watch a discourse in which the teacher talks about what goes through the minds of students on the first day. He mentions the frustration you experience as you try to focus on your breath for more than a few seconds, only to come back to your senses moments later to discover how the mind has disappeared somewhere else. Everyone in the room will laugh. That is the universal human condition of mind. Fleeting.
My encouragement is to grant yourself the initial act of kindness to create space for meditation in your life. Let go of meditation as a performance, or for performance. Yes, you will grow along the path. But it will not be in service of becoming a better cog in the capitalist machine, but rather in becoming more at ease with yourself.
Slowly, gradually, you will start to see subtle changes in your behavior. You will still get angry, but it will dissipate quicker and not disrupt your entire day. Before reacting, you may be able to pause and attenuate your response. Even as I write this, I feel like an impostor. Just this week, I lost my cool with someone I love. I am by no means the picture of mental peace and clarity. Meditation is not a panacea, but a process—the process of coming into contact with your experience from a place of safety within yourself.
So don't meditate to improve yourself. Rather, meditate as a fundamental act of kindness to yourself.