Mike Sturm

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The internet is saturated with content about mindfulness. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more widely discussed phenomenon in a wider array of different spaces — from business to technology to mom-blogs to the world of sports. The buzz about mindfulness continues to be loud. There are apps, journals, classes, books, podcasts, and so on. Each with its own method and practice to advocate for.

I’m guilty of having jumped on many of these bandwagons myself. I’ve tried, and still have on my iPhone, many different mindfulness and meditation apps. Despite having gotten into Buddhism and meditation long before the iPhone was even released, I still felt the pull of the new and fresh technological takes on this ancient idea.

But what I’ve lost in all of this buzz about mindfulness — and what I think many of us have lost — is the simplicity of it. And the thing about mindfulness is that the more simple you keep it, the better it tends to work. For one, you’re much more likely to keep mindfulness a habit if it’s simple. Any steps to follow or pre-work you need to do before you become mindful will eventually be a barrier to actually doing it.

Even the use of the word “mindful” can serve as a barrier. After all, most mindfulness guides urge us to pay attention to what’s happening in our head as we sit. Or if we’re physically doing something, they urge us to do it with pure focus on that thing. It can actually be exhausting to do. Or at the very least, it can seem exhausting to someone who’s not doing it, or has never done it.

Surely, there is a better way, right?

The Alternative Notion: Rest

The reasons we get into mindfulness are many. We hear about all sorts of benefits that people in all different kinds of situations get from it. Executives gain the ability to focus better and for longer periods of time. Parents claim to be more patient and attentive to their kids. Athletes claim they can better get into the zone. Nearly everyone reports a reduction in stress and anxiety.

It’s that last benefit — the reduction in stress and anxiety — that I think gets lost when we introduce all this variety and regimentation into mindfulness. And because of that, it becomes a barrier to entry, and re-entry. It’s not unlike what’s happened to diet and exercise over the last few decades. We want to put healthy foods and drinks in our bodies. We want to move our bodies in a way that keeps them healthy. But the variety of products and practices becomes overwhelming. So may people simply don’t bother.

I was feeling this particular brand of overwhelm just a few days ago. I was buried in work. I had tasked myself with doing a new meditation practice for at least 10 minutes, twice a day. Most of the things on my to-do list weren’t close to being done. The hours were ticking away. I felt stressed and anxious.

And in a move I can’t quite understand why I made, I got up from the chair in my home office, went outside on my back deck, and just sat down in a chair. I just sat there and stared at one of the boards of my house. I didn’t light a candle. I didn’t sit in the lotus position. I didn’t set a timer. I didn’t open up an app. I didn’t look at a list. I just sat and stared, until I didn’t feel as stressed or anxious anymore.

I didn’t record my thoughts. I didn’t repeat a mantra. There was no structure, there was no goal. I just sat and let my mind rest.

Rest. That’s the key. My mind decompressed and rested. Thus, so did my body.

Deep vs. Shallow Rest

That’s what we miss when we introduce a lot of structure and pre-work into our mindfulness practices. We miss the part where we let our minds rest — actual rejuvenating rest.

The rest period is different for each person, and for each situation. Sometimes, you need 10 or 15 minutes of rest, and you can be ready to get up and go again. Sometimes, you need more. But whatever the case, we shouldn’t make the mistake of diluting our rest. Rest should be deep to be effective.

In other words, true, rejuvenating rest should be stillness and quiet. Any kind of stimulus or diversion — even if you consider it mindless in nature — doesn’t allow for deep rest. The time we spend curled up with a good book, watching a show, listening to music, or anything like that may be helpful. I too engage in all of that. But it’s not rest in the same way simply sitting in the quiet and stillness is. And so it won’t bring you the same kind of benefits.

And I don’t mean to say that shallow rest isn’t worth engaging in. It is. But that’s mostly because it’s fun and often energizing. But things that are energizing aren’t restful. The energy we feel after doing a recreational activity isn’t the same as the energy we have after deep mental rest.

Only 2 Rules

The great thing about deep rest is there’s no how-to when it comes to doing it. There’s no process, no guide, no practice per se. All there is are 2 rules:

1. You sit alone, with no expectation except to rest your mind and body.
2. As little stimulus as possible (i.e., no companions, no apps, no artificial sound, no reading, etc.)

That’s it. Do it as often as you feel you need to, and as often as you find it helps you. Don’t make it a routine. Don’t build a structure around it. It’s there when you need it.

In the times when I can’t bring myself to follow some sort of meditation practice to get the other benefits — this practice has helped me. And because there are no strings attached or targets to hit, I’ve found it easy to pick up and put down as I need to.

Taking a tried and true method of relaxation and turning it on its head

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There’s been a boom in recent years around meditation. People have realized that it’s an excellent practice for mental and physical health. Apps like Calm, Headspace, and 10% Happier have become wildly popular in the past 5 years, all due to the positive buzz around meditation. It’s been a vindication of the idea that sitting and doing nothing for some period of time is highly beneficial.

But there’s one huge problem: meditation is difficult and frustrating.

The trouble most people have with meditation is that the mind is so hard to calm down and sit with. For most of us, it’s always churning — always thinking of something else. There’s worry, anxiety, planning, fantasizing — it’s all there in waves that seem to wait for us to sit down and try not to think.

But what if instead of getting frustrated at that, and giving up on meditation, we used it to our advantage? What if you could use your overactive mind that seems not to want to meditate, and get it to benefit you? I believe you can.

Recently, I’ve adopted another practice that helps me to both be more mindful, and also be more productive and motivated. It’s like meditation, but not quite. It embraces all the normal roadblocks to traditional meditation, and uses them as fuel for good. For lack of a better term, I call it “reverse meditation”.

Regular Meditation Works, but…

There’s no doubt that disconnecting from the barrage of thoughts and feelings for a bit is healthy and helpful. But that’s only one end of the spectrum of how we can handle our overactive minds. That is, classical mediation handles the overactive nature of the mind by refusing to engage with what’s going on in it.

That provides a helpful departure from what we do for most of the day. For the most part, we usually half-heartedly engage with the stuff that pops into our minds. We recognize it, react to it (worry, wonder, etc.), and then get pulled away by the next thing that grabs at our attention.

But what about the other end of the spectrum? What about engaging with the stuff that pops into our head — in a decisive way — rather than hoping it passes? I think there is a way. And though in some ways it’s the opposite of classical meditation, it can yield the same benefits.

…so Does Meditation…in Reverse

Anyone who has tried meditation probably remembers the simple instructions you get. And they remember how frustrating those simple instructions can be.

Sit and focus on your breath, or some object of focus. As thoughts pop into your head, merely observe them and let them pass. Keep doing that, being sure not to go down the rabbit holes your mind tries to go down. Most likely, you fall down various rabbit holes of distracting thoughts, and feel frustrated.

This practice can be effective, but you have to be disciplined about it. You also have work on detaching yourself from your thoughts and feelings. It’s beneficial work, but it’s also difficult to get into.

I’ve found a slightly easier practice that may prove to be the gateway into regular meditation. It can, in a way, prep you to start embracing mindfulness, by helping you to deal with the distracting thoughts that pop up.

I’ve found benefit in setting aside a different period of time to do the opposite of what meditation teachers tell you.

How to Do It

Find a place that’s somewhat quiet, where you probably won’t be interrupted for 10 minutes or so. Sit quietly and still, don’t try to think of anything at all. When things pop up in your head, it’s your job to engage with them. Follow them where they take you. But there’s one rule: each thought you engage with, you need to make a decision. There’s a helpful process to help you do that. Which I’ll lay out below.

In the simplest terms, the process is this:

• Get a pen and a piece of regular paper.
• Sit in a comfortable position and be as still as possible.
• Let your mind wander however it wishes to, without trying to think about anything in particular.
• Write down anything that you start thinking about that seems like you need or want to take action on it. Basically, anything you feel pulling on you. This could be an idea for something new to try, or something you had previously forgotten you needed to do.
• Do this for 5 minutes at first, but 10 minutes would be better. Even 2 minutes is better than nothing.

After you’re done, take another 5 minutes and decide one of three things to do with each item you wrote down:

1. Assign a next action to it, and load it up in your to-do list. Then cross it off.
2. Put a little light bulb symbol next to things you’re not going to do anything about now, but perhaps later.

Why This Works

The reason this practice works is related to the reason why we come up with our best ideas in the shower. It’s when we’re not trying to think of something or when we’re actively trying not to think of something that we often think about a bunch of things.

This taps into what neurologists and psychologists call the default mode network. It’s been noted in studies across disciplines, as well as lauded by writers who talk about creativity and brainstorming. Basically, it’s the part of the brain that begins working when you’re not focusing on anything in particular — like when you’re just sitting, doing nothing.

Reverse meditation taps into this network, and helps to extract the magical things that can come out of it. The best part is that reverse meditation tends to have 3 sneaky side effects that really help both productivity and mindfulness.

3 Sneaky Benefits

First, doing reverse meditation helps your become better at mindfulness and regular meditation. I’ve found that by setting aside time to record those ideas that keep popping up in my mind, I get better at leaving them alone when I’m trying to be mindful. I know I’ll take care of them another time, so I’m less likely to get pulled away by them — which helps me be more mindful in general. I’m more present during other parts of the day, which means I’m more likely to do traditional meditation for longer, and not get so frustrated.

Secondly, it helps you get more creative and get more done. The more I write down things as I think of them, the more I’m likely to find good stuff to do. Some of the best ideas I’ve had came to me during sessions of reverse meditation like this. I’ve written many articles that came to me when I was just sitting and letting my mind go wherever. I’ve also had things I forgot I needed to get done pop into my head. Writing them down then and there was key to moving on them quickly.

Thirdly, this practice tricks you into another highly beneficial practice: journaling. Think about it. All journaling is is writing down what’s on your mind. And what did you do in the reverse meditation session? You wrote down what was on your mind — as it popped in there. How simple!

This gets you the benefit of journaling, but without having to sit in front of that daunting blank page you have to fill up! In fact, you started off by trying not to fill up the page, and I’ll bet you filled that page up.

In fact, slapping the date on the top of each page, and reviewing them periodically is a great way to evaluate your habits and productivity over time. If you see the same actions pop up again and again, that means that they’re important to you, but you aren’t treating them that way, because they’re not getting done! It’s amazing the patterns that appear when you look back at your mind’s history.

Summary

Traditional meditation provides benefits by calming the mind and allowing you to observe what’s on it without acting. Reverse meditation is a method for sitting and waiting for things to pop up in your mind, then recording them and committing to doing something about them, or letting them go.

It leverages the default mode network of the brain to pull out things that may need your attention or action. It makes it easy to journal consistently, because you’re not actually trying to journal, but still achieving the goal of journaling. It also helps to generate better to-do lists than when you’re sitting and trying to think of what you need to do. Finally, it actually helps you to be more mindful in general, because it acts as a way to put on paper the things that are normally pulling you away from the moment.

While I still highly recommend a consistent classical meditation practice, it can be really helpful to add some reverse meditation to your toolbox as well.

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Even if you don’t sleep enough, have too many demands to juggle, and don’t eat right, doing this activity twice daily can help keep you going

Photo by Claudia Barbosa from Pexels

Like many working people today, I spread myself pretty thin. I only get 5–6 hours of sleep most days, and work a full-time job, while running 2 side-hustles, and being a husband and father to two young children. At times, it can seem overwhelming.

But a few years ago, I found a secret weapon — one that helps me stay energized, enthusiastic, and present — even on days when I’m put to the test. It’s less of a weapon, and more of a daily practice. This practice costs me basically nothing, takes very little effort to do, and provides noticeable results. On the days when I do it, I feel calmer, more rested, and ready to take on the day.

A warning before I talk about this practice: it’s deceptively simple, but can be frustrating if you expect too much while you’re doing it. So be patient as you start out, and don’t expect to have your world rocked immediately. Paradoxically, going into it without demands or expectations is the best way to make sure you get the most benefit out of it.

So…What is This Practice?!

There are a handful of variations and names for this practice, but essentially, it’s a form of meditation. However, unlike the kinds of mindfulness meditation that can seem exhausting, frustrating, and intimidating, this type of meditation is the opposite. It requires almost no effort, and the goal is not enlightenment. Rather, the goal is to provide your mind and body with a dose of deep relaxation and stress relief, and prepare you to handle the inevitable demands of your day.

The roots of this practice go back to the beginning of meditation techniques, to writings called the Vedas. They’re the same source that gave us yoga as we know it today. Ideally, you make time to do it twice per day: not long after you wake up, and then again some time in the afternoon or evening.

You can do this meditation anywhere that you can sit and keep your eyes closed for 10–20 minutes. I have done it on a plane during boarding and takeoff, on a bus, at home on a chair, and in the office when I had 15 minutes between calls or meetings. It really is like a secret weapon you can use almost anywhere.

Here are the steps to doing it.

The Steps

Unlike other meditation, you don’t need to sit in the lotus position, on a cushion, or with any accessories. The practice works well in a chair, on a couch, or anywhere that you can sit comfortably.

As long as you have 10–20 minutes (but no more than 20), you can get the full benefit of this practice. Try to do it twice daily — once when you wake up, and once in the afternoon or evening. But even doing it once per day is better than nothing, and will provide you some noticeable benefits.

1. Sit comfortably and close your eyes, and set a timer for 10–20 minutes — however long you have for meditating. Take a deep breath. Pull the breath in through your belly until it is full, then pull a little more in through your chest. Then exhale through your mouth. Do this 3 times.
2. Release any tension in your body. Spend about 10–15 seconds scanning your body for any muscles that are tensed or flexed. Simply let them go slack and feel a bit of relaxation as you do it. This will feel really good.
3. While relaxing, repeat a mantra silently in your mind. The mantra doesn’t matter much, and “Om” is a good one to start with. Make sure it’s not a word, but more of a sound that doesn’t mean anything in particular to you. Repeat the mantra in your head as if you’re hearing it in the room next to you, through thin walls. It’s not loud, but you can hear it, and it keeps pulsing, like the slow beat of a slow dance song.
4. When your mind wanders away from hearing the mantra (which it will), simply come back to hearing the mantra in your mind — as laid out in step 3.
5. When your timer goes off, keep your eyes closed, and stop hearing the mantra in your head. Just be in the moment, and feel the sensations of your body as you remain still for about 10 seconds.
6. Take a deep breath in, stretch, get up, and go about the rest of your day.

A Few Pieces of Advice

Your mind will wander away from the mantra; it’s practically guaranteed. Don’t fret. The goal is not to focus on the mantra, it is to let your body relax, and get your mind to a deeper state close to that of sleep. In fact, there may be times when you lose track of time, and experience things kind of like dreams. This is perfectly normal, and a sign of your body becoming deeply relaxed.

Some sessions may seem long, others short. Some sessions may be deeply refreshing after you finish, others may feel less so. During some sessions may find you losing track of the mantra many, many times. Don’t fret about any of this. Pretty much anything that happens while you sit, your mind and body will use that time to release stress and recharge to some degree, and that’s always helpful.

If you miss a session here and there, or even if you stop for months at a time, no worries. Just pick up the practice again where you left off. There’s not getting rusty, or anything like that. Remember, you’re just allowing your mind and body to rest in a deep and helpful way. There’s no need to strive for anything else other than just fitting the time in when you can.

In essence, giving your mind and body this 10–20 minutes regularly to decompress and destress is immensely helpful. When you do the practice regularly, you should start feeling less stressed (physically and mentally) throughout the day.

photo credit: Alejandro Alvarez on Unsplash

On the project of “personal growth” — what are we trying grow, how do we measure, and what do we do?

I once worked with a guy who was in charge of a large amount of people in my organization. I pitched a project to him that had a lot of moving parts, and a heck of a lot of uncertainty. His first question was “what do you measure to know how much progress you’re making?”.

At the time, I didn’t have a ready answer. I think I came up with one eventually (or the project died; I can’t remember which). But that conversation left a mark on me. When you are going to devote time and energy (and probably money) to some undertaking, you should have an idea of how to measure progress.

So for those of us who have undertaken the lifelong project of “personal growth”: what is it that we’re trying to grow?

Don’t laugh, the answer will not come as easily as you think. And any answer you come up with quickly will yield at least two more questions.

What Are We Measuring?

As best as I can tell, there are a few candidates that most of us have in mind when we talk about “personal growth”. These include, but aren’t limited to:

• The Goodness of our Life (however broad that may be)
• Happiness (but not pleasure?)
• Emotional Strength (as in how much we can endure?)
• Productivity (simply as output?)
• Relationships (quality, not quantity?)

Until I started seriously thinking about this question — what we’re measuring — I fell into the same trap as so many others. I assumed I knew what it is I was looking to “grow”. But now that I am thinking about it, it isn’t quite clear.

Why Is This A Problem?

There may be a few of you reading this who don’t understand what the problem is. After all, if you’re meditating, working out, gaining muscle, losing fat, getting promotions, traveling, and having children (or whatever) — what’s the problem?

Well the problem is this: we humans tend to find ourselves quite often chasing the wrong things — both in the short and long term. We are really good at misidentifying what we think will make our life a good one. I have heard enough stories about very accomplished people feeling empty, insecure, and regretful to know that we are often mistaken about what we ought to be growing in our lives — even if we passionately pursued something for years.

Suffice it to say: there are many types of growth you can achieve. But unless you’re growing the right things, and you know how to measure changes in those things, you’re just groping faithfully in the dark until (perhaps) you find something that feels good.

The Cost of Growth is Growth

I’ve been alive for just over 35 years, and one thing that has become abundantly clear to me is this: the cost of growth is growth. Which is to say, the cost of growth in one area is growth in some other area. This is nothing new, really. It’s simply opportunity cost; a basic principle of business, but applied to your personal life.

So the trick to personal growth is to choose the right thing to grow — because the cost of that growth is giving up growth in some other area. And if you choose wisely, you will have given up the opportunity to grow one thing that doesn’t matter to you, and thus pursued growth in something that does.

The basic activity of life is trade-offs. You are continuously trading one thing for another. Every one “yes” is a “no” to infinitely many other possible opportunities. We often act like that’s not true, and it might be the source of a lot of our anxiety and frustration. But our refusal to act in accordance with reality does not change it.

Every “yes” is a million “no”s. We are destroying more opportunities than we ever create. But we must make peace with that fact. When you can know that life is a series of trade-offs, and arm yourself with a way to happily make those trade-offs, that’s a huge step toward a good life.

You’re the Measurer and the Measured

The unique thing about personal growth is that you are both the person measuring and the thing being measured. That makes assessing growth particularly challenging. But it also means that you’re in the unique position to be an expert on how you’re doing.

But just because you have the opportunity to be the expert on your own life doesn’t mean you actually fill that role. To truly assess your own growth requires the ability to step back from yourself — from the activity of your mind, and your ego — and honestly look at how you’re doing. It should be no surprise then that mindfulness may just be the most useful tool for personal growth.

Mindfulness is simply the ability to view your own mind objectively. It’s the ability to step back and see what is going on in your mind and in your life — without immediate judgment and emotion. It’s a dispassionate examination of your emotions, desires, and thoughts. If ever there was a better way to hold a ruler up to one’s life, I have yet to find it.

No matter what it is you’re measuring in your life — whether you’re looking to eliminate or enrich something in it — you need to be able to measure how you’re doing. You simply cannot do that reliably without mindfulness.

As my old colleague said so long ago: we have to know what we’re measuring and what measurements are important, before we can grow in any meaningful way. When it comes to personal growth, those measurements need not be quantifiable (i.e., numbers); rather, they can be qualifiable (i.e. “I feel less anxious than yesterday”). The only requirement is that measurement be mindful, and that we treat ourselves with respect as we measure how we’re doing.

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On the Humble Purpose and Understated Benefits of Meditation, and How to Do a Minimal Viable Practice

Humans have been doing some form of meditation for thousands of years. But it seems like only recently that we’ve started to warm up to the idea that it’s a form of beneficial exercise for the mind — much like running or push-ups are for the body. To a certain extent, I can understand why we held out. We wanted data, we wanted peer-reviewed, double-blind, university-published analysis. We wanted the science!

Well, the science is in, and it shows a whole bunch of data to support the idea that meditation is beneficial. But I’m not necessarily interested in that science. Because at the end of the day, there is only one person whose data on meditation matters: you. And that data is easy to collect. You need only sit down and relax for a few minutes.

But here’s the thing. The data that represent the benefits of meditation are subtle. After meditating, you may feel just about the same as before you sat down. In some cases, you can meditate for a week or two, and still feel pretty much the same as you did before you started. But somewhere along the line — if you keep doing it — you pick up on something subtle: the space. And that space is the wellspring from which all the other benefits of meditation flow.

The Space is the Point

The main benefit of meditating is not enlightenment (whatever that actually means). In fact, any expectations beyond simply being present during this meditation session are actually antithetical to the practice of meditation itself.

The point of meditating — regardless of the type — is to to carve out a bit of space between stimulus and response — between thought and action. A little bit of space there can be the difference between regret and contentment. It can be the difference between achieving your goals and derailing your plans. It can be the difference between an open and caring relationship, and a toxic rivalry.

Even further down the rabbit-hole, meditation is about creating another kind of space: space between your thoughts and your concept of self. We each have thousands of thoughts and emotions per day, which means there are thousands of opportunities each day to make the mistake of identifying who we are with some thought in our head. But doing so is ludicrous. We each have so many conflicting thoughts each day that identifying with any two can put us at odds with ourselves numerous times each day.

But when you meditate, you carve out space between your concept of who you are, and whatever happens to be in your head at the time. You come to see thoughts for what they are — passing things that rise and fall away. They are things that just happen to fall into your mind — the way a feather happens to fall into a pond. But we would never think that the feather is an important part of the pond’s identity, so why think that random thought are part of ours?

Creating this space helps you get to better know your thoughts and thought patterns. Unless you have meditated for any period of time, you will be surprised by how often you think of things without even being aware of what you’re thinking of, or that you’re even thinking at all. And even thought you don’t often realize what’s going on in your mind throughout the day, your body does, and your subconscious mind does. And those two get exhausted — many times well before you’ve even put down your cup of coffee in the morning.

Even a Little is Quite Good

Just like with exercise, simply doing a little bit of meditating is still very beneficial. So however hectic your schedule is, you can fit in 5 minutes, or even 1 minute of just sitting, watching what is going on in your mind, and letting it settle down.

In the same vein of a little going a long way, there’s also this: mindfulness is not a competition. The point is not to get a good time, or lift a certain amount. There is no keeping track, no measurement of progress in any formal way. There is only sitting, observing, and creating space. You then carry that space with you during the day, and eventually, it keeps you from reacting so quickly and so thoughtlessly to things. It keeps you from treating people poorly. It keeps you from getting swept up in negative thought patterns and going down an anxiety rabbit-hole.

Meditation will never keep you from doing those negative things completely. In fact, it may only make a small dent in those negative habits. But a small dent — multiplied by each day — makes a big impact. I’m willing to put up a few minutes per day to realize that compounding benefit. How about you?

The Minimal Viable Meditation

Meditation is simple. You can do it now, and do it in the same way that old pros do it. You can receive the benefits as soon as you are ready to. Here’s a quick mindfulness meditation instruction set.

1. Sit down anywhere where you are comfortable, but not so comfortable that you’ll fall asleep.
   This can be literally anywhere — a plane, a bus, your chair at home, etc.
2. With either eyes closed or not, take a breath in, and exhale, while focusing on what it feels like as the breath is happening.
3. For however many minutes you decide to meditate, do the following:
   – let your breath simply happen on its own (as much as you can)
   – fully concentrate on your breathing as an observer, but not controller of it
   – when your mind wanders (which it will, very quickly) simply note what it’s doing, and simply guide it back to focusing on the breath going in and out.

That’s it — 3 steps. It’s just about sitting quietly, trying to focus on your breath, and when your mind inevitably departs from that focus to some random thought, gently (and without judgment) guide it back to the breath. That’s the practice. It is simple, but not easy. Your mind will wander — every time. But every once in a while, it won’t. When that happens, the feeling is truly outstanding — and it helps your mind and body become better conditioned to just be at peace.

But here’s the sneaky benefit of meditation. That stillness and the joy that comes with it is good, but fleeting. You can’t expect it or try to hold onto it, because then you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment. The sneaky benefit is that you’re gathering data on your mind. That data is helping you to draw a conclusion about the relationship you have with your thoughts, and the conclusion is this: you are not your thoughts. Your thoughts are turbulent, contradictory, fleeting, and uncontrollable. You are just their vehicle, and you don’t have to follow where they lead. That knowledge alone — when truly believed and acted upon — is the real benefit of meditation, and it is worth any amount of minutes sitting.

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How I finally found an absurdly easy form of meditation that hooks you immediately, and that you’ll want to do every day.

I first found out about meditation when I was 19. I was a college sophomore who had broken free of the chains of Midwestern white Christianity and ventured into the realm of Eastern thought. That’s when I discovered Buddhism in particular, and meditation in general.

As I read about meditation, and why Buddhists promoted it as a central part of their religion, I loved the idea of it. And that’s about as far as it went: I loved the idea of meditating, but the practice — not so much.

I can remember the first time I tried to do Zazen meditation (the preferred mode of Soto Zen practitioners). I sat down, closed my eyes, focused on my breathing, and attempted to not think of anything. It didn’t work. Then I remembered that I shouldn’t try to not think; I should simply not think — but not think about not thinking. Immediately, I found myself sweating, in pain, and anxious with self-criticism. I was pretty sure that’s not what Dogen (the founder of Zen) had in mind for meditators.

The Various Flavors of Disappointment

So Zazen didn’t go well for me. But there are so many types of meditation under the Buddhist umbrella; one of them had to be non-anxiety-inducing, and bring me the benefits that I had heard so much about.

I moved on to Vipassana, Metta, Walking Meditation, Mindfulness Meditation, and even some (admittedly bumbling) work with koans (where you meditate while mulling over an esoteric and paradoxical statement or question from a classical Zen text). It was basically one disappointment after another.

I then tried some of the secularized meditation apps, with guided meditations and breathing exercises. Some did help me feel a bit better, but the effects were neither profound nor lasting. I also didn’t see them as doing much more than harnessing the power of breathing to trigger a physiological response.

For all of the forms of meditation I’ve tried over the past 15 years — both spiritual and clinical — none of them left me with either of the three things that are vital to support the establishment of a habit:

• some immediate positive reinforcement or small rewarding feeling
• a view of how this will benefit me long-term
• a lack of barriers to simply starting it each day

Enter the Dragon: Vedic Meditation

After having pretty much deferred a meditation habit to the bin of abandoned aspirations (along with running a marathon, and others), I managed to accidentally find the missing piece that I’d always been looking for to make meditation a regular habit. I was listening to a podcast, and heard Ray Dalio — bestselling author and noted hedge-fund manager — credit the practice of Transcendental Meditation for much of his ability to do what he’s done.

I had heard about TM before, but never given it a second thought. But this time, it stuck.The way he described it was so practical, down-to-earth, and easy, that it seemed like it was what I’d been looking for. Adherents of it tout all sorts of benefits, which have been documented by peer-reviewed scientific journals:

• notably less stress and anxiety throughout the day
• boosts in cognitive ability and creativity
• better sleep
• lower blood pressure

It sounded great to me. But here’s the rub: learning TM takes 4 days of 1.5 hour sessions and costs about $1000. Everyone insists that it’s worth it, but I’m always skeptical of things like that. So I did what everyone who grew up with Napster and CD burners would do: I tried to find a free version to try out.

What I found out is that TM is based on a very old form of meditation practiced by Yogis going back thousands of years: Vedic Meditation. It’s a dead-simple practice:

• you do it twice a day, for 20 minutes each session
• you sit down anywhere you can be somewhat comfortable and close your eyes
• you relax yourself by breathing deeply a few times
• you repeat a mantra (one short word that doesn’t have an English meaning) silently in your mind. Any time other thoughts come up, gently and non-judgmentally guide your mind back to the mantra.
• be totally okay and neutral with whatever your mind is doing during the twenty minutes

For as simple as it is, it is just as effective. From the first time I did it, I felt super relaxed after the session, and well into the rest of my day. I found that — unlike other forms of meditation I’d tried over the years — I looked forward to doing the meditation.

By the second and third times I did it, I experienced what practitioners call “transcendence” — which I can best describe as that really cool feeling you get between laying down to sleep and actually being asleep — but it lasts for about 20 minutes! It doesn’t happen every time — and that’s not the goal. But when it does, it’s really nice.

What Vedic Meditation Does

The only goal during a session of Vedic meditation is to allow your body to relax as deeply as possible. And when I say deep, I mean deep. How deep? As it turns out, during sessions of Vedic meditation, you can tap into a state of relaxation that is more regenerative than sleep, in terms of reduced cortisol (the stress hormone) and

3 objective measures of restfulness (breathing, lactic acid production, and skin conductance).

From my own experience, I feel exactly what the data bears out (and, I might add, before I learned those data points). The afternoon session that I had on the day I began writing this article was after a particularly stress-inducing contract negotiation with a customer. Afterwards, I had a headache, I could feel my heart rate elevated, and I my mind was racing. I got back to my hotel room, sat on the couch, and did 20 minutes — just me, my mantra, and the timer to let me know when to stop. When I arose out of the session, it was as if I’d taken a nap for an hour or so — but without the grogginess I often feel after a nap.

The effects tend to last, as well. I’m not experienced enough yet (I only have a few weeks under my belt). But what I have noticed outside of the meditation sessions is the following:

• a more consistent mood: lower highs and higher lows, which means…
• …a more consistent energy level. Not bouncing off the walls, but not crashing, either.
• less trouble focusing
• I perceive more time between my felt emotional reactions and my physical actions. This means I can control angry outbursts or ill-thought-out reactions to stressful situations.

Skeptical? Great. Then Try It.

But please — please don’t take my word for it. That’s the beauty of this. You can try it for yourself. There is an app that I recommend to do this. I am in no way affiliated with it, but since it helped me start and sustain my habit, I think it’s only right to share it. It’s called 1 Giant Mind. That’s the only plug I’ll make.

Really, this article was almost as much to help me organize my thoughts about a new and beneficial practice that I’ve begun as it is to sell anyone else on it. So, if you have tried and failed at meditation previously, are interested in feeling better, and improving your physical health, and you can spare 40 minutes per day — try this.

Honestly, part of the foundation of this type of meditation is that it is — by definition — effortless. So you can’t even claim that you’re too lazy to try it (which is always my go-to excuse). If you did try it, and you’d like to let me know how it went, please feel free to email me. I’d love to hear your feedback.

credit: Stougard

Some Thoughts on Why the Small Things We Do are So Valuable

Those in the English-speaking Buddhism community have a word that they use to talk about their spiritual habits: “practice”. So when you hear a dharma talk or read something by a Zen Buddhist (and probably a Buddhist in general, come to think of it), they’re likely to talk about “your practice”. Most often, the context is that of meditation, or mindfulness more generally.

The possessive pronoun “your” is placed in front of the word on purpose because each person’s practice is individual. Sure, there are some basic tenets of general practice that everyone should follow. But even if everyone did the same basic tasks and had the same basic habits, everyone would do them in a slightly different way.

But the truth is, the notion of a practice is much wider — it’s as wide as you allow it to be. The only requirement of a practice is that it be sacred — sacred to you, that it be purifying, and that it contribute — in some (very) small way — to the well-being of the world. Interestingly the smallest purification of yourself often makes a substantial contribution to the well-being of the world.

I’ve come to really like the word “practice” because it is so unassuming. And because it’s so unassuming, it’s also powerful.

You could use the word “ritual”, but that sounds too stuffy, and it sounds like everything has to be just so. You can use the word “habit”, but that sounds like a tool, not valuable in and of itself, and only appreciated as a means to some prescribed end. But practice — practice is humble, it admits of imperfections, in fact it assumes and welcomes imperfections. As an imperfect human being, I can most definitely get behind that. We should all be practicing. We should all have a practice, because we should all be trying to do better.

What Makes a Practice?

What makes something a practice is not that you do it all the time, or that you have certain way of doing it. Those things play a part, but they’re not the essential element of a practice. What makes a practice powerful is sacredness. You have to see the thing you do as a sacred thing, meaning that it means more than just whatever is going on on the surface level. I’m not sure what more to say other than that. You feel what is sacred. When you view a thing as sacred, you revere it, you draw emotion out of it, it breathes new air into you when you participate in it.

Whether it’s meditation, prayer, exercise, writing, making tea, or feeding a disabled loved one — keeping a practice, or ritual, sacred is really all you need. You can build nearly anything from just that. You can build a really good, peaceful life from that. You can use it to push yourself to be better, or to anchor you and keep you from wandering off. It is equally good for both purposes, and many others.

One caveat, though (and there’s always one of those): whatever the practice is, it can’t be something harmful. Plenty of drug addicts and alcoholics have a practice or ritual, but it’s destructive and harmful — to themselves and others. However, as many in recovery end up learning, that practice was actually a faulty means to the same end as a healthy one. They end up finding peace in a “replacement” practice — one that really gets them closer to that place they were seeking in their most destructive practices before.

Practice Makes….Life

The thing about how the Buddhists use the word “practice” is that they actually end up using it as another word for how we we live generally. Your life becomes an extension of your most sacred practices. As Will Durant famously said (in explaining Aristotle’s idea of character), “we are what we repeatedly do.”

A good life is built by good practices. Good practices are built on a foundation of holding things sacred, often the most little of things. So what do you hold sacred? What do you revere? How’s your practice?

Thank you for reading.

Between my freshman and sophomore year of college, my first long-term relationship ended. It was the first relationship I was in where the “l” word was exchanged. I wasn’t heart-broken by any means, and neither was she. We both made a half-hearted effort to keep up a long-distance relationship for two semesters, 60 miles apart. When I returned home for the summer, we quickly realized that we weren’t built for spending a lot of time together.

Regardless, the experience caused me to return to school in the Fall in a kind of self-examination/self-refinement mode. For whatever reason, that meant combing through the university library and checking out a translation of the Dhammapada — one of the primary texts of Buddhism. That transaction set the tone for my relationship with Buddhism, and perhaps the most useful thing that I have learned — your breath is your link to this life.

We Do It, But We Don’t

Buddhist meditation is based on being conscious of your breath. I have always appreciated this as an outstanding summary of life itself. We are always breathing, but we’re not always breathing the way we breathe when we’re conscious of it.

Try a little experiment. The next time you’re feeling angry, anxious, stressed, or whatever, remind yourself to take 3 breaths and let them go. The moment that you initially got to take the first breath, you’ll realize that you were barely breathing. The breath was shallow, contorted, and suppressed. Once you become conscious of your breath, and that takes center stage in your consciousness, the feelings that have begun to take hold recede, become less severe — they loosen their grip on you a bit. You become centered again.

The more you stay with your breath, the more you realize that breathing, like living, is something we do, but we don’t do. Breath — like life — happens whether we hold the reigns or not. But like riding an energetic horse, when we fail to take the reigns and drive, we give up control, and just go where the wild horse takes us. That’s no way to live.

When we make it a point to breathe consciously, we make it a point to live consciously. Being conscious of your breath allows you to then be conscious of how your body feels, of what kind of thoughts and emotions are swirling around your mind.

Taking time to center yourself in your breath gives you the reigns to drive your body and mind — if even for a few seconds. Even those few seconds can make all the difference. Just like a wild horse, all you need is a few seconds to change the direction the horse is facing, and you can make a drastic change in your destination. That is all you need — a few seconds here, a few seconds there. Ultimately, you’ll find enough solace in those seconds, that you will turn them into minutes, or more. At least that’s how it has happened for me.

We Forget, And That’s Okay

You will forget to breathe, all the time. And that’s okay. We all do; we all will. You will consciously breathe much less often than you consciously do it. That is also okay. It’s always just one thought away. It’s your little trick, when none other are available. It’s the one thing you can always remember. It’s the one thing that will always make a world of difference. It is the victory that is always at hand, and where you are always the favorite.

You will forget to breathe today. And that is great, because it feels so good to remember that you can breathe. And when you do it, it feels like nothing else does.