Authenticity The Last Thing You Try to Control I was ending a professional relationship. Five sentences would have been enough. I wrote 847 words instead—and that wasn't even the first draft. Twenty years of practicing non-attachment, and I still couldn't let someone misunderstand me.
Critical Thinking When the Messenger Ruins the Message I closed a YouTube video in one second because someone looked old and tired. Years earlier, a TV crew dismissed us in one second because we looked young and naive. Different judgments, same mechanism—and I've been on both sides.
Critical Thinking Featured The Fanaticism Test I run this test regularly like antivirus software for the soul: Can I disagree with my teacher and still respect them? Can I question the system and still practice within it?
Authenticity I Woke Up to Someone Else's Alarm I spent years being available to everyone, thinking it made me helpful. What it actually made me was scattered, reactive, and never quite present anywhere.
Authenticity I Wanted to Be the Best Meditator in the Room I spent years trying to be exceptional. Exceptional meditator. Exceptional contributor. Exceptional something. Then I realized: ordinary is harder - and maybe more honest.
Emotions Featured Why Anger Matters I spent years transcending anger because spiritual people don't get angry, right? Wrong. They just get passive-aggressive and wonder why their body hurts.
Spiritual Organizations The Volunteering Trap I spent twenty years confusing exhaustion with devotion. Here's how volunteering becomes a cage - and the one question that reveals whether your generosity is a choice or a compulsion.
Practice You Don't Need Another Book (You Need to Start) The search can become the addiction. If you've read this far, you already know enough. Here's how to stop consuming and finally start doing.
Critical Thinking Your Beliefs Probably Aren't Yours (And That's Not Your Fault) Discover why most of what you believe comes from others-and why you can't tell the difference. 20 years of practice, one uncomfortable truth.
Practice Featured The Minimum Viable Spiritual Practice I used to meditate for two hours every day. Now I do thirty minutes. Not giving up—figuring out what actually works. Meditation + writing, daily.
Authenticity Why I Don't Want to Be Famous (And What I Want Instead) What if the thing everyone seems to want is actually a trap? I've been thinking about this since I watched an interview with a musician whose songs I'd loved for years.
Critical Thinking The Lie Self-Help Keeps Telling You I want to tell you about the moment I realized I'd been running on a treadmill for fifteen years. Not a literal treadmill—this was worse. This was a treadmill made of books, courses, retreats, and meditation apps.
Practice Featured A Meditation Practice for People Who Hate Meditation Let me guess: someone told you to meditate and you tried it once, maybe twice, and it felt like sitting still while your brain screamed at you. Welcome to the club. I've been a member for thirty years.
Emotions Featured Why "Think Positive" Is Terrible Advice If you do something a thousand times, you're going to mess it up at least once. Last month, attempt three-hundred-something involved a hammer, a nail, and my left thumbnail. The hammer won.
Critical Thinking What Nobody Tells You About Spiritual Organizations Here's something that took me embarrassingly long to figure out: spiritual organizations are still organizations. I know. Groundbreaking insight. But this obvious fact has non-obvious implications.
Authenticity The Authenticity Trap (Why "Being Yourself" Is Harder Than It Sounds) Here's a question that keeps me up at night: the moment you try to be authentic, are you still being authentic? You're at a dinner party, someone says something you disagree with. You pause. You consider.
Growth The One Question That Changed How I See Failure There's a moment I keep coming back to. Not dramatic—no lightning strike revelation. Just a quiet afternoon, a group waiting for tasks, and a question from somewhere I hadn't been paying attention to: Is this it?
Foundation Featured What Your Guru Forgot to Tell You Here's something that complicates the narrative: my current teacher actually told me. 'Verify everything,' he said. 'Don't take my word for it.' I've heard him say this dozens of times. And yet.
Practice How to Process Emotions Without Drowning in Them Last Tuesday, I got an email that made my chest tight before I'd finished the first sentence. After thirty years of meditation, I still had all those reactions. The difference is what happened next.
Foundation Featured What Twenty Years of Meditation Actually Taught Me I need to tell you about two versions of myself. The first was twenty years old and certain he'd found the answer. The second is writing this now - still practicing, but with his eyes open this time.
