Strategic Stillness: The Game Plan for Overcoming Distractions

Distraction is rarely a willpower problem. It is usually a setup problem: we sit down to focus without ever preparing the ground. This episode walks through a six-step process I use to prepare for meditation, and then shows how the same steps carry over into work, relationships, and how you see yourself.

We cover showing up with a clear intention, dealing with distractions before they arrive rather than after, and why posture matters more than people think, on the cushion and off it. The Stoic idea doing the heavy lifting here is premeditation: deciding in advance how you will meet the pull of distraction, so you are not negotiating with it in the moment.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:24

So, EB, Eric Brown, my good friend and fellow meditator. There are a lot of things that I want to get into in this discussion. I'm sure we're going to jump into talking about meditation, talking about the mind illuminated in general. But what I want to do with you is create a series of discussions all about the mind illuminated. Because the book is a meditation manual. It's super dense. It's a book that you could read it like 10 times, go off and meditate, and then come back to it and be like, oh, I missed that thing in the first chapter on, you know, how to pay attention to the breath properly. I missed that thing. It's so dense. It's it's really one of those books that I would consider to be a Bible, like one that I would get the audiobook, one that I would get the paperback, one that I would get on my phone, uh, and just keep dipping into for more information and depth of understanding. And the other thing as well, that it's it's a manual or like an instructional. And usually with such books, you are meant to go off and practice what you read. You know, it's not just like a book that you read, improve your state, feel a bit better, then move on to the next book. How well you've understood the lessons in this book, you can verify by your time on the cushion. You know, you can't fool yourself. It's like, did you understand what you read? It's like, well, you know, you can go and try it out. In this particular conversation, I think we should talk about uh Kuladasa's John Yates, the author of The Mind Illuminated, what he calls the six-step preparation for meditation. I'm gonna give you a quick review of this, and then me and Erica are gonna dive into it. Uh so the six-step preparation for meditation is something that I've never done. Okay, so I've been meditating on and off, sometimes periods of very consistent and sometimes less consistent for six, seven years altogether. And the way I would do it is I would sit down and play my guided meditation track, or sit down and you know, put my silent meditation track on and just listen to the bells and then get into it. In the mind illuminated, he encourages you before you begin your meditation practice, you mentally prepare for it. Uh, and he gives you six steps to do every single time you meditate. When I started doing this, it completely changed my meditation practice. These are the six steps, a quick rundown. So the first step is you review your motivation. Why are you there? And what's your purpose for meditating? You don't judge it, you just become aware and accept the fact of I'm meditating for this reason. And it could be enlightening, enlightenment, it could be equanimity, it could just be because I want to be more peaceful, you know, whatever it is, it's fine. The second step is you decide your specific goal for this meditation session. So what am I actually looking to work on or achieve during this session of meditation? The third step is expectations. So you bring to mind the dangers of expectations and you just think about like, you know, am I building myself up too much? Am I you know underestimating myself? Am I envisioning this is going to be good or bad? And then let it go in the end and move on to the fourth step, which is diligence. So you just commit to the practice, you commit to being there, to be present, to put everything down for the entire meditation session. The fifth step is you do a quick review of distractions. First of all, you review the distractions within your environment. Like, you know, is there going in my case, is there gonna be a baby that's gonna wake up crying in the middle of the session? Is someone gonna knock my door? Is the postman gonna come? And then you do a review of mental distractions, you know, like did my girlfriend recently break up with me? Is that gonna come come to mind? Is there this task I need to do for work that is gonna captivate my attention? And then the sixth step is review your posture. So you you you know, it's a very important thing, you know. A lot of us just sit down and do our meditation, but no, like spend some time settling in and reviewing your posture. So this these are the six steps that I want to get into with Eric, and we're gonna talk about how this applies to meditation and then how we can perhaps use these six steps in a broader context. But before we get into that, I want to talk to you, Eric, ask you how you're doing, and uh get a little insight on what you think overall of the Mind Illuminated and what were your first experiences of it.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Yeah, that was a beautiful overview. Thank you. Um I find the mind illuminated very refreshing. I think that's uh that's the word that came up for me. Because I think when you start, when you're looking around, you're often presented with a lot of vague, wishy-washy, foggy concepts, protocols, procedures, or you're jumping around, you're picking and choosing, right? You're you're pulling together this kind of Mr. Potato Head version of a meditation practice where you're taking some from this practice and some from this school, and you're kind of doing the worst of all of them at the same time. And it can be really difficult to notice any progress because you have no actual idea what you're looking for. It's hard to create consistency because you don't have a technique or a framework or a structure for them. Uh, and that's what makes this so absolutely refreshing. It actually maps out a journey, an arc, a set of experiences that you can validate in and for yourself. It gives you a technique, a system, a protocol, a container to actually execute, practice, and train those. And it gives you the what, the scaffolding, the support, the additional like pitfalls that you might run into, something like the preparation list I've never seen presented anywhere else. You know, people might tell you, oh, it's better to sit on a mat or a cushion or on your knees, but nothing with the the kind of depth and consistency that this does. Um so for all of those reasons, I find this extremely useful. I found it extremely powerful for myself. Um, and something I think we'll touch on is also finding it extremely powerful to translate them to things other than the practice, um, than just a sitting practice. It applies to literally everything because meditation is a part of your life, right? None of the stuff is separate, so anything that helps you here can help you everywhere else.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Um I want to just quickly ask you something. Um what was your experience of meditation like before the Mind Illuminated, like in a general overview? Like what kind of how did you approach meditation? What were you looking to get out of it? Why did you do it? How what did you, you know, what did you do? And then what changed for you after reading some of the Mind Illuminated?

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Yeah, that's a great question. Um, a lot of my original response definitely applies to me. I think normally when I speak generally, it's because of I'm speaking as my experience going through something. So, you know, hopping around between different packs and different apps and different techniques and different schools of thought, like, oh, I'm gonna do compassion today, and oh, I'm gonna do open awareness, oh, I'm gonna do body scans and kind of doing the worst of all of them, right? It either wasn't stuck to uh long enough, it either didn't have a technique to go alongside it, and I was kind of just sitting there being like, I wonder if uh this is how it's supposed to go. And again, it was very much like a fumbling around in the dark, essentially, which I think a lot of people who are kind of embarking on their own path run into. Um, but fortunately, there are very established techniques. There are schools of there are wisdom schools that have existed for a long time that actually do have the form and structure available for people. My original aims, um, the very meditation was one of the first things I got into. I got into it mostly out of necessity because I was really anxious, I was really depressed, I was struggling a lot, I had very little control of what was going on inside of myself. And this was a foray into um starting to take the reins again of what was going on inside of me. Um so it was very much outcome-based, it was very much necessity-based. Um, and then of course, as you get a little more experienced, you get a little more comfortable, you realize it's flexible. There's a lot that it can do. And for me, I think a powerful recognition was I also eventually didn't need it to do anything. It was it was a part of my life that was complete in and of itself. It didn't have to be dependent on an accomplishment of something. Um, much like I would eat, you know, I would sit. It's just part of what I viewed a day looking like. Um, as I've developed both in and outside of just a meditative practice, it's been extremely useful to come back into this to actually have a feedback system within it where actually it's like, okay, look, now I recognize this is what stage one is like because he has a staged system as you go through the book. And then feeling like feeling there's a confidence, there's a core confidence that comes from, ah, okay, I'm validating this experience. I recognize this is where I'm at. I'm going to get, I'm going to stay here until I like have this down, and then I'm going to progress to the next stage. And I have a methodology, I have a technique, I have markers, physical markers that I can look for to know that I'm that I'm either progressing or meeting that stage. And so it's actually given me a lot, a renewed um commitment to it, a renewed appreciation for just the depth of the experience, um, for the gift of showing up for myself. Um and it's really it's streamlined and focused something that was largely ambiguous and vague going into it, which I think for anyone who's actually serious about this work, you know, it's nice when you can actually say, Yeah, you know, I actually have a very clear, I have a very clear path, I have a very clear technique, I'm not just fumbling around anymore. You know, that that when that gets embodied, it's like, oh no, I'm actually taking myself and my practice very seriously now. And that brings a lot of kind of vital energy and vital commitment to the whole practice.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Yeah, it's one of those uh the the books that can only have been written by Chula Dasa in a way. It's it feels like one of those because uh Chula Dasa has meditated for 50,000 hours. Like that's like a recognized fact. So, like, never mind the 10,000-hour rule, he's like 50,000 hours deep. Neuroscientist and um someone you know who's lived. He's he's uh been married, he's had children, he's had a traumatic childhood, you know, he's um he's lived, he's lived, and he's um he's pursued the scientific path, he's also pursued the contemplative path, and has been seeking the answers to life's biggest questions from a very young age. And what you said about the structure of the book giving you the sense of confidence, I think that's vital. That's super vital because there's so much information out there on like meditation, spirituality, but Chula Dasa says right at the beginning of the book it's very reasonable to pursue enlightenment. You can do it with serious practice in seven years. You just need to dedicate one to two hours of serious practice a day, and it's like, whoa, that statement alone is huge, but but it's coming from this guy, you know, like this guy? Like, it's like now that's inspiring, like that is genuinely inspiring. And if you have any resistance to that idea, if you're like, well, no, I don't think that's possible, well, let me ask you something. How many people do you know that have taken their meditation practice as seriously as an Olympic athlete takes their training for the last seven years uninterrupted? Who how many people do you know who meditate and then review periodically where they're they're at on their meditation journey? Not just showing up and sitting, but actually like checking in where am I, how is it going, thinking about it, um, kind of modifying things, tweaking things, like this continual refinement of attention and awareness through a series of intricate stages all the way to insight. Um, because honestly, I know a lot of people interested in spirituality, but I do not know any people who've done that with their meditation practice. And I know people that have gone on retreats and the same thing. I don't know people that have spent seven years, five years consistently meditating in a really structured, organized way. So that's inspiring, you know. Um, and do you have anything better to do with your time? Like the average person watches what, four hours of TV a day? Like, is really one to two hours of meditation going to go going to like seriously be something you regret, you know? Maybe you should just dive into it, like me and Eric are doing at the moment, what we're practicing, but this Eric can talk more about it, this kind of religious commitment to to spiritual practice, because you know, recently I've experienced some tragedy in life, and I know that it's not going to be the only time that I experience tragedy. And when the storm comes, do you want to be in a position where you haven't been taking care of your attention, been taking care of your mind, or do you want to be in a position where you've been training? You've been training your equanimity, training your insight, training your compassion and awareness to be there for other people, to be there for yourself, and to think about things and uh understand things in a way that is ultimately wise. So, yeah, can you talk a little bit more about your what you talked about with your religious practice to meditation?

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Sure. Yeah, this has been something that's been forming um damn for a few months uh lately. And I know a lot of people in this space, most definitely, again, you know, using the general to speak about me, um, had either had or do still have a huge allergy to the term religious or religion in general, right? It's such a it's almost taboo in this space, right? It's just seen as a unnecessary evil for a lot of people, which if you believe anything is completely useless, you're definitely wrong. Like, just everything in life has some sort of signal to it, some sort of utility. Um, and so if you take that lens, like I started trying to take seriously, like what the heck, like why why do people find this useful? What does it fill for them? What's the value it can provide? We've spoken just in other conversations, um, in other just articles and stuff we've put out around the value of chosen structure, of actually putting yourself into commitments. Um there is a there is a focusing effect, there is a freedom that comes from a structure, which sounds like a con like a yeah, I was gonna say contraindication. Sounds like um whatever that word is, contradiction. Contradiction. Sounds like a contradiction, but it's not. You know, if you actually have a a structure set out for yourself, you reduce the amount of decisions you need to make. You can actually just show up and freely move within this thing, and there's a great freedom that comes from structure. So that's one of the that's one of the points that I'll eventually weave into the whole answer. Um there's a second point of you you asked, like you said that kind of tongue in cheek, the do you have anything else better to do? Um, and I actually think one of the values, the deep existential values or benefits of meditation is actually coming to the realization that no, you actually don't have anything better to do. And yeah, I think that I think that triggers a whole lot of people. And it's like, look, if it still does, like you should sit more. Like you should really sit more with uh just as a practice in general. Like the way it's been coming up for me is experience itself, just the ability that you have to experience anything at all, is full and complete in and of itself. It doesn't need any it doesn't need to be any particular way. Um and so you should be able to be just as engaged, enthusiastic, comfortable, content in seated meditation as you are in anything, doing work, hanging with friends, music festivals, like wherever it is, like it's the ability to experience it all that is really the only thing that matters. And if you can practice it and hone that skill in a very, you could say, unstimulated environment like seated meditation, it translates beautifully out into the rest of your life because you can take that fullness when you're with people, when you're about to start a work task. Um so that there's a there's a second point there that life is complete, meditation is complete, your ability to experience is complete in and of itself. And if you don't feel that way, you should sit more to train that. Um and the the final one is I think many people have felt this, and I think this is one of the things people like about starting to take themselves more seriously, is the states of well-being that you can reach when you actually start to dial things in, right? You know, some people get uh they start going to the gym, they feel really good, right, and they keep doing more of it, or they get out of a toxic relationship and they feel really good and they appreciate their other relationships more. There's a measurable level of well-being that comes from showing up for yourself, from sticking to a structure that involves self-care and self-love. Um that has been increasingly noticeable for me the past few years as I've done just more and more kind of inner exploration and inner work, and to the point where it's so noticeable that I can't ignore it anymore as a nice to have or a side project or like an afterthought of yeah, you know, I'll I'll do this if I have time, I'll do this tonight if I feel like it. Um, I've actually decided to kind of switch that the hierarchy of priority in my life where actually my personal practice, my relationship with myself and everything going on is the most important thing. And everything else in my life, like relationships and work and finances and health, are the supplementary, the nice to have, but not required. And the one thing that is required is just a deep devotional practice to showing up for life, right? And so meditation is one of the pillars for me. Uh, yoga is also becoming a foundational pillar between the two of those. Um and so the yeah, the intention coming into this new year, I think the biggest one for me has been I'm taking my personal practices, my sadhanas, my path that I'm using for self-realization is my priority. And I want to approach it with that level of religious devotion. It's not, it's not oppressive, it's like a willing, it's like a a leap towards it with like outstretched arms, like wow, I really want this relationship to flourish. And when that relationship is, you know, the one you have with yourself in the world, that's a lot, that's a great potential sitting there in front of you. And so, yeah, yeah, approaching personal practice with religious devotion has a been incredible, and because of that is now taking center stage in my focus and my practice in my life.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

On some level, that's the ultimate act of self-love. You know, it's like it's like you know, people you know think self-love is you know saying nice things to yourself, but really taking your personal practice with that religious commitment is the ultimate form of self love. It's like imagine imagine you devoting that time and energy and commitment to a partner. Right? Like that would be a huge sign of admiration and love, and you're doing that. Towards yourself or your being, and ultimately in the end, it's going to be beneficial to everyone. You know, it's like last time I checked meditation doesn't make you crueler and less kind and more closed-minded, you know. It's uh it has these very like outward-facing qualities. Um and the the whole point of do you have anything better to do with your time? I I I completely agree, and I said that kind of jokingly, but I'm deadly serious about it as well. On some level, I think that by if you know about meditation and you don't do it, you are arguably and I'm I'm not saying this to sound like a meditation snob or anything like that. Um there are many things like this other than meditation too. But if if if you know about meditation and you don't have anything much better to replace it with, you are really turning down one of life's greatest opportunities. Like for real. Like it's so let me explain why. For thousands of years, people have been refining a system for thousands of years, a detailed, difficult, muddy, complicated system of understanding their the mind to gain clarity and insight and well-being and compassion. And I mean, like, people have dedicated their lives to this. This is no joke, you know. People have in monasteries have dedicated their entire life to practicing refining. You know, the classic film is Jairo Dreams of Sushi. That's a great film on mastery. You know, this guy dedicated his whole life to becoming an amazing sushi chef. There are many people like that, but with meditation throughout the ages, and they've taken it that seriously and then told people, and there's been lineages, and it's been refined and refined and refined. And now you've got someone like Chula Dasa who's also dedicated his life to it, has also dedicated his life to neuroscience as well, and he's bringing all of this to you, and it takes one hour a day. I mean, it takes 10 minutes a day, it depends on your what what you want to do. You know, 10 minutes is fine too, but let's just say you you you dedicate one hour a day. That's nothing for this gift. That's uh that that's that's that that's it's almost insulting to turn your nose up to it. Um, because you have the opportunity, you know about it. Uh it's just it's just such a great gift, and and you know, for for my money, meditation um it on a day-to-day basis can help you with um you know like the the kind of like ups and downs of life, but uh on as I mentioned earlier, on a much deeper level, uh that practice is there for you when you're about to die, you know, and when you're facing uh the real existential issues of life.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Yeah, and I want to underscore a bunch of these points because it is absolutely central on on why it's such a why it's actually one of the practices worthy of being the foundational pillar in your life. Um one is if you can, and you definitely can, find fullness in closed eyes, seated meditation, just sitting with being and sitting with life. Everything else becomes just an absolute bonus, right? Your your satisfaction or engagement with life doesn't become dependent on like, oh yeah, well, I need a cool job and I need fancy friends and I need all this nice stuff to feel like life is worth it. Like that doesn't become a question anymore. No, it like life's worth isn't dependent on anything anymore. It never is, but many of us don't believe that. Many of us are like, oh, I need to do these things or have these things or get these experiences for this to all be worth it, and you know, the slog through life to be justified, but you can actually deprogram that out of yourself, and sitting in the fullness of life in meditation is a great, great way to do that. You brought up a fantastic point of how it translates to people beyond yourself, you know, even just and particularly what's so good about the the Mind Illuminated program is it's actually training attention, training awareness. And you can take that, that is something that just becomes a part of you. So if there are things or experiences or people that you want to engage with deeply, you now actually have a capacity to do that. Instead of being constantly distracted, instead of being whisked away by like random movements on the street, you can actually lock in on people and experiences and and show up with full presence, which is harder than we might imagine. That's something that can be cultivated and developed, which is again something extremely useful right here. And I think uh I think a big recognition is like none of your life is separate. It's it can be really easy to view this as like, okay, I'm gonna go do my little practices, I'm gonna go back into the rest of life as if they're somehow different, if they're two different worlds. It's like none of this is none of this is separate. The work you do here, the benefits you gain all translate out into the rest of your life. Like again, the the focus example I just used, and even the the preparation steps have been incredible for work sprints when I show up to actually do work. Because I have clear intentions, I have expectations, I know if I might get distracted, what I'm gonna do about it. And it's like an immediate translation, an immediate benefit across every spectrum of my life. And again, like this is life-level work. This is your relationship with whatever is happening in front of you or in your experience. It is something that is carried with you every moment of waking consciousness, and that honestly deserves a place as a foundational or central uh presence in your life.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

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SPEAKER_00 32:11

Uh a comment more on the six six steps overall is um one of the reasons this is so helpful for me is it gives things a definitive beginning. It creates like boundaries, it creates containers throughout the day. Wherecause like if you're you know, if you just crammed in some work and were like, shit, you know, I still have meditation on my to-do list today, and you just like plop yourself over on your cushion and you just hit start on Headspace or whatever, and you get going, like they're that's messy. It's really messy, and it's obvious how that translates because you can feel it. You're like, I'm still carrying work, I'm still thinking about this garbage. Like, actually taking the and when you get when this becomes embodied, it doesn't take very long at all to do, but it creates this definitive container for you, and it can actually clear up a lot of that uh fog, a lot of the messiness that that was that can often be carried in with this stuff. You let it go, it's like, look, I've got 45 minutes, I've got an hour here, I'm gonna be doing this. All of these things could happen. If they do, I know what I'm going to do about it, I know why I'm here doing this. It's not gonna be the rest of my day, so I have more time. And honestly, with just that, it's like, oh, okay, so I'm just going to show up and be very present here. And that act of creating the container for it in God, so like in not a lot of time at all, has been um unbelievably valuable for me in the practice. Even just my experiences in practice are so much richer because of that.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

What I'm hearing is that there's the the six-step preparation allows you to ritualize and place greater emphasis and value on the act of preparing. So, like from modern life, just an example. If you if you have a like a party or something, right? A big part of what goes into attending the party, the the fun night out, shall we say, is preparing for it, getting ready, you know, like getting making sure the clothes you're wearing are clothes that clothes that you like, or getting in the right mood or putting on the right music. You prepare to go out to the party. You get ready, and it's this kind of like fun ritual that kind of gets you in the right frame of mind so that when you leave the front door, you you're ready to go. You don't finish work in an office and then just show up at the party. That's everyone knows that's like a very strange thing to do, right? Like this is like why would you do that? But yeah, we are doing that all the time with our practices as well. You know, the same with physical acts. If you are gonna go for a run, do you do you warm up properly? I mean, sometimes I don't, and I always regret it when I don't. You know, just 10 minutes of a yoga flow or something like that changes the entire run. You know, spending some time preparing the music that I want to listen to, you know, making sure that I've got the right gloves and the right hat and the right running jacket, doing those little steps make a huge difference then on the actual run, instead of just kind of like showing up. Um, there is value in showing up and not thinking too much about it, but you can also just show up to the to the preparation as well. So what I tend to do with with the how I initiate the six-step preparation is I as I I include it as part of the meditation itself. So I I put the timer on and I sit in the cushion and the preparation is part of the meditation. I don't I don't kind of like distinguish it. And you can, you can do both, but I I just count it as like I don't ever meditate without doing the preparation, and I'm gonna include it in that time. So yeah, so the first step is motivation. Why are you doing this? Why are you meditating? Why are you doing this activity that you know is good for you? You've got to continually rekindle that fire. I think Zig Ziggler is this famous quote. Um, I maybe you can correct me. Um when you have a it's something like when you have a bath. Uh let me just actually find that Zig Zigla motivation quote. Yeah, so Zig Ziglar says people often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing. That's why we recommend it daily. And it and it's it's really that's the whole point of the six-step preparation, right? It's just like daily renewal of motivation. So step two is is more of a localized goal. So step one is motivation, it's like the grand vision. Where are you aiming? As Eric says, your north star. Step two is decide what you hope to work on in this specific session. Like while you're here, while the timer is on, what are you trying to work on? You know, and and and that could be some examples from my own practice, uh simple things like I would like to pay attention as best as I can for the whole session, or I would like to try and enjoy the whole session as much as I can. Even the very lot end, the last 10 minutes, I want to really try and enjoy my time sitting during this meditation. Another one might be if I find myself getting sleepy, I want to stand up and not kind of because when you feel a bit sleepy during meditation, it can feel kind of nice and kind of cozy, but that's kind of um not what you should be doing. You know, you want to generate wakefulness. So, you know, if I feel sleepy during the meditation, I'm gonna stand up and shake it off and then and then recommit to the practice. Things like that. Those are some examples from my own um practice on goals. Very simple, but they really just help me. What about you?

SPEAKER_00 38:13

Yeah, this is probably one of the best areas where the whole mind-illuminated structure shines. Because I think for a lot of us, like when I first showed up, it was like I don't even know what a goal in this is. Isn't the fact that I'm here good enough? Like, or like what should I be trying to doing, trying to be doing? Is there something I should be feeling? I don't really know. Like, there's this whole just ambiguousness to it where you come into uh the kind of stages and structure that he presents here, and it's like, okay, if you're just starting, go for stage one. If you're at stage one, go for stage two. And there's markers, there's phenomenology, there's language and definitions around all of this. And so a lot of mine has been like, look, I'm gonna keep up with the stage two protocol. Like my goal today is to is to sustain attention and actually knowing what that means when I say it, and not just saying it for the because I think it's what I'm supposed to be doing or what I should be saying. It's actually like, no, I have a language for this now, because a big part of the book as well is actually describing some of these things, right? Highlighting the differences, uh, like attention versus awareness. It's like, do you actually have a sense of what the distinction is between those? It's really helpful if you do. It's really helpful. And so then my goal, yeah, a lot of my goals has been like, look, I'm actually just going to do the practice of the stage I'm at. You know, I'm going to renew and commit to this until I feel like it's embodied. And if I'm slipping, coming right back to it. And so just that, like just even having a sense of where it's possible to go has been huge. Absolutely huge for my practice. And yeah, the small goals along the way really help with that.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

So I want to just give people a little uh quick insight into the stages, not all of them, but just the first three. So, stage one, the the practice goals for stage one is to develop a consistent meditation practice. That's it. It's it's it's perfect, it's just aiming low, right? Like, don't be having lofty goals if you can't consistently sit at the meditation cushion every day for like a couple of weeks, a couple of months. Like, you know, don't be talking to me about non-duality and all of this stuff if you can't spare 10 minutes consistently to practice. Um, I say that jokingly, but there's you know, it there's some truth to that, right? Like, you know, like start start small, start start where you're at, aim low, develop a consistent meditation practice and don't think too much about it, just show up. Uh, Chuladasa encourages people to start off with say 10, 15, 20 minutes, and then add five minutes a week. So you build up to he considers a minimum solid session to be 45 minutes. That's like a solid amount, but a minimum as well. When you've got that, then you can start adding maybe a 20-minute session in the evening or 10-minute, and you just go from there and you'll you'll find your own way. Stage two, the the practice goals for stage two is as you as you focus on the breath, you try to just reduce the time that you that you are forgetting the object of meditation. So you might initially find that you've forgotten the object of meditation, which is the breath, for 10 minutes at a time, and you just kind of like wake up, like, oh okay, well, okay, where have I been? And then you judge yourself and you you know, don't judge yourself. It's actually great that you woke up. That's also another big thing. Positive reinforcement being savoring the moments of being awake instead of berating yourself for being lost in thought. So that's the the practice goal for stage two, and then the practice goal of stage three is to completely overcome forgetting so that the the entire session, the breath is in awareness, it doesn't always have to be in attention, which is the kind of like the the very sharp type of focus. It just needs to be there in conscious awareness somewhere for the entire session, and you don't get lost completely in thought for minutes at a time. That's the practice goal goal for stage three. And that should keep most people occupied for for quite a while. But it's so nice to have those goals set up because what might start happening is people are kind of mixing them. It's like they have an inconsistent meditation practice, and then they're also expecting themselves to focus the entire session on and not forget the breath. And it's like, let's actually like go through this step by step. Step one, very simple, get a practice. Okay, good. Stick with that for a while. Increase, increase the kind of like the muscle of your intention over time by building up to 45 minutes. Stage two, just reduce, you know, and he has techniques in the in the book that we're gonna go into in in later discussions, but he has techniques to to reduce the the time you spend mind wandering. And then eventually stage three out of stage 10 is you can now you're now kind of like a solid practitioner of meditation where you're not forgetting the breath for for extended periods of time. Amazing, you know, amazing. What a what a cool thing to work on, you know, the this clear progress and clear feedback.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

Yeah, and it was uh this actually leads into the next one around expectations and just getting your expectations in check because it was definitely a hit for me to be like, oh, I'm still at stage one when I started this. It was like, look, I don't even show up every day for this, and yet I'm trying to levitate over here as if I'm like way down the road. And there was definitely a bit of kind of humble soup that had to happen with that. Um, but it was also nice, right? Again, this this single orienting moment of like, all right, cool. You know, if I'm serious about this, I now have a sense of where I'm at and where I want to go and what comes next. And and the expert like it actually helped when you and I were first talking about this that we kind of committed, like, yo, this isn't gonna be a shiny object set jump thing. Like, this is gonna be a long, this is gonna be a long haul, and I'm actually here for the whole thing because I want to focus on depth in my life rather than breadth of stuff. Um, and so actually that overarching it also ties into number one of like the motivation at large, helps. Set expectations where it's like, look, I'm here to show up as best I can right now for the practice, for the stage, but you know, I'm not I'm not gonna be levitating just yet. And getting those in check has been it helps a lot because it makes the little turbulence that you might run into in each session a lot easier to overcome, right? You don't should all over yourself, you don't get disappointed if uh you're better one day than you are the next. You reckon you can recognize that it's a long game and that again there are markers that you can feel and experience and validate for yourself that will help you gauge and move forward and progress. Um that's that's I think where the expectations have come in for me.

SPEAKER_01 45:23

And the expectations as well, whenever I run through it, it's I can't help but think of stoicism a little bit, you know, because it's this idea of pre-meditation, like it, like you're kind of visualizing like how might I build myself up to something loftier than I am, or how might I, you know, have low expectations and just convince myself before I've even sat down that I'm gonna have a terrible, quote-unquote terrible session. And the Stoics were very big on you know, thinking about that hardship that might come, think about that difficult person you might meet, and then plan accordingly, you know, imagine how you might respond to that with wisdom. That's exactly what Chuladasa has us do here. He has us sit down and think about you know how do how do we think the sessions is is gonna go? And then the very expectation can just become another thing to let go of before you begin. Uh it's it's in itself a storyline. It's something to just drop and just to go, well, you know, the the most important thing is showing up. And I do think the expectations and the diligence, which is step four, they are like brother and sister to me. They are like they're like two steps that are combined. The expectations and the diligence are put next to each other for that specific reason. You let go of expectations and you just remember that what's the only thing that counts. Diligence.

SPEAKER_00 46:52

The diligence one has been huge. It it's one of those things that confronts you where it's like, are you here to talk the talk or are you here to walk the walk? And uh, you know, it it highlights that quite clearly for you quite quickly. Um, and it's really helpful actually as you're cultivating the skills in the first few stages, because a lot of it is noticing the gap or noticing how long you've been lost. I think one of the things that happens, or at least that I noticed for myself um before starting this, and certainly throughout it a little bit, has been like, oh, if I caught myself wandering, like ah, I fucked the whole thing up. Like, dang, I failed. Like, uh, gonna have to try again tomorrow. And it's actually like, no, again, it's just, oh, you fell down, you pick yourself up. Like, oh, you still have 15 minutes left. Like, let's go make those a good 15 minutes. And just that sense of um renewing your commitment moment to moment, not just like session to session, not just like week to week, like moment to moment, like this is what I'm here for, is huge. And again, one of the things that translates so nicely outside of meditation as well. Just renew because you know, um, people do this all the time where like they're working and they get distracted, and it's like, oh look, I messed the whole day up, like I started goofing off. It's like, well, no, dude, you have more time in the day, just renew your commitment. It's like a stumble, it's not like a complete face plant. And so, dilig, yeah, diligence has been a big one for me, and just cultivating character traits that I would like to embody more of.

SPEAKER_01 48:30

What you're describing here, so there's the skill of meditation, which is training attention. But what you're what you've just described to me is one of those amazing side benefits of meditation uh as being this little microcosm of normal life. So, like you experience quote unquote failure during your session, and now you have to deal with that. You have to you have to learn that skill. You know, how do you not be a perfectionist? And that same skill you can apply outs outside of your meditation session. Because it's true, one of the you know, the the the problems we've listed many benefits of having a structured system for meditation, but one of the problems is that you now have a way to measure yourself. And if you don't do things by the book, then you can always say, Well, I don't measure up. I don't, I'm not doing things right, I fail stage three. But really, there there really is no there is no, you can't really fail anything in any given session. You know, what if you don't forget the breath for 25 minutes and then you forget it once? Have you failed? Have you succeeded succeeded? Well, you have to just feed into it and just look at your general pattern and go, well, I think I think I would give myself, you know, like uh I think I'm ready for the next stage based on that. If you're forgetting the breath every five minutes, then you might have to make a different decision. But in the process of training, you you you have to become kinder with yourself. There's there's no other way you can progress. There really isn't. Like, because that thought of if I mess up, I'm gonna be a failure. It's like, cool. Now you're going to be stuck on stage one forever. Like until you actually relax and become kind with yourself, you're not getting anywhere. And it's like, it's like someone saying, like, it's like a cruel joke. It's like, I'm going to force you to be cru uh kinder to yourself. It's like, no, I don't want to be. I want to hang on to this story of judging myself. It's like, alright, cool. Fine. No enlightenment for you. It's like, okay, then I guess I'll be easier myself.

SPEAKER_00 50:35

Yeah, and there's um like this is still a it's a practice of showing up for yourself, first and foremost, right? Like there's no there's no uh rubric here. You're not uh not objectively failing, but it is such a nice there's actually uh there's actually a very stoic thing in this for me. It's like my success isn't showing up for the things that I can control, like renewing my commitment, um managing expectations. Like if I do those things and if I actually showed up for the practice today, awesome. If the pra if that session reveals to me, uh maybe a bit begrudgingly, that I'm still at stage one or stage two, that's cool. Like that's that's where I'm at. Like a lot of the frustration comes with the fact it's like, oh freak, I'm not like I'm uh at a stage yet, like damn, damn son. And yeah, you know, swallowing that pill kind of sucks at the beginning, but you do yourself a big favor by actually accepting where you are in reality at that moment. And the success is just, yeah, you know, I chose to show up. I chose I I did the prep. I tried to do the practice as best I could, and I'm ready to do it all again tomorrow. Like that is success. And that, like again, it's almost cliche how much I'm bringing this up now, but that translates to the rest of life so beautifully, right? Your work, your relationships. It's like, look, did I show up? Did I do what felt right according to my heart and my values? Yeah, like yo, I'll take that win. I'll take that win any day. Did it go how I wanted or how I would have wished it? Maybe not, but that's fine. You know, I'm gonna show up again for it tomorrow, do the same thing. Like it translates so beautifully, so uh richly into the rest of life.

SPEAKER_01 52:28

Totally, totally. It's uh it's if you look at successful people, like you know, where whether it's writers or athletes, entrepreneurs, there's always this common thread of I show up and I do the work to the best of my abilities and let whatever happens happen. Like that's kind of like that's it in a nutshell. How do you become a great writer? You just do that. Like you just do that. Yeah, it really is the answer to everything. Like just show up, do the best you can, don't overthink it, try and improve, do the same thing tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 53:08

Yeah. And like we touched a bit, touched a bit early on on uh number five, like just going over distractions, which again, the premeditation thing is huge. Like, oh, my dog might walk in. If he does, okay, cool, I know what I'm gonna do. Like just having that little game plan can course correct so quickly. But one of the really powerful ones for me is as kind of a metaphor was the last one of reviewing your posture. The way I took that was like, yes, there's an actual meditation posture that can be very helpful, but it's like this am I showing up in the right way for the context of what I'm trying to do? If I'm doing seated meditation, am I showing up in the right way? There's an actual posture for that. If I'm showing up for work, am I showing up in the right way? Right? Is my is there shit everywhere? Like, am I at a really busy spot? Um, like there's a there's a right relationship to every context. And if you start there, you're way more likely to succeed in whatever you're trying to do. And that like has really hit home where because it's again, it's like, oh, if I take 30 seconds to like prep my space and clean up and renew intentions before starting work, this is gonna be way better. I might get like way deeper into a flow state, make my work a lot better, enjoy it a lot more. Awesome. I'll take that. Whereas again, if you just show up, you're kind of slouchy, you're sitting on your bed, you know, just writing stuff out with one hand. It's like, what do you expect to come from that? Like, what do you expect? You're not even showing up for the thing, so why would it show up for you? And so, yeah, that has translated again hugely for me as well. Where it's just like, am I in the right posture for what I'm about to do? Am I actually showing up in the right relationship to this? And like, these things take 12 seconds, like once you've done them a few times, they're so quick, but my god, they are they're really powerful.

SPEAKER_01 55:11

There's also this feeling of uh for me, it's at least at first, when I got to the posture part of the six-step preparation, I would want to kind of like skip over it. Like, you know, I've said my goals, I've said my my vision, I've said my intentions, and now it's like posture. Oh yeah, I'll just sit just sit up straight, cross my legs, and get on with it. But like you just said, right? Like, here's a here's an example that illustrates the power of this. Jordan B. Peterson. Okay. Jordan B. Peterson. Like, you know, if you know, you know. Like the guy has spent like decades, decades as a clinical psychologist. He uh has written the books Maps of Meaning. And uh he's one of the top lecturers at uh the University of Toronto. He used to be an incredible thinker, incredibly intelligent, very knowledgeable on psychology, well-being, and uh improving uh your life and to develop more of a meaningful life in the face of tragedy and setbacks and suffering. So he wrote writes a book, Twelve Rules for Life. This is 12 Rules for Life. You know, this is his epic masterwork, 12 Rules for Life. Each book, there's a short rule that he elaborates on. So you open the book, you get to the first rule. The first rule, this is the first thing he wants you to see. And what does it say? Stand up straight with your shoulders back. Like connection. You know, like but like how like that says it all. You know, that's not something to skip over because that's exactly what you're talking about. You know, like start with your posture, start with how you're physically showing up. You know, like don't be you can have all the concepts and theory in the world, but if you're walking around not making eye contact, slumping over, terrible posture, fidgeting, shuffling. I mean, yeah, really? Like, where are you expecting to go?

SPEAKER_00 57:21

Honestly, like uh an example that makes it really tangible for me is like a direct conversation with someone. Like, imagine you walked over to like your loved one or a family member or something, you're like, yo, I have something really important to tell you, and they just like whipped out their phone, they turned their back to you, they like hunched over and totally tuned out. Like, there's no way you can make the argument that they're that they're fully invested in that, that they've shown up. And it's like that's that those are strictly postural cues. That's just something they're doing with their body. They could very well be like actually listening and paying attention, but there's cues and there's a relationship dynamic to that. And yeah, this is one of this actually goes all the way back to like the personal uh kind of religious practice and devotion to this. It's like, you know, I want my posture to myself to be serious. Like, I want to show up for me with that level of like respect and openness and actually like look myself in the eyes and be paying attention to this stuff. Because like, why not? If I'm not gonna show up for myself, why would anyone show up for me? It's like a vote for your own worth. It's like if you can't even if you're not you can't take yourself seriously or with compassion or with good posture, period. Like, why would you expect anyone else to? And I think there's almost like a flip side of it where if you show up for yourself in that way, you actually don't need anyone else to do it for you. The only reason you need it from other people is because you don't give it to yourself. And if you just give it to yourself, you know, if you give yourself the love, the devotion, the commitment, the energy, the time, the space, you actually don't need it from anyone else, you know. Goes back to the experience being full in and of itself, if you would just show up for it and it's right there, it's just waiting for you to take it and show up for it.

SPEAKER_01 59:13

Yeah, yeah. So we've covered the the six the six steps overall. Uh we brushed over distraction a little bit, but I mean distraction, it's obviously important and applies to other contexts. For example, if you're sitting down about to do a few hours of work, being aware of the physical distractions in your environment, like putting your phone on airplane mode, um closing windows if it's going to be loud outside, telling people what you're up to, but uh also mental distractions, like realize before you start work, like, oh, I'm probably going to want to check YouTube and spend 25 mindless minutes seeing what's recommended for me. Right? Like, okay, so you're aware of that, don't do it. Or like if you do, if if you do do it, have like some note open that you can just put a link into the video you want to watch later, or get an app like Freedom or some other kind of distraction blocker. Um, so that that's also very good. But um, now that we've covered all six, just curious, how does one integrate the six? Because these these six steps, just to be clear, don't have to take an hour, you know, you could literally run through them in 20 seconds. You know, I probably recommend dedicating a few minutes to it to do it properly, but you know, you go through them at your at your own pace. How does one integrate these these steps into their life into things beyond meditation?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:45

Yeah, I think the first one is a conceptual understanding that none of this stuff is separate. The lessons you learn in meditation are lessons that apply to life, right? Things that are going on in your life will carry into your meditation practice, right? The stuff's not the stuff's not separate, which makes it powerful. It means that the preparation steps you do for a meditation practice are preparation steps you can do for anything else because it's just stuff that demands, or not demands, but asks for your attention and focus and presence. Um, so that I think is the the very first one. Um, the biggest thing for me has been like if I'm showing up to my desk to work, like stand there for like a second, take a breath, and be like, okay, what's about to happen here? Why am I doing this? Because if you sit down, particularly in front of something like a computer or your phone with so many highly addictive, highly colorful things without an intention, without knowing what you're doing with it, you will get sucked down every single hole possible for the next half an hour to an hour, and you'll be on your fourth scroll of Twitter having no idea why it is you're on Twitter at all. Um, so that like first breath or two where it's just like, what am I doing here? What am I about to do here? What would I like to get done by the end of it? What's going on? What could happen, right? Distraction stuff. Um, what do I expect from myself for this? Uh and how do I want to show up? How can I course correct? You know, if I do, if I do start jumping on a Facebook, can I just take a breath, close it, and come back instead of acting like I just messed up the whole thing? And like the like that list can quite literally become something very quick. Um, particularly if you're in the same place a lot, like most of us are working from home right now. You probably don't work in that many places. Like the dis the potential distractions are probably gonna be very similar a lot of the time. So once you have a sense of how you can manage them, like it's just a general reminder. Like, oh yeah, this could happen. Cool. I know how I'm gonna deal with that. Deal with it, I'll put it to the side, I'll come back to it later, I'll return to practice. Like just the Yeah, I think the Yeah, it what what what is coming up and it feels like a recognition that a lot of this is almost cultivating character traits. Like it's cultivating personalities, like being intentional with what you're about to do. If you can't answer, like, why am I about to do this, just don't just don't do it. Like that is that is a more of a personality or character trait than it is like a preparation step, you know, reducing distractions. That's something that just becomes an embodied part of you. And yeah, a very easy way to practice and build the skill of it is doing it to prepare for meditation, and then the muscles just become much more ingrained and it'll translate to workouts, it'll translate to conversations with people you care about, it'll translate to work. Um, it doesn't have to be so forced, it just really has to be practiced.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:01

Yeah, and in terms of uh practicing it, I think one thing that I would recommend to people is obviously start using the six-step preparation for everything that's meaningful in your life, like from now on. But also think of it like the next seven days, like tomorrow, just spend the day focusing on goals. You know, just contemplate like what are what are my biggest goals for this? What are my biggest goals for that? What are my biggest goals for this relationship or for that pursuit or that work project? The next day, you can uh zone in on thinking about your specific goals for the task that you're working on, you know, just like really zone in on it. And then you can go through the six-step prop preparation and obviously the final day, you can just pay very close attention to your posture. You know, how are you sitting on a chair? How are you sitting when you're talking to friends? This is uh very useful type of mindful cultivation, and breaking it down will allow you to, you know, not bite off more than you can chew, to use that that old uh phrase. Beautifully said. Beautifully said.