Mindfulness

meditation for your

exact life stage

I startedmindfulness
meditation in 2008, sitting
cross-legged to watch the
arising and passing of my
thoughts. It was a lie. Thetruth
was, I didnt want my thoughts
to pass. I had so much to prove
to the world. I wanted to get a
worldwide book deal. I wanted

I wanted to backpack around

the world. For months, I
struggled until I read more and
switched to a concentration
based meditation approach.
Immediately, something
clicked. Id meditate for only
30 minutes but would feel the
effects for the rest of the day.

Iwasnt checkingFacebook
and Quora in the middle of
work, I didnt get up every five
minutes to get coffee, I was
sharper, more productive, in
everything. Now many years
later, my meditation practice
has changed again to
mindfulness meditation. And

Dont get sucked intowriting

in gratitude journals and
burning incense sticks and
repeating Im complete/I
love myself affirmations if
you arent there yet. Change
how you meditate based on
where you are in life as below

How tomeditate based on

yourlife stage
I find the most complete
definition of life in The Yoga
Sutras:first, evolution, then
involution.Like an eagle, first
you flap your wings high,

as high as you can flap them,

then you bring them down
gracefully. How do you know
which phase youre in?

Evolution (growth): Youre

thirsty for experiencing the
world to the fullest: travel,
advancement, success,
family, starting your own
company, meeting new
people, getting new
perspectives etc.

Involution (silence): The

world starts to lose its pull.
Something always seems
missing even in moments of
great achievement. You
crave a deeper, more
permanent reality, but not in
a static depressive way,
more as an active quest.

In 2008, I wanted to be the

CEO ofProcter & Gamble.
Now, I want to get nowhere at
all, just dissolve myself in my
work everyday, so I have no
sense of self left.

Then, I took a sabbatical and

back-packed across South
America and Central Asia,
hungry to see every notable
place in every country. Now
when Kerry and I travel, youll
have to pay us to seea
museum or acathedral. We
spent most of 2013in forest

Then, I was an extrovert. Now,

I have nothing to say, no
opinions to offer, and talk more
about life with Leela, our 20
month old daughter and
Coconut, our pup, than with
real people.

You change and your

meditation practice should
reflect where you are.
Concentration-based
meditation approaches
(mantra, image, breath) are
excellent for the evolution or
growth phases of life.

learn focus, concentration,

single-mindedness, everything
you need to achieve your goals
in this world with excellence.
Insight meditation approaches

(vipassana, mindfulness)
work for the involution phase
as they help you observe how
transient your obsessive
worldly thought patterns are
and break free from them.

Defining types: the

pyramid of meditative
experience
In every ashram or meditation
retreat, you meet people
whore in neither evolution nor
involution stage. Theyre
stuck.

They dont like their jobs, the

credit card bills are piling, their
parents didnt love them, their
fiance doesnt understand
them, their pet parrot died.
Learning meditation is a noble
idea but know this

Meditation will not help with

personal drama. The foundation
of meditation is morality or love.
Without a basic level of love for
yourself (and a result, others),
youll never shift focus away
from yourself, the basic requisite
of meditation. Over time, your
meditation practice should

Of course, its never as

simplistic as this. Each stage
has stages within it and you
keep going up and down the
ladder but a quick, broad
definition as below:

Morality Morality is basic selflove and love for others so

youre approaching meditation
from a position of some mental
stability.

You can learn morality by

leveraging the abundant selfhelp industry resourceslove
yourself, practice gratitude,
follow your dreams, kind of
stuff or skip it entirely if you
dont have any personal drama
that needs resolution.

Concentration Based
Meditation
Once youre not obsessed with
yourself, youre ready to start
concentration-based
meditation. The basic construct
here is that youre

training your mind to go from

scattered to one pointed by
concentrating on an object
external to your mind, be it
your breath, a mantra, an
image, or a deity. Within six
months times of practicing
concentration based
meditation, you should see a

difference in your performance

in the world. In my case, I was
suddenly able to calculate
numbers faster than before
among other things so I knew
my focus and attention was
improving(Detailed
concentration-based
meditation instructions here).

Insight Based Meditation or

Mindfulness Meditation With a
one pointed mind, you become
mindful of reality as it isthe
constant, helpless arising and
passing away of thoughts.
Anger arises, then disappears.

Lust arises, then disappears.

Happiness arises, then
disappears. Now, when I sit
down and meditate, here is
what happens: A stray thought
arises: I want my book to be a
bestseller, I make a mental
note. The thought goes away.

Then, I should take up that

job, noted, gone, Jason
shouldnt have said that,
noted, gone, Leelas cough
medicine is in my coat, noted,
gone. Youre just aware,
observing this constant arising
and passing of thoughts
without judgment,

without getting sucked into

them and reacting to them, an
understanding that slowly
creeps into every phase of
your life. (Detailed insightbased meditation instructions
here).

Enlightenment
Months, years, perhaps
lifetimes of insight meditation
later, a deep, visceral
realization arises thatall that
existsis the arising and
passing of thoughts. Theres no
permanent self at all. Just
selfless phenomena

everything you experience is

passing phenomena. Your
sense of static self, the I, the
experiencer, dissolves, so that
theres no difference between
the observer and the observed.
Everything is just one _____.

Fill in the blank with God,

Brahman, Shunyata,
nothingness, Purusha, Tao,
consciousness, energy,
awareness, whatever your
mystical tradition says.

Theyre all fingers pointing to

the same moon though I like
Nagarjunas definition the best
since it acknowledges the unacknowledgeable nature of the
ultimate reality: it both exists
and does not exist; it neither
exists nor doesnt exist.

I meditate. Why am I still

not happy?
Have you truly internalized
these two realities of the
human experience?

Impermanence: Every thought,

every emotion, every
experience that arises will
pass. Are you still trying to
hold on to the pleasant ones? f

Incompleteness:The relative
pre-enlightenment reality
were living in will always be
incomplete. Are you falsely
assuming a baby, a new friend,
a job, or a bestselling book will
complete you?

Without acceptance of the

limitations of the human
experience, youll keep chasing
the infinite in a finite world
rather than looking for
completeness within.

Thats why most self-help

books fail. No gratitude diary
and affirmation practice can
mask the truth of our
incompleteness. Nor should
they because a thoughtful
inquiry about happiness starts
from accepting that discontent.

In summary, what is the

purpose of life?

Evolution, then involution. Be in

each phase completely. Push
the boundaries of experience in
the growth phase. Turn inward
and experience deep silence
when going within. Meditating is
your companion in both stages.
Will you join me in maintaining
a steady practice in 2016?

For more details

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