Mindfulness meditation for your exact life stage

I started mindfulness meditation in 2008, sitting cross-legged to watch the arising and passing of my

thoughts. It was a lie. The truth was, I didn’t want my thoughts to pass. I had so much to prove to the

world. I wanted to get a worldwide book deal. I wanted to become a CEO.

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. I’d meditate for only 30 minutes but would feel the effects for the rest of the day. I wasn’t checking Facebook and Quora in the middle of work, I didn’t 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 that’s how meditation

works. Don’t get sucked into writing in gratitude journals and burning incense sticks and repeating “I’m complete”/”I love myself” affirmations if you

aren’t there yet. Change how you meditate based on where you are in life as below

How to meditate based on your life stageI 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 you’re in?

Evolution (growth): You’re 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 of Procter & 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, you’ll have to pay us to see a museum or a cathedral. We spent most of

2013 in forest ashrams and silent meditation retreats. 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. You 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 who’re in neither evolution nor involution

stage. They’re stuck. They don’t like their jobs, the credit card bills are piling, their parents didn’t love them, their fiancée doesn’t 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), you’ll never shift focus away from yourself, the basic requisite of meditation. Over time, your meditation practice should evolve like

this

Of course, it’s 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 self-love and love for others so you’re approaching meditation from a position of some mental stability. You can learn morality by leveraging the abundant self-help industry resources–“love yourself”, “practice

gratitude”, “follow your dreams,” kind of stuff or skip it entirely if you don’t have any personal

drama that needs resolution

Concentration Based MeditationOnce you’re not obsessed with yourself, you’re

ready to start concentration-based meditation. The basic construct here is that you’re training your

mind to go from scattered to one pointed by concentrating on an object external to your mind,

be it your breath,

mantra, an image, or a deity. Within six months times of practicing concentration based

meditation, you should see a tangible 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 is—the 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 shouldn’t have said that”, noted, gone, “Leela’s cough medicine is in my

coat”, noted, gone

You’re 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 insight-based meditation instructions here).

EnlightenmentMonths, years, perhaps lifetimes of insight

meditation later, a deep, visceral realization arises that all that exists is the arising and passing of thoughts. There’s no permanent self at all. Just selfless phenomena—happiness, anger, love,

sorrow, desire, lust,

everything you experience is passing phenomena. Your sense of static self, the “I”, the experiencer, dissolves, so that there’s 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. They’re all fingers pointing to the same moon though I like Nagarjuna’s definition

the best since it acknowledges the un-acknowledgeable nature of the ultimate reality: “it both exists and does not exist; it neither exists nor

doesn’t 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? Incompleteness: The relative pre-enlightenment reality we’re 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, you’ll keep chasing the infinite

in a finite world rather than looking for completeness within. That’s 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?

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