Brechen MacRae, Author at The Mindful Stoic

Stoicism And Mindfulness: The Fundamental Tools For Balance

Jul 11, 2021 | Foundations

Nobody wants to work themselves into burnout or lonely corners from years of neglecting loved ones for the sake of success. Reasonable people would agree there is no height of success that justifies self-sacrifice. Yet we can be pulled to stray from the middle path, heading instead toward an imbalanced penchant for ambition. There are extremely powerful machines in play—rampant commercialism fueled by your personal data, the sense of inferiority that comes from social media’s false reality—that push us to work harder on increasingly complex tasks. Conversely, nobody wants to be passive and powerless against life’s challenges. We know from experience that doing difficult or scary things ultimately provides the most lasting sense of satisfaction. We do not want to disengage with work and become lazy and stagnant. I believe that finding this balance between ambition and passivity is a challenge we all know. Stoicism and mindfulness can help.

This article aims to help us realize subtle distinctions between Stoicism and mindfulness and their importance. It’s also an examination of the fundamental pursuit of this blog: finding balance. If you’ve read the blog before, you know that Stoicism and mindfulness are integral elements of the content. I don’t just want to write about these two practices to share with the readers what they are. Rather, I want to explore and promote their practicality for the sole purpose of helping people strike that crucial balance between action and rest.

Find balance with Stoicism and mindfulness

Stoicism and mindfulness: the framework and the tools

Stoicism as a practical philosophy is widely applicable in nearly all areas of life. But what does it lack? Except for the quiet and stillness that the Stoics prescribed, many of Stoicism’s lessons intend to help us respond correctly to our environment. Stoicism is designed to help us make intelligent choices, even amid chaos, and act in accordance with our virtues. But it doesn’t offer much technical advice on how to do this.

The writings of the Stoics like Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius sometimes have a trial-by-fire implication. Let’s take professional fighting as an analogy. The way in which Stoicism prepares us to respond to our environment is like a fighter preparing for a fight by only sparring and reflecting upon how it went afterwards. But we know that professional fighters have other technical, fundamental ways in which they train. They must increase their cardiovascular capacity by strengthening the heart through running or cycling. They drill certain movements slowly and repeatedly to build the muscle memory and neural connections to automate their responses.

Mindfulness meditation as a training device

So how do we train ourselves to respond effectively to our ever-changing and unpredictable environment? This is where mindfulness and meditation come into play. These two practices are like the running shoes or the bicycle for the fighter. They are tools that help us build a specific capability. In this case, the capability that mindfulness and meditation allow us to build is the ability to observe our thoughts before they turn into raw emotion or reaction. Mindfulness meditation, in particular, trains us to observe thoughts or surroundings non-judgmentally. With repetition, a space opens up following a thought or a stimulus in which we have a choice. The choice is how we react.

The Stoics teach about reacting to insults with indifference or even sympathy for the person slinging the insult. Remaining silent or responding with grace to insult or criticism requires us to identify what’s happening and to slow things down. Meditation and mindfulness are the training tools that allow us to practice this anytime, anywhere. What good is it to know, theoretically or philosophically, how we want to react to challenging and chaotic situations if we do not have well-trained minds and nervous systems?

Rest and action are everything

We can broadly categorize life into two buckets: rest and action. At all times, either we are doing something with a desired outcome in mind or we are simply resting or doing something for the sheer enjoyment of it. Both are indispensable and require different approaches.

Stoicism is fantastic for teaching us how to act courageously in action. Amor fati (the love of fate), memento mori (remember your mortality), and premeditatio malorum (the premeditation of evils) are epithets of Stoicism—all of which promote the idea of acting effectively in the face of fear. The Four Stoic Virtues are an excellent mechanism with which we can stay continuously oriented by what is truly important in life. These are all amazing ideas which, when practiced, can help us work and act with precision and efficiency.

Mindfulness and meditation, on the other hand, with their underlying focus on the present moment and appreciation of its beauty, are excellent for extracting the most from life. These two practices help us slow down, focus on our breath to relieve stress, and experience life outside of a realm that is almost defined by capitalistic pursuits. As discussed above, meditation is a training device with which we can improve the observation of thoughts and stimuli to process them before they become regretful reactions.

Stoicism and mindfulness for balance

Pondering this idea—that life is always either in motion or at rest—allows us to recognize when one or the other is happening, so that we can engage with the appropriate toolkit. We need a different mentality when it comes to business meetings than we do for picnics with our significant other. You can derive real gains and value from this awareness.

Imbalance comes when we allow one of these two areas of life to become excessive. Nobody wants deathbed regrets. Grinding yourself to a fine dust in the name of material success is a probable deathbed regret. Constantly shying away from discomfort and challenge and ultimately failing to realize your inner potential is another. This is a tricky balance to strike, at least for me, which is a driving motivation for me to write this blog (because I’m still figuring it out). This is why the combination of Stoicism and mindfulness is so powerful to me personally. I will continue to explore topics like these and try to distill them into practical and digestible formats that (I hope) can help people live a balanced life.

It’s difficult to argue against the fact that Stoicism (along with other philosophies and religions) is ripe with sound instruction on how to live our lives. When we read Eastern philosophy, people like Thich Nhat Hanh or The Dalai Lama, concepts such as non-doing and gratitude become glaring reminders that we need to slow down and see the miracle that is finite life. Furthermore, meditation and mindfulness actually allow us to build the skills needed to implement our philosophy in challenging and unpredictable circumstances.

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Living Mindfully Requires Grit And Discipline

Jun 13, 2021 | Mindfulness

Living mindfully is not always easy. We spend a third of our lives sleeping and most of us spend another third working. This already puts us at a deficit of time and energy remaining for living life. There’s little we can do about the lack of time. We need to work and sleep. Our control over our energy levels is also somewhat limited. What we can do, however, is empower our attitude and reinforce our discipline towards that remaining one third of our lives that should be spent marveling at the rare and precious gift of the present moment. It is insufficient to view this remaining third—this time for living—as a means to simply rest and recover for the other third for which we are remunerated.

We need to fight—and fight hard—to wrestle away some of the weight and pervasiveness of work that can obscure our ability to experience life more mindfully. Work- and money-related concerns lead to exhaustion, which can seriously rob us of our motivation to do things that truly matter. Moreover, Western culture doesn’t provide us with the tools we need to sit still and enjoy natural experience. This article aims to remind us of the crucial importance of shifting our attitude and actions towards our leisure time in two important ways. First, we need to affirm (and constantly reaffirm) that living life mindfully (which I will define later) is more important than work and sleep. Secondly, we need to recognize and accept the fact that living mindfully takes tremendous effort at times.

Grit and discipline to live mindfully

We’ve all experienced the gratifying retreat to Netflix when we were exhausted from work. Conversely, we can recall countless times where we went to work in the morning despite being too tired. We need to bring the same discipline and grit of the latter situation to overcome fatigue and reclaim that one third of our lives where valuable experience occurs.

Before we explore the ways in which we can begin to view our personal time as the most precious time we have, let’s define what I mean by living mindfully. I’ll use the term ‘living mindfully’ throughout this article generally to describe genuine experience and rest. I want to make it clear that this does not refer to ‘happiness’, because not all life’s experiences are happy ones (nor should they be). I’m talking about experiences without desired outcomes. These include cliché ones like spending time with family and friends, or taking a mindful walk on a mountain trail. Living mindfully also includes mundane and recurring experiences like showering, cleaning, reading, or going for a walk in a familiar place.

Living mindfully includes resting, but not what I refer to as ‘escapist resting’, of which a common example is watching TV not because you’re particularly interested in what’s on, but because you’re ‘too tired’ to do anything else. We can classify living mindfully as any time spent without a clear desired outcome.

There are no intrinsic motivators to live mindfully

There are clear and powerful mechanisms in life that ensure we sleep and work. The motivating force behind sleep is obvious: we need it to live and function. It doesn’t take much mental bandwidth to motivate yourself to sleep or to do it regularly and consistently. Work, on the other hand, requires more strategic thinking and energy to perform it well. It’s important to note about work, however, that again there are mechanisms in place to ensure we do it regularly and consistently.

The economies in which we live and participate require us to contribute. We need money to purchase essentials such as food and shelter. Furthermore, we usually have bosses, stakeholders, and performance reviews to make sure we’re doing our best at all times. This last point is critical because yes, work takes a lot of mental and physical exertion, but there are strong external forces there to ensure we do it.

Let’s contrast this with that remaining one third of our lives—our free time. There are no bosses or economic requirements there to remind us to take a vacation from time to time. We don’t have inescapable biological needs there to motivate us to spend time outdoors with friends after work instead of crashing out on the sofa. There is no external pressure to meditate, read, or spend time enjoying hobbies that don’t result in economic gain. So if we lack the intrinsic motivators that help us sleep and work, where does the motivation to live mindfully come from? The answer is that it needs to come from within.

Fatigue is a major obstacle

This is where grit comes into the picture. Think about all those days and countless actions you performed at work despite not feeling like it. We need to cultivate this same motivation to overcome obstacles when it comes to living life naturally. Fatigue is a major obstacle preventing us from living a life full of rich experiences. If we allow the need to rest and recover for work to dominate our free time, we let work infringe on our lives more than it already does.

We cannot take a passive or adjourned approach to our leisure time because it is precious and finite. So we must resist the temptation to indulge in escapist resting such as consuming digital media and instead get up and get outside. We must stay connected to our friends and family as much as possible. There will be times where the weather is poor and where our mind and body aches from fatigue, but we have to reclaim our ability to live mindfully by doing the things we love regularly and consistently.

Mindful living is restful

It may seem that my advice to get out and do something over resting when you’re really tired runs counter to good health practices. However, a mindful walk or a meaningful conversation with a friend can be as restorative as a nap and certainly more enriching than doom scrolling. Moderate movement and mental engagement without desired outcomes is good for the mind and body. Once we get over that initial hump of feeling ‘too tired’, we quickly find that a second wind accompanies living mindfully.

We all know that our time on this planet is treasured and limited, but we’re not always so good at acting in accordance with this fact. It is all too common that work and the trailing fatigue that comes with it eats into time that should be spent living. When we take time to reflect on our favorite memories, we realize that they are filled with experience out there in the real world. When faced with fatigue especially, we need to develop grit and discipline to promote the kinds of experiences that are not only enjoyable in the present moment, but that also accumulate as memories that make for a life well lived.

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May 31, 2021 | Foundations, Stoicism

One of the defining features of Stoicism is its practicality. The ancient Stoics would even devise clever phrases and mnemonic devices to help their students carry with them reminders of how to act in accordance with the fundamental ideas and virtues of their philosophy. ‘Act according to nature’ was one such reminder leveraged by the earliest Stoics to help them choose the right action when faced with any dilemma or situation. For the Stoics, to live according to nature did not mean retreating into the wilderness; instead, it meant that humans are naturally capable of reason, and this profound gift distinguishes us from other animals and allows us to make virtuous decisions. The focus of this article is the ‘act’ part of this phrase. We will describe and explore the 4 Stoic virtues and identify several practical ways we can implement them.

The 4 Stoic Virtues – Wisdom

For the Stoics, the virtue of wisdom was achieved along two converging paths. The first is the study of philosophy. In a practical and modern sense, this is simply reading philosophy and non-fiction. It was as simple in ancient times as it is today: read, study, and challenge your own beliefs regularly. The second and most crucial path to wisdom is the implementation of this philosophy. We can read powerful and transformational ideas until we’re blue in the face but they mean nothing until we venture out and put them into practice. Here are our practical tips for harnessing the Stoic virtue of wisdom in your own life.

Read voraciously, but read outside your comfort zone. Read genres you don’t normally read; read fiction, history, science and biographies. Here’s an interesting reading experiment to broaden your horizons: try reading a book that’s predominantly marketed to the opposite sex. Said differently, if you’re a man, read a book that’s generally targeted to a female audience. If you’re a woman, read a book that’s generally targeted to a male audience. Here are two suggestions, 12 Rules For Life by Jordan Peterson and The Moment Of Lift by Melinda Gates.
Take notes while you read, but not only of the ideas that interest you but also write down action items with a date by which you will do them.

Reading best practices

Read less. This may seem counter to our message, but sometimes, when you read a truly transformational set of ideas, it’s best to walk around for a few weeks carrying these ideas without introducing new ones to confound and distract from your ability to turn the ideas into behaviors.
Read to your weaknesses. I used to have a serious problem with public speaking. Now, I sometimes speak in front of thousands. Do I still struggle? Of course. But instead of curling up and quitting, I made it my mission to get better. One of the actions I took was to read several books on public speaking. I used what was useful and discarded the rest along my path to improvement.

The 4 Stoic Virtues – Courage

We often think of courage as a single act embedded in a particular moment in time. The imagery of courage that comes to mind is that of a firefighter entering a burning building to save others or a soldier running headlong into battle. Indeed, this is courage, but the Stoics would often speak of a more ordinary and sustained type of courage.

“Two words should be committed to memory and obeyed: persist and resist.” — Epictetus

Persistence is the idea I want to remain on for a moment. It takes courage to work a draining, unfulfilling job for 30 years to support one’s family. It takes courage to raise children with love and devotion. Furthermore, it takes courage to strive constantly to improve oneself and avoid slipping into the lazy mediocrity that is mass-marketed to us on a daily basis. This persistence and resistance, over a long and uninterrupted path, is the embodiment of courage that the Stoics emphasized.

It’s relevant because it’s pervasive

This kind of courage is more relevant for us to ponder and exercise than the kind required to enter a burning building to save another person because the former is required each and every day. The Stoic virtue of courage, in the modern sense, is showing up every day to do your best whether you feel like it or not. Courage is resisting the idea of comfort and happiness that is constantly marketed to us through ‘convenient’ technological innovations. It is also the ability to stand apart from the masses, even if it causes you to be misunderstood socially, in the pursuit of your values and virtues.

Here are some practical exercises in the Stoic virtue of courage:

Resist the urge to rest when it first appears. It is true that we need days off and leisure time to simply be. However, the urge to take a rest day sometimes arises before it is truly necessary. Delay the gratification of taking a day off by just one day. Often, you’ll find that the following day you will feel better despite having done the work. If, however, you still feel exhausted despite having delayed gratification by one day, then by all means take some time for yourself to rest and recover.

Take risks

Let your dissenting voice be heard. If you find yourself in a situation that feels wrong to you, be the first person to say something about it. Do this with care and compassion for the others involved in the situation, but don’t allow harmful situations to endure around you without providing constructive criticism first, even if it means taking a social risk.
Voluntarily expose yourself to your fears. In clinical psychology, there is overwhelming evidence demonstrating that exposure and therefore habituation to fear is the primary means to overcoming it:

The experience of anxiety involves nervous system arousal. If your nervous system is not aroused, you cannot experience anxiety. Understandably, but unfortunately, most people attempt to cope with feelings of anxiety by avoiding situations or objects that elicit the feelings. Avoidance, however, prevents your nervous system from habituating. Therefore, avoidance guarantees that the feared object or situation will remain novel, and hence arousing, and hence anxiety provoking. Moreover, avoidance tends to generalize over time. If you avoid the elevator at work, you will soon begin to avoid all elevators, and then all buildings that house elevators, etcetera. Soon enough, you’ll be living in a prison of avoidance.

– Noam Shpancer Ph.D., Overcoming Fear: The Only Way Out is Through, Psychology Today

The 4 Stoic Virtues – Temperance

In simple terms, the Stoic virtue of temperance is the resistance against desire. However, it is a nuanced concept that requires some further exploration. Ryan Holiday succinctly and eloquently summarizes the virtue of temperance: “Temperance is guarded against extremes, not relying on the fleetingness of pleasure for happiness nor allowing the fleetingness of pain to destroy it”. Viewed from this lens, we see that temperance resides within the moderate center between pleasure and pain. Temperance is balance.

Pursuing temperance, by nature, is precarious and difficult to master. Achieving balance between doing and being is perhaps the core pursuit of this blog. This challenging balance requires us to be relentless in evaluation and corrective action of what is excessive in our lives. Here are some quick practical tips to consider in the pursuit of balance:

Practice some degree of minimalism, or at least some resistance against marketing.
If you sit all day for work, stand at night. I mean this as a practical tip—if you’re forced to sit in a chair all day for work, make sure you stand at night when you’re reading or watching television. This is also an analogy for balance in general. Find something that is excessive in your life, and work to counterbalance it.
Wait ten minutes on your desires. When the desire arises to say, eat junk food, smoke, or drink, simply wait for ten minutes and usually the desire will subside.

The 4 Stoic Virtues – Justice

The Stoic virtue of justice is often misunderstood. At first glance, people tend to interpret it along the lines of the criminal justice system of today. Criminal acts would certainly fall outside the scope of justice in the Stoic sense, but it extends much deeper than this. In Stoicism, justice means acting for the greater good of the community, even to the extent where self-sacrifice is required.

This idea of justice would have certainly trickled down to the Stoics from their Greek predecessors, where we see stories of ultimate self-sacrifice in the name of civic duty. The story of Socrates’ demise is a compelling example of this. Socrates was accused of impiety (worshipping gods not recognized by the state in Athens at the time) by political rivals who were motivated to put forth this likely unfounded charge. Socrates argued his case in public but was ultimately sentenced to death. Friends of Socrates arranged for his escape by bribing the prison guards. Socrates refused to flee in exile, opting instead to respect the law even though he knew his sentence was unjust, and accept his sentence to death.

Find the opportunities to practice

This is an extreme example and a moral dilemma that none of us is likely to face. However, we are presented with countless opportunities to practice the Stoic virtue of justice in daily life. We can be compassionate, present, and make moral decisions that should ripple outward from ourselves first, then to our family, community, and further still (but always in that order).

Here are a few practical ways to expand your capacity for the Stoic virtue of justice:

Focus your influence locally. Don’t be the person who’s obsessed with and engaged in online activism about things happening far away. First, be the person who supports and strengthens their community.
Holding a door for someone is a low bar for compassion. Don’t confuse common courtesy with compassion. Your time and energy spent to help (or at the very least listen to) others is a good measure of your capacity for compassion.
An interruption is a golden opportunity for compassion. If someone interrupts you, it is almost always because they are in need. An interruption also implies that you will have to subvert your own needs or desires for a moment, and is therefore a great chance to practice virtue.
Pick up litter when you see it. This is only partly an analogy for exerting some effort for the betterment of the community.

Make life interesting

Stoicism has endured over millennia as a philosophy for life because of its emphasis on practicality. There is nothing more satisfying than reading powerful thoughts that resonate with you (like the 4 Stoic Virtues outlined in this article) and then seeing yourself acting in accordance with them. Finding ways to act in accordance with your own highest values leads to a better present and future. This should be viewed as a process and even as a fun and experimental journey. Let’s not view the pursuit of virtue as a teeth-grinding heavy lift, but more as a journey flowing with the requisite vicissitudes that make life interesting. The moment you settle for mediocrity is the moment life becomes boring. Enjoy the process, be honest with your progress, success and failure, but also have a light heart and compassionate eye for yourself.

The Three Stoic Disciplines: Desire, Action, and Assent

Introduction To Stoicism And Mindfulness

Improve Your Focus With Mindfulness- And Science-Based Protocols

What Is Modern Stoicism? An Introduction & Essential Practices

Where Buddhism And Modern Psychology Converge On Mental Wellness

How To Speak Like A Stoic

Karma In Buddhism: Sowing The Seeds Of Love

What The Death Of Marcus Aurelius Teaches Us About Life

Zen Meditation: How To Stop And Reflect For Wisdom

Memento Vivere: How To Live With Agency, Gratitude & Engagement

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How Do You Meditate? Answering Most Googled Questions On Meditation

Apr 25, 2021 | Meditation

Much like the breath itself, meditation is always there for us—accessible to anyone. It pains me to hear people tell me that they or someone they know can’t meditate. I think people can be averted from practicing meditation because it has been somehow overcomplicated for them. Meditation is simple, easy, and so profoundly important for its numerous health benefits. This article aims to clear up some common misconceptions about meditation and shed light on the fact that meditation is something you can personalize to your own tastes—it’s not a rigid practice and it doesn’t require rules. We thought a fun way to write this post would be to answer some of the most Googled questions on meditation. Let’s start with ‘How do you meditate?’

How do you meditate?

To me, meditation consists of two fundamental elements: breathing and quietude. It’s about finding a quiet time and space to simply breathe. You can sit or stand or walk, but as long as your surroundings are relatively still and you take even just a few deep, conscious breaths, you’re already well on your way to meditating.

I’d like to expand on this by listing some truths about meditation with the hope of busting some myths or misconceptions.

Meditation is not about silencing your thoughts. It’s actually quite the opposite. Meditation is a time to experience your thoughts and observe them, as neither good nor bad, in a deliberate and dedicated way. Meditation is a great way to process thoughts on your own time. It’s all right if you find yourself thinking about your problems and worries during meditation—it’s entirely natural and inevitable. When this happens, just observe and label your thoughts neutrally: “There’s a thought about my upcoming deadline”.

Meditation has to be perfectly still. A common blocker that prevents people from meditating is their inability to sit still. Many people try to sit perfectly still in the lotus position (legs crossed) and quickly give up when their back starts to ache. First, you don’t need to sit in this position. You could sit in a comfortable seat, stand, or even walk. Check out our article on walking meditation. I don’t give up when my back starts to ache while sitting legs crossed. Instead, I use some gentle movement to smooth out the tension. You can pause and get up to stretch, use some yoga poses, or even alternate between sitting up straight and slouching a bit.

Keep it fresh

You can use different techniques or styles depending on your mood or needs. There are times when my meditation practice consists of simply sitting in silence and thinking. Letting my thoughts come to me naturally like this is an excellent way to process the day’s events. There are other times, perhaps when I’m worried about a loved one or troubled by events in the world, where my meditation consists of sending out compassionate thoughts and wishes. If I’m nervous about something coming up, the focus of my meditation session becomes positive affirmations, remembering my strengths and past successes, and visualizing myself being successful.

If I’ve been feeling anxious or stressed, then I use the breath as my sole focus point. Beginning with some deep, cleansing breaths, I then attempt to focus entirely on my breath. When my concentration is interrupted by a thought, I don’t get frustrated. Instead, I return to the breath, building my focus muscles much like you would with physical muscles by repeating an exercise in the gym. These are just some of the methods I use to vary my meditation practice. Adding variety to your meditation practice keeps things fresh and interesting, but it also helps address specific needs and feelings you’re having on a given day.

What is meditation in simple words?

Meditation is breathing and concentrating with the goal of simply breathing and concentrating.

What are the 3 types of meditation?

There are certainly more than three types of meditation, and as described above, you don’t have to adhere to any given technique. In fact, I recommend that you personalize and experiment freely with your meditation practice. However, I’ll still attempt to answer this question by providing a brief description of three common types of meditation.

Concentration meditation. In concentration meditation, you simply identify one thing to attempt to concentrate on with full effort and focus. For all practical purposes, the breath is the best object of focus for beginners. Your concentration doesn’t necessarily have to be the breath. According to different meditative traditions, the object of your focus can be a mantra or positive affirmation, an imagined visual image, or a sound.

Vipassana meditation. Prevalent in the West, Vipassana meditation (pronounced Vip- ah-suh-nuh), which roughly translates into Insight Meditation, generally allows the meditator to achieve insight into three fundamental teachings of Buddhist philosophy. Simply put, Vipassana meditation is a time to reflect on these three fundamental teachings, which are impermanence, suffering, and ego. Here we see some similarities with Stoicism, because the Stoics also prescribed acknowledging the finite nature of life, accepting suffering, and dissociating with the part of our ego that tells us we’re special. It can seem complicated at first glance, but a simple way to practice this could be sitting in quiet meditation and taking a few seconds to acknowledge that life is short, suffering is what makes us human and enduring it is noble, and reminding yourself that you’re not a finished product. Read our full post on Vipassana meditation for more.

How do you meditate? Loving kindness meditation

This type of meditation was largely popularized in the West by great meditation teachers and writers like Sharon Salzberg and Jack Kornfield. It’s similar to mantra meditation because you can leverage mantras or positive affirmations to send loving thoughts to yourself or others. Here’s a simple combination of affirmations you can use or adapt to your needs: “May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be at peace”. As a more affirmative approach for yourself, you could try “I am happy. I am healthy. I am at peace”. Simply repeat these or similar words to yourself for as long as you’re comfortable and try to cultivate a half smile throughout. You’ll be surprised by how this can significantly boost your mood and strengthen your compassion for others.

What is meditation and its benefits?

I feel we’ve already answered the first part of this question, but I can certainly discuss some of the health benefits of meditation. Studies have shown benefits against a plethora of health conditions both physical and mental, including irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia, psoriasis, anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Here’s a short video from The Harvard Gazette article When Science Meets Mindfulness, which touches on the definition of mindfulness meditation. It also distinctly describes how meditation practice increases one’s ability to listen to their body and disengage from negative thought patterns. This fundamental characteristic enables meditation’s various health benefits.

This Harvard article on the health benefits of meditation is excellent and definitely worth reading in its entirety. It touches on the clinical realities of meditation research and provides a reality check to remind us that although the benefits are real, meditation is not a cure-all. If you are suffering from any kind of illness, you should always seek advice from your doctor. We should not approach meditation with the aim of reaping specific benefits. Instead, we should view it simply as mental hygiene that should be combined with other self-care practices such as diet and exercise.

What should I focus on while meditating?

Focus on whatever you feel like focusing on in that moment. It’s not so important what you focus on. The key is to choose something and try to stick with it. It can be your breath, your thoughts, a sound, or even an object.

How do you meditate?

My parting advice in addition to the above for anyone Googling ‘How do you meditate?’ is to start small. Another misconception is that meditation has to last for 20 or 30 minutes. You can have a healthy meditation practice with sessions of just two minutes (although I’m positive that as your meditation practice becomes more habitual you will want to meditate for longer). Be patient with yourself and stick with it. Building a habit takes repetition, so start with small sessions and try to do it every day. If you miss a day, don’t beat yourself up. In fact, it can be beneficial to take breaks from your meditation practice. When you return to it, you may find a renewed motivation or that there was something missing before. Remember, meditation is simply carving out a moment from your busy schedule to simply be.

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The Thief And The Monk

Apr 11, 2021 | Short Stories

The air was beginning to tighten—only the white cloud of exhalation broke the dryness of the crisp winter air. The rising condensation was moonlit and heavy as it left Jiro’s mouth. His breath was dense and not the only thing slowly dissipating upwards, as Jiro himself was inching up a seldom-used mountain path. His inner tension and gripping alertness also began to rise as he fixated on his destination—a lone dim light just barely visible atop a ridge overhead.

Due to its faintness, Jiro suspected the light belonged to a traveler, perhaps a lone trader or hunter. He hoped that the owner of the light was alone, as his intention was to sneak quietly into their camp and rid them of any valuable possessions.

Jiro was warmed by the push to ascend against the resistance of the partially overgrown trail. All the while, his thoughts were with his wife and two small children, sleeping in the village below, cold and hungry.

After a while, the trees began to thin and the trail bled out into a grassy plain, punctuated here and there by large boulders. He crept quieter with slow and deliberate steps, which contrasted his racing heart. He found cover behind a boulder and peaked around the corner to survey the camp, which was now within a distance from which he could make out the finer details. His hopes were upheld. Judging by the small fire, reduced to a few faltering flames and orange embers, the camp appeared to belong to no more than two people. The dwelling was nothing but a single giant boulder whose base curved sharply inward like a crescent moon to form a sort of roof. There was no doubt that this was the shelter. It was empty. Perhaps the traveler had decided to make use of the abundant moonlight to travel by night, Jiro reasoned.

Eased by the vacancy of the camp and still driven by desperation, Jiro walked freely to the shelter to search for anything that may have been left behind. He had to crouch under the crescent-shaped rock to enter. To his relief, there was a gray linen bag sitting atop a flat stone, which appeared to be the ideal place to rest one’s possessions. His heart rate began to rise again along with the urgency of his movements as he quickly untied the string that fastened the simple bag.

The first item he pulled out was a wooden bowl. It was so well used that the grain had become smooth like sea glass and the natural reddish color of the wood only lingered on the outer edges. After tossing the bowl aside, Jiro pulled out its accompanying spoon. Unlike the bowl, which was one commonly found in any general store, the spoon was roughly fashioned from a piece of bamboo. Its handle was long and thin and felt fragile. At the bottom of the bag was something solid and heavy. This was Jiro’s last hope for something valuable enough he could trade for rice and coal. Jiro tossed the bag aside swiftly to reveal a book.

“Can I help you?” someone said in a sincere and deliberate tone.

The voice was calm and had a hint of fragility. Jiro’s heart nearly shattered with fright. Frozen and trapped, seeing only the silhouette of a man blocking the exit, Jiro quickly realized that he had been caught.

“Well, I’ll be right out here tending to the fire and enjoying this lovely full moon. Have you seen how big it is tonight?”

Jiro could see the man’s silhouette shuffling down a little way to finally hunch over the orange and black embers of his former fire. The man started to alternate between blowing on the hot coals and adding small twigs from the neat pile he had stacked nearby, all while humming a gentle tune.

The man’s relaxed demeanor and apparent lack of concern about Jiro’s presence allowed his brain to slowly thaw from the grip of fear. On the way up the mountain, he had imagined what it would be like to be caught. He had imagined a violent confrontation, but what was unfolding before him was nothing like that.

He cautiously dipped his head low enough to exit the stone shelter. By now, the man was humming contentedly as he fanned the now growing flames of his fire. The wood must have been moist from the daily frost, as Jiro could hear the moisture hissing and popping underneath the flames. The light from the fire revealed more of the man’s appearance. He was elderly and wore a long white beard—so long that it appeared to touch the ground as he was kneeling while tending to the fire.

“I’m sorry to have disturbed you, sir,” Jiro said as he bowed his head. “I was simply searching for…”

“Something of value you could trade for rice and coal, I suppose,” said the old man matter-of-factly, without a hint of accusation.

“I’m terribly sorry to have disturbed you. I really must leave you in peace,” replied Jiro, maintaining his bow.

“I’m the one who should apologize,” exclaimed the old man. “I truly wish I had something of value you could have stolen. I know how unforgiving this season can be.”

Jiro could now make out the man’s face quite clearly. He looked directly into Jiro’s eyes and it was clear that the man was speaking from true empathy. Growing unbearably uncomfortable by the situation, Jiro bowed once more, repeated his apology, and turned to walk away.

He took just a few steps when he heard the old man call out.

“Wait! The real treasure in our presence tonight is the glowing wonder of the moon—the same moon that connects us all. Those who came before us looked upon this same moon. Those who will come after us will look upon it again. Tonight, its light connects you and me. But, since I cannot give you the moon, I offer you these.”

Jiro turned around towards the now flourishing flames. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to this new illumination. By the time the man had finished speaking, Jiro’s eyes came into focus and he could see the man clearly, now standing upright, naked.

The old man held both arms out offering his clothing in a neatly piled stack.

The end.

A short story about empathy

Empathy is easy when the subjects of our empathy are like us. If they look like us, come from the same place, speak the same language, it’s more natural to empathize with them. But we must make an effort to empathize with those who are different. This story shows that empathy is possible in all circumstances. It shows that we can be empathetic and compassionate even to those who attempt to harm us. It is not a weakness to be kind to friends and foe alike, but a strength.

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Acceptance is not resignation. The Stoic practice called The Art of Acquiescence teaches us to accept things that are beyond our control rather than fighting them. It is not, however, passive acceptance. It is not giving up.
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Mindfulness is always now. The reality of your life is always now and to realize this, and experience it, can be liberating.
— the mindful stoic (@themindfulstoic) January 26, 2024