One downside of social distancing during a pandemic is not being able to do in-person meditation retreats.

This year, I’d planned to visit the Insight Meditation Society, or “IMS,” the Massachusetts retreat center founded by the first Americans to translate Buddhist meditation from Southeast Asia. I’d also hoped to get back to Colorado’s Crestone Mountain Zen Center, one of my favorite places on Earth.

But 2020 is the year of letting go—of plans, of expectations, of “normal.” And so I’ve made do with meditation classes on Zoom and solo retreats in the nearby Shenandoah National Park.

Nonetheless, meditation retreats will always be in my life—they’re where I turn for refuge from our speedy, cold, and violent society. When I’m burned out from my work taking on billionaires and private prison executives, I relax into a long weekend or whole week of meditation and silence to recharge.

Like in 2014 when I attended my first retreat, a long weekend hosted by the Insight Meditation Community of Washington and taught by Hugh Byrne. I was working at a job I hated, in a relationship that was falling apart, and completely lost emotionally. But two and half days of no talking, no internet, no social media, no books—nothing but eating, sleeping, and meditating—gave me clarity I hadn’t experienced in years.

As I write about in “How to Get Out of Your Head” (which is free) I drove away from the center five miles under the speed limit—but it felt like I was in a race car. I was 15 again, new to driving, but this time confident instead of anxious. There was nowhere else to be but driving down an unfamiliar road. My mind wasn’t somewhere else—it was focused on the pavement’s grit shaking the steering wheel, the open fields around me, the big sky, the present moment.

I’d felt that way on occasion before—like when I took LSD before it spiraled into a nightmarish trip. But this was much deeper, much calmer, much fresher, and without any of the side effects. And it’s come back every time I’ve done a retreat since.

There are definitely dark times on retreats. There pangs of sadness, grief, anger, loneliness. But the overall feeling I get during retreat is refuge—which comes from the Latin refugium, a “place to flee back to.”

We likely won’t be meditating together in person for a while. But one of the silver linings to the pandemic is that we now have access to more teachers and retreat centers online. Go sign up for a retreat—like, now. If you don’t have time, there are day-long and weekend retreats. If you’re worried about cost, many offer discounts for students and low-income folks. Email me if you need help: jeremy@jeremymohler.blog

Here are four lessons I’ve learned on meditation retreats over the years:

Everybody hurts

At that first retreat, we had the opportunity to speak during a question-and-answer session with Hugh. A woman with tears in her eyes went first.

“I thought I’d dealt with this,” she said. “My husband died when I was pregnant ten years ago, and I’ve done so much therapy and I’m still grieving. I couldn’t shake it all morning.”

Next, a man shared that he came to the retreat to contemplate a divorce. What held him back was the thought of his toddler, who was starting preschool soon. Right then and there any judgments I had about the other meditators (which I had many) dropped away.

Sure, they appeared to be rich people from the D.C. suburbs. Sure, no one talked about racism, patriarchy, or any other oppression. But they were humans dealing with human problems, and meditation was helping them turn toward those problems instead of letting them fester beneath the surface.

“The only way I can sit here and not be absolutely furious, livid with every man, every white body, every straight body, is because of my path,” writes the Zen Buddhist teacher angel Kyodo williams about her meditation practice. “One day I woke up and much to my chagrin, I loved the very same people who would rather see my body lying in the street. I loved the very same people who would ignore me in my dharma center. I loved the very same people who would make me invisible. I didn’t say I liked them! But I do love them.”

Retreats get intimate. And intimacy is all it takes to see that everybody is suffering to one degree or another.

Most of what we think about other people is projection

Once, at the end of a retreat, the writer and Zen Buddhist teacher Natalie Goldberg told us, “Watch out. You might think you know each other, but you’re projecting so many things.”

She was right. I’d spent the week crushing on one of the retreat center staff members. Everything about Molly was perfect. Her sunbaked skin and snow-white teeth. Her playful glances in the kitchen—which meant we both were breaking the retreat rule of not looking at each other.

During meditation periods, I’d imagine running off with Molly to buy a cabin in the nearby Sante Fe mountains. But when we finally talked on the last day, I realized I knew nothing about her. Her voice was completely different than I’d imagined. She was from suburban Los Angeles, not the New Mexican desert. She was normal, just like me.

Here’s how projection works: “Your brain fill[s] in the gaps in an otherwise incomplete story and the way it does that is through use of your own past history—positive or negative,” writes the psychiatrist Paul Dobransky.

Key words: your own past history. We know ourselves more than anyone else. So, when we meet someone new our brain fills in the gaps based on this self-knowledge. Molly was more than just an attractive face—she represented the wild, earthy free spirit that I’d wished I could be.

Because they’re often silent, retreats offer the time and space to notice how we react to other people, how we make up stories about them, how we judge them. Which becomes a learning experience—because what we think about other people is a reflection of how we think about ourselves.

Rituals are important

When all you’re doing is meditating, things that are subtle in everyday life become especially consequential and vibrant. On retreat, meals take on particular significance.

The first breakfast on that first retreat had me thinking I was going crazy. The clink of the forks. The sound of mouths chewing. No one talking or looking at each other. This must be what prison is like, I thought. No, that’s dumb. Prisoners don’t get warm oatmeal, hardboiled eggs, fresh fruit, and unlimited coffee.

Retreat meals are like rituals—something to look forward to when my back starts hurting after two hours of meditation.

What’s cool is that this has rubbed off in my everyday, non-retreat life. I learned on retreat that slowing down and savoring food can bring me into direct contact with my experience.

To this day, every breakfast at home is an attempt to recreate the feeling I had eating oatmeal on a retreat near Boulder, Colorado, last October. Watching the steam rise in the light. Adding nuts, yogurt, and fresh berries. Smelling the fresh morning air. Listening to the birds outside.

We have to eat—why not slow down and enjoy it?

We can’t do it alone

Four days into one retreat, even with people all around me, I felt a depth of loneliness like never before. Loneliness has always been my deepest fear—so this scared the hell out of me.

My mind churned: You’re going to end up 70-years-old alone in an apartment somewhere watching football. No one is going to love you. You’re going be irrelevant.

Luckily, that afternoon I had the chance to meet with the teacher, a well-known psychologist named Tara Brach. A little embarrassed, I told her I felt lonely. She smiled as though she’d felt the same way before and asked whether I could feel the loneliness in the body: “Where is it showing up?”

“My hands—they’re so heavy. It feels like I can’t move them.”

“It’s okay,” Brach said. “Just let the heaviness be there. Get curious about it.”

Normally, that my hands felt like 1,000-pound boulders would’ve triggered shame. I’m a 33-year-old man who’s afraid of being alone. I would’ve acted out to get away from the fear and shame. Like the one time I was solo camping in one of the most beautiful parts of the country, Oak Creek Canyon in Arizona, and drove an hour to a bookstore in the closest town just to be around somebody, anybody.

But this time I laughed. Happy tears welled up in my eyes. This time, the loneliness was just another phenomenon. I didn’t have to make it go away or wrong or a sign that I’m not a “man” or anything at all. I didn’t have to resist it—I could let it just be.

This is why meditation retreats and classes are so important. As much as our journey towards getting to know ourselves is up to us, we also need help. We need to be reminded that we don’t have to be so hard on ourselves, that it’s okay to be just as we are—especially in tough times like these.

I’m a writer, meditation teacher, and host of the Meditation for the 99% podcast. If you’d like to work with me on your meditation practice or being more mindful in your life, reach out.

Download my free ebook on starting and sticking with a meditation practice here.

I meditate because otherwise I’d overlook the small things that are practice for the big things.

Waking up in the morning, my mind rushes to worrying about my to-do list, protesters hurt by police, the ache in my knee, coronavirus cases spiking, the countless Zoom calls on my calendar, the absurd cost of rent in D.C.

But then I sit on the edge of the bed, set my phone’s timer, and close my eyes.

I notice the movement of my breath, from my rising chest to the cool air at the tip of my nose.

I notice the tension in my shoulders, inside my stomach, and around my eyes.

I notice the tight grip of my hands.

I notice that I’m thinking about my to-do list—so I find my breath again. As the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn says, “Our breathing is a stable solid ground that is always there for us to take refuge in.”

I notice an urge to try to manage my experience, an impulse to get this right.

I notice my watch ticking and a spoon clanking the sides of a bowl downstairs.

I notice birds singing outside the walls.

I notice that I’m imagining what someone looks like naked—so I check my body again for tension.

I notice pain in my lower back, so I straighten my posture.

I notice that my mind has drifted to what the next year might be like, to stressing about when things will get back to normal—so I listen to the birds again.

Then, for a few seconds, I notice all of it, the sounds and sensations, the movement, the aliveness, nothing standing out more than anything else, my thoughts drifting by like clouds, uninteresting, annoying even, compared to the richness of experience. Some part of me, deep inside, smiles and says, this is it.

The reason I do this—sit and do almost nothing for 40 minutes every morning—is because later in the day, out of nowhere, that aliveness will come find me again. It might come in the most trivial of moments, when I’m scrolling through Facebook. It might even come when I’m standing in front of the toilet.

But it might come right when I need it. When a friend calls and they’re afraid because their mom just got sick. When I’m blindsided by loneliness, anger, or fear. When thoughts about how things should or shouldn’t be, how I should or shouldn’t be, are pointless. When the only thing to do is to show up fully for this life.

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I’m a writer, meditation teacher, and host of the Meditation for the 99% podcast. If you’d like to work with me on your meditation practice or being more mindful in your life, reach out.

Download my free ebook on meditation here.

1. Meditation is not therapy

The first meditation session I ever did was led by Tara Brach, a meditation teacher who is also a psychotherapist. Like in her great book “Radical Acceptance,” she seamlessly wove mindfulness together with Western psychology. I left feeling healed, like a 10,000-pound weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

But the burden of carrying my emotional baggage kept coming back. Meditation would brighten my mood for a few hours, but it wasn’t until I saw a therapist that the baggage became easier to carry.

The spiritual teacher David Deida uses the metaphor of a stained-glass window to differentiate between seeing a therapist and practicing things like meditation and yoga.

“You look at yourself and notice there are pieces broken out of you. There are hunks of glass missing. You’re battered, abused, chipped, wounded, rejected.”

Therapy is like fixing or replacing the broken pieces of glass. It’s meant to heal emotional wounds and address psychological problems that interfere with living a healthy life. Simply put, therapy is about function.

Meditation is like cleaning the stained glass so more light shines through. It’s about flow. It increases awareness of the flow of life in every present moment — the movement of the breath, the sounds, the bodily sensations.

Why does the difference matter? Because of something called “spiritual bypassing,” which psychologist John Welwood defined as the “use of spiritual practices and beliefs to avoid dealing with our painful feelings, unresolved wounds, and developmental needs.”

In other words, it’s easy to pretend — often unconsciously — that by meditating or practicing yoga you’re dealing with your emotional problems. But as Deida says:

“You can be broken as fuck, and still do good yoga. You can be entirely dysfunctional therapeutically, psychologically, emotionally, you can be a wreck, and still be a master yoga. Yoga doesn’t fix the parts of you that are broken. It just takes the dust off.”

If you’re lucky enough to have health insurance, go see a therapist, now. If not, find a therapist who charges using a sliding scale based on income. Your partner, friends, and family will thank me.

2. The ultimate goal is to become friends with yourself

Sure, regular meditation increases focus, cuts stress, and reduces anxiety. But meditation’s biggest benefit can’t be measured.

Mindfulness, according to scientist Jon Kabat-Zinn, is “awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally.” Non-judgmentally. That last word is the key.

Meditation is about befriending all the parts of yourself that you ignore, try to hide, and even hate.

You relax your body and watch your mind. Thoughts appear. Wild thoughts. Sad thoughts. Angry thoughts. Boring thoughts. The body changes. A burning chest. A tense stomach. A scrunched face. You just watch — non-judgmentally. (Meditation teachers sometimes call this part of the practice “compassion.”)

You’d be surprised by how much your life improves when you stop judging everything. Every time you see your partner, every bite of food, even every breath can be a new experience. For me, the real payoff of regular meditation is that I don’t criticize myself as much as I used to.

As 13th century poet and Sufi mystic Rumi wrote:

“This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all!”

3. Regular meditation will change your relationships

“In the event of an emergency, please put on your oxygen mask before assisting others.” — The flight attendant

Before I started meditating regularly, I didn’t notice that I criticize myself almost constantly.

I obsessively plan what to say next, as if others won’t accept me unless I fix their problems, provide them some value, or come off in a certain way. I spend hours replaying conversations, worrying that others were hurt or weren’t impressed. This leaves me with a noxious mix of self-blame, shame, and guilt, what Tara Brach calls the “trance of unworthiness”:

“We don’t recognize what I call ‘the trance of unworthiness’–how much we are trapped in the sense of falling short. And usually it’s on every front in some way. It’s a background noise that’s always saying, ‘How am I doing now?’ Usually we find there’s a gap in how we think we should be and our moment-to-moment awareness. In that gap, we feel like we are always not okay.”

Mindfulness — like any form of “self-care” (more on that in a bit) — is about caring for yourself so that you can better care for others.

The more you befriend yourself, the more you’re able to tolerate others and maybe even appreciate things about them that used to annoy you. The more you think you’re okay just as you are, the more you’ll be able to think others are okay just as they are.

4. Don’t worry about becoming “enlightened”

As a beginner meditator, part of me thought that one day I’d be enlightened like Thich Nhat Hanh or some other Buddhist monk. I’d be mindful all of the time.

Turns out, enlightenment is a contested idea. Buddhist figures and meditation teachers have disagreed about it for centuries.

To Thich Nhat Hanh, enlightenment means being “capable of loving and forgiving.”

To Buddhist nun Pema Chödrön, it means a “completely open heart and mind. The very life we have is our working basis; the very life we have is our journey to enlightenment.”

To author of “Why Buddhism is True” Robert Wright, enlightenment is a process: “Pursuing enlightenment is doomed to failure if we think of enlightenment as a kind of end state — if we hope to eventually attain the elusive apprehension of not-self, of emptiness, and sustain that condition forever, living wholly free of delusion and suffering.”

To French Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard, it’s a “state of perfect knowledge or wisdom, combined with infinite compassion.”

I like Zen Buddhist Charlotte Joko Beck’s definition:

“My dog doesn’t worry about the meaning of life. She may worry if she doesn’t get her breakfast, but she doesn’t sit around worrying about whether she will get fulfilled or liberated or enlightened. As long as she gets some food and a little affection, her life is fine. But we human beings are not like dogs. We have minds which get us into plenty of trouble.”

The bottom line: don’t worry about becoming enlightened, because who knows what it means.

5. Short is fine as long as you keep momentum

Studies have shown that meditating every day can increase the benefits of the practice, like reducing anxiety and lowering blood pressure. But to be real, I meditate every day because the way it makes me feel wears off during sleep.

It’s like brushing teeth. Every morning I wake up feeling pretty much the same: anxious, tired, and groggy, as if a layer of plaque had built up on my brain. My daily morning meditation clears away the plaque, leaving me more awake, calm, and present.

Some might be motivated by hearing that regular practice can shrink the amygdala, the “fight or flight” part of the brain that processes emotions like anxiety, fear, and aggression. But I don’t meditate because it shrinks my amygdala. I feel the massive difference it makes it my life, and I want to feel that difference every day.

To develop a habit — especially one without visible results — it helps to begin with small amounts. As author of “Atomic Habits” James Clear writes, it’s easier for us to stay in motion once we have started:

“Rather than trying to do something amazing from the beginning, start small and gradually improve. Along the way, your willpower and motivation will increase, which will make it easier to stick to your habit for good.”

Neuroscientific research on meditation is still developing, but a consensus seems to be growing around ten minutes of daily meditation being the minimum viable dose. I started with ten minutes a day for a year before I stretched to 20 minutes, then 30, and then 40. Don’t be afraid to start small — you’ll get there.

And don’t worry about missing a day here and there. As Zen meditation teacher Norman Fischer writes:

“Don’t fall into the unconscious trap that ‘Since I missed a day, I guess I can’t do this, so I might as well not even try, or try less hard tomorrow because this missed day has weakened me.’”

Set a goal but be gentle — treat yourself as you would a good friend.

6. Find classes to sustain your practice

When your routine becomes boring — which it will — seeing others dive headfirst into the unknown of the present moment can re-inspire your solo practice. Groups meet in centers, monasteries, and living rooms in most U.S. cities and regions, many of which are sustained by volunteer effort and donations.

Look for public events. Often, you can hear a talk by a teacher without having to say a word to anyone. Most drop-in style meditation classes are donation-based, meaning they’re virtually free.

For example, Tara Brach’s famous Wednesday night class just outside of Washington, D.C., attracts 250–300 people who show up without registering. She leads 20 minutes of guided meditation and then gives an hour-long talk about mindfulness. Those who go aren’t monks or hippies or religious extremists. They’re “normal” people, experiencing divorces, birthdays, job losses, sicknesses, etc., like anyone else.

Try various types of meditation to see which resonates. Common types include insight (Vipassana), Zen, and various Tibetan Buddhist lineages. Many are secular and require little commitment, if any.

Keep in mind: meditation groups have a long way to go to be more inclusive, particularly for people of color, the working class, and the LGBTQ community. Search until you find your people, even if it’s an online community who meditate over video chat.

(If you’re reading this during the coronavirus crisis, here are two lists of online meditation groups: Tricycle and Insight.)

7. Read books to get inspired

There are three kinds of meditation books, generally speaking: how-to books, theoretical explanations, and personal takes. I find that third category to be the most helpful because it’s the closest to learning from a living, breathing teacher.

Start with Tara Brach’s “Radical Acceptance,” Pema Chödrön’s “When Things Fall Apart,” or Charlotte Joko-Beck’s “Everyday Zen.” Read free excerpts online before buying one to start with. Based on which of these resonates most, you’ll get a sense of which type of meditation is best for you.

If you like Brach, read more about insight or mindfulness meditation. If you like Chödrön, read about Tibetan. And if you like Joko-Beck, read about Zen.

If all of this sounds too woo-woo and New-Agey, read Dan Harris’s “Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics.”

I almost always have a book on meditation at my bedside to keep me curious about my practice — which, as you might expect, can get a little boring from time to time.

8. Don’t get too comfortable

When you’re meditating, make sure you’re comfortable but not too comfortable. The idea is to wake up — to what’s happening in the present moment — not to fall asleep.

If you’re sitting in a chair, avoid leaning back. The edge of a bed also works well. Keep your back straight but not strained. Imagine your spine as a stack of playing cards. If you lean too far in one direction, they’ll fall over. It helps to cross your legs under the chair or bed, creating an arch in your lower back.

Either way, find a comfortable position for your body. Some people prefer to meditate lying down. But make sure you’re not dozing off. If that happens, stop and get some sleep.

9. Don’t be ashamed to rely on an app

For the first year of my daily practice I played guided meditations on my phone. I probably wouldn’t have stuck with it if not for Tara Brach’s direction and soothing voice. (Her guided meditations and talks are on YouTube and many meditation apps.)

Find an app and teacher (or two) who resonate with you. My favorite is Insight Timer, which is free and has thousands of guided meditations — including a few of mine. It also allows you to track your progress to keep up momentum.

Don’t use headphones. Find a relatively quiet place, like your bedroom or car, or in a park, and let your phone play out loud. A guiding voice is helpful, especially for those of us who think we think “too much.” (And, no, you don’t think too much. News anchor and author of “10% Happier” Dan Harris calls this the “fallacy of uniqueness. People think that their minds are uniquely busy, but that’s just not true.”)

You don’t need to shave your head and sit in a cave. You don’t need to buy an expensive meditation cushion or Tibetan singing bowls. As Pema Chödrön says in the title of my favorite book of hers, “Start where you are.”

10. You’re not going to convince others to meditate

I’ve spent years trying to get my mother to meditate. I’ve bought her books by Tara Brach and Zen meditation teacher Natalie Goldberg. I’ve invited her to classes, even my own. I asked her to edit an early draft of my ebook. Every time, she rolled her eyes, and then I tried even harder.

Research shows that when someone tells us what to do or how to do it, we respond with defiance, probably because we value our own freedom and decision-making. It takes modeling to maybe convince someone to follow our lead. People are willing to follow the behaviors of others — especially when these behaviors appear to produce good outcomes.

Goldberg once told me that, after a retreat, we want to tell everyone about our experience because we’re so vulnerable. Meditation splits us wide open. But, she said, if we want our wife, best friend, whoever to truly understand what we’ve been through, we should just listen, and they’ll know — they’ll get it.

You’re bound to want your partner, family, and friends to experience the benefits of meditation. But — as hard as this is to accept — they will or they won’t. They’ll try it in due time if it’s meant to be.

As the poet W.H. Auden wrote:

Truth, like love and sleep, resents
Approaches that are too intense.

Want to start meditating or meditate more often?

My ebook, How to Get Out of Your Head, will help you start or stick with a regular meditation practice. Get it for free here.

Listen to my podcast

On Meditation for the 99%, I take meditation out of faraway monasteries, expensive retreat centers, and Corporate America, and bring it to work, relationships, and, especially, politics. Listen everywhere podcasts are available.