The temple remains.

Fragments of past transmissions echo below.

Category: Email Archives

  • Yoga and meditation are the SAME

    I was shocked to hear someone say yesterday they were surprised to hear yoga and meditation are related.

    And yet, several years ago, as I was listening to an interview with Jon Kabat-Zinn, he mentioned doing yoga.

    I thought: “Huh…another meditation person talking about yoga? This is weird.”

    Yoga was invented to help you sit for longer periods of time during meditation.

    You gotta wonder, then, what do most people think the point of yoga is?

    Somebody dropped the ball on this one.

    Hopefully, this will change both how you meditate AND how you practice yoga. I’m expecting big things from you.

    (This is why I hate yoga teachers. They don’t understand anything about this. They think the point of yoga is to look a certain way in your bathing suit.)

  • I have faith in us

    Faith gets a bad rap.

    Don't get me wrong. What most people mean when they say “faith”…that thing, I have no use for that. I think it's dangerous, in fact.

    But as a skill that you can deliberately practice and keep in your back pocket for when you need it, it's priceless.

    Faith is, after all, one of the 5 Spiritual Faculties in Buddhism:

    1. Faith

    2. Energy

    3. Mindfulness

    4. Concentration

    5. Wisdom

    Katie Sulatycki (@katie.sula.exists) and I (@no.michael.korman) will discuss/debate/fight over faith today at 12:30 PM EST live on Instagram.

  • Scheduling meditation classes is a form of meditation

    I hope you're all enjoying the new meditation class schedule.

    If you're unaware of it, you can find it here: https://michaelkorman.com/events/

    I also know some of you probably aren't interested in meditation classes, and you might be getting annoyed that I keep emailing you about them.

    Let me explain, to those who aren't getting annoyed, what I'm doing.

    Since February of this year, I have been aggressively learning how to market my teaching of meditation for Creators. It started off specifically in the field of piano playing, and has expanded a bit from there.

    I suck at marketing, so this is a practice for me.

    I'm sharing this process with you because it's a perfect example of the kinds of things I teach.

    I hope you've been finding it helpful!

    The next class is tomorrow, Friday at 12:00 PM EST.

    Whatever it is you create, let's talk about how to get rid of blockages.


  • 5 annoying thoughts that come up in meditation

    Meditation will subject you to a practically unlimited stream of thoughts, many of which will be disturbing.

    Here are five that you might have noticed:

    1. “Am I doing this right?”

    What instructions are you trying to follow?

    Are you clear on what they are? No? Then, you deserve to wonder if you're doing it right.

    Yes, you're clear on what the instructions are, but you're still not sure if you're doing it right? Welcome to meditation hell! This is a normal part of the process.

    I hope you enjoy your suffering.

    2. “Why am I the only one who can't sit still?”

    Because you're the one who's asking the question.

    Meditators who don't perceive themselves as moving around and others as being still don't ask questions like this.

    Sounds like you had a rough time in school.

    3. “I can't remember what I was just thinking!”

    Excellent. That means you're perceiving impermanence (this is progress).

    I was going to say more but I forget what.

    4. “What can I learn from this?”

    Too late. Whatever it is, you've already learned it.

    Oh, by “I”, you're referring to the little person inside your head who thinks he has the ability and the responsibility to infer lessons from all experiences?

    Fine.

    He can learn that meditation sucks and is a recipe for feeling like a total failure and you should never ever do it more than once.

    5. “No one has the right to tell me how to meditate. I'm just going to do whatever I want.”

    Excellent. That means you're perceiving suffering (this is progress).

    Keep going, and notice how no matter which strategy you pick (follow the instructions or do your own thing), you're still miserable.

  • Fine, I’ll play along for now

    First, there's a meditation class today. And tomorrow. And Friday. This will be the schedule for the immediate future.

    You can sign up here:

    https://michaelkorman.com/events/

    Don't think I'm trying to sell you anything.

    I'm not.

    Everything I offer SUCKS (in my opinion).

    But, it won't get better until I know you have the same opinion and I can stop promoting it and finally go make something else.

    When you tell me, “it looks awesome, but I don't have the money right now”, you're LYING to me.

    Fair enough.

    Two can play this game.

    “But Michael, if you're not trying to sell me anything, why do you keep saying I should pay you money?”

    Yeah, I understand how confusing that might be.

    When I say “you should pay me money”, it's because I'm trying to establish myself as a business. I'm not trying to convince you to do anything.

    (It's also my way of saying “I'm worried about money” without making the post an explicit expression of that idea. You know, since I inadvertently got pulled into the “mental health” field, I tend to attract people with severe rescuer complexes, and they can be vicious when you don’t play along.)

    It does NOT mean I think you will benefit from buying the product. You probably WON'T benefit, because you're probably not in the target market (because you're lying to yourself and to me about who I am and about who you are, and I don't yet have the marketing skills needed to untangle all of that).

    This could be a fun game for us to play.

    I'm going to try enjoying it more.

  • Got new shoes yesterday. Weird.

    Shoes are funny.

    There are so many choices for shoes. Why do we need all these shoes?

    I just wanted something waterproof. So I thought.

    It turns out that “waterproof” means completely impervious to water to the point where you could walk through a river with them.

    Yeah, that's not what I needed. I just wanted shoes that would prevent my socks from getting wet in the rain.

    I think I found them. They're made by Merrell and they're not waterproof. But the salesman said they're water-resistant.

    (I'll test them in the river and let you know.)

    The other issue is that the waterproof ones had more arch support, which I kinda suspect is bad for your body. My intuition is that it's better to be aware of what your feet are doing than it is to fall asleep and let the shoes do everything for you.

    I mean, think about it. Your shoes are the only point of contact between your body and the ground, when you're walking. Literally all your weight goes through your shoes. What's going on down there is affecting everything else in a serious way.

    So yeah, I'm not trusting the marketing from the shoe companies.

    This is my whole entire life we're talking about.

    Years ago, I wouldn't have cared, but meditation has made it impossible for me to ignore stuff like this.

    Come to my class on Monday December 14 at 5:00 PM EST, and we'll talk about it.

    This is the kind of thing that matters.

>