The temple remains.

Fragments of past transmissions echo below.

Category: Email Archives

  • Ignore the piano losers and be a winner

    I want you to win at piano.

    Ready for a secret?

    Drop your arms on the keyboard with each and every beat.

    Piano teachers hate me for giving that advice. That’s because they’re losers.

    Ignore them. Be a winner instead.

    —Michael

  • Is motivation necessary to do things?

    I got a question the other day. Actually, it was last night. No, wait. It was this morning.

    The question was: “Is motivation necessary to do things?”

    Answer: Yes.

    You can’t do things without motivation. After all, what would motivate you to do the thing, if not for motivation?

    This is not a philosophical issue. This is real.

    What hinges on the answer to this question?

    If you’re going to say “do I have to feel motivated to do things?”, then I would say no, you don’t.

    Try it right now. Think of something you don’t feel motivated to do, and do it anyway.

    For example, I don’t feel motivated to end this email right now. I kinda want to keep typing

    —Michael

    P.S. I’ve gotta put a link in here: here you go.

  • I suck at jazz, and that’s exactly why I’m qualified to teach it

    This is the fifth email I’ve written today.

    I sat down and said “I’m going to write five emails all in one go.”

    I don’t know if I’ll send it. I don’t know if I’ll send any of them. Maybe you’ve already read some of them, or maybe I haven’t even sent them.

    I’m writing these as a practice. I want to get better at writing emails. So, I’m practicing it.

    I posted a video of some jazz improv the other day in a Facebook group. I’m a total beginner at jazz improv, so I’m sure it sucked.

    Predictably, I got some responses from jazz teachers:

    • “I will say this very plainly and matter-of-factly: you absolutely COULD NOT play along with jazz pros if you played like that. No way, not a chance.”

    • “there are plenty of high schoolers and even some middle schoolers who would earn a higher score on a jazz piano adjudication, compared with this sample you’ve given us.”

    • “That’s demeaning to over a hundred years worth of dedicated innovative musical artists. Trashing their entire life’s work as if saying that all they’ve ever done is aimless meandering and meaningless noodles.”

    This is why people are afraid to try new things.

    But, here’s the thing: if you look past those responses, there’s a whole new vista of possibilities. A completely open highway where they are simply incapable of hurting you.

    As a “bad jazz pianist”, I have so much more power than I did as “a pianist who can’t play jazz”.

    For example, I can now teach people how to play even when they’re afraid to because they think they suck. Couldn’t do that before, because I didn’t have personal experience.

    Yeah, the jazz teachers might not like it, but so what? They’re not my customers.

    You are.

    (when you’re ready to change how you look at music, this is where you should start.)

    —Michael

    P.S. Let’s take a vote. Will I send this email?

  • Put your money where your mouth is

    “Michael, if you think retreats are necessary to learn meditation, why would I pay you for a course? Why not just do a retreat? Isn’t your course just a pale imitation?”

    Yes, my course is just a pale imitation. No disagreement there.

    Are you kidding me? A 10-day retreat is a serious commitment. You are giving up 10 days of your life (really 12, because you spend a day traveling there and a day traveling back) to do NOTHING other than meditate.

    There’s no Internet, no TV, no books, no journaling, no socializing, no music, no anything other than sitting and walking and eating and sleeping.

    And you’re probably going to have trouble sleeping.

    If that sounds like fun, I hope you do it.

    “But, I still don’t get why I should pay you for a course.”

    You probably shouldn’t.

    Look, the course is good for you if you want to learn what the big deal is with meditation. If you want to understand the basic idea so that you can try it out and see how it fits into your life.

    Is it better to do a retreat? I don’t know. Chances are, if you’re asking me this question, you’re not doing a retreat.

    Anyway, I hope the course is useful for you. I hope it inspires you to do a retreat, in fact.

    When you’re ready, take action.

    —Michael

    P.S. There are many forms of action. Paying me for a course is one. It’s called “putting your money where your mouth is”, and it’s a powerful way to commit to something.

  • I believe in you

    I’m sitting here drinking tea. It’s Bengal Spice. This is a tea that I drank at meditation retreats, and it reminds me of being there.

    I haven’t done a retreat for almost two years. Of course, this whole past year has been almost like a retreat.

    A long, stressful retreat.

    I almost did a solo retreat last year. I was going to hole myself up in my apartment and do nothing but meditate and walk for a few days. But, that didn’t happen.

    On my first retreat (10 days), I was worried about leaving the world behind. I thought things would fall apart if I stopped checking my email. They didn’t.

    Instead, it seemed like no one noticed I was missing.

    But, I realized something. The fact that there’s no Internet access on the retreat is part of the meditation practice. It forces you to come to terms with your mundane life. You begin the retreat even before you get to the meditation center, because you start thinking about what’s real and what’s not, what’s important and what’s not, what the world would be like without “you”, and what it’s like with “you”.

    When I turned my phone off on that first evening, I was terrified. I worried I had made a horrible mistake (I hadn’t).

    Yeah, I think you should do a retreat if you want to meditate.

    But, that’s not practical for everyone. So, in the meantime, while you work up the “courage” to do that, you should start with my course.

    Here’s the link: No Problem.

    —Michael

    P.S. Go for it. You can do it. I believe in you.

  • I love Gordon Ramsay

    I want you to do something for me.

    But first:

    Difficulty is a state of mind.

    It feels difficult because you’re setting too high standards for yourself.

    That’s your choice and yours alone.

    Almost there…

    Other people may have expectations for you, but that doesn’t mean those expectations are spelled out clearly in their own heads. People don’t usually know what they want, and they certainly don’t know how to ask for it.

    The advantage of eliminating the concept of difficulty is that it gives you freedom to perform badly. When you realize that perfect performance is impossible, you suddenly have more room to make mistakes.

    Wait for it…

    Instead of trying to meet objective standards, you can try to meet your own predetermined criteria for success, which are chosen based on whatever you’re trying to do.

    This is what happens when you take other peoples’ standards too seriously:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaEcZW0eyEg

    —Michael

    Oh, right… Click this link.

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