Plaedes,

Whew! The fearlessness you show in sharing this story is quite remarkable. It seems to me like you’re in your egg, pressing against the outside shell looking for a way to hatch. Sounds good to me! A few things came to heart as I read your words.

Good god, man, you need to get out of your head. Consider for a moment, you and I are buddhas, champions, heroes, sitting down at a table together. Vibrant inner peace, light shining from our heads, smiling at one another. Then, on the table, sitting between us is everything you just wrote. Those mental cycles, spinning, seeking, craving… looking for keys, how to tear down walls, how to find joy. Like a tangled mess of threads all wound up tight, it just sits between us.

Now, I’ve noticed that you try to trace threads through the maze, the balled tangle, and you get lost inside. Anyone would. Some of those threads dive deep into painful emotions, which is also very normal. The problem isn’t the tangles, we all have those. The problem is that you forget you’re a darn Buddha. You lose the faith, hope, knowing, that inside you is an alert witness that is simple, content. Today’s meal full of all sorts of nourishment, some painful, some pleasant, but what a journey!

Said differently, your self diagnosis throws all these reasons, rationalizations, judgments… spreading out into your family, yourself, your company, your ancestry, and on and on. This is not your problem. Your problem is “racing mind” or “unfocused mind”. Consider that when you’re meditating now, its reaching for something. Peace, solutions, a “new you”, a “different view”. Still running, following threads, never just sitting. I mean, you’re sitting, but you’re not making the space to just-sit. Setting down the past, letting it go, not “forever”, just exactly “for now”. Letting go of the need to see a different future. Not “cease all dreams forever”, but rather exactly “for now”. Carve out a little space.

Then, when your butt goes on the cushion, just sit with the breath. Not for any specific reason, but just because your body needs rest. Awareness needs a chance to back away from the table of tangles, and just be awake. Just breathe.

This won’t make your issues with dad or business or yourself magically fixed, but it will give you a better stable ground to build from. Not “oh my goodness, I’m so broken, wah wah wah”, but rather “ouch, this hurts, what’s wrong, what do I do differently?”. A simple puzzle, brother, but the added painfulness (anxiousness giving a feeling of being lost or incapable) makes it much more difficult to navigate.

Next, consider that we have a fundamental ignorance on how to find balance. Your screw ups are not only OK, they’re fucking inevitable. Most if not all of us stumble a bazillion times along the way, and it was unjust of your dad to treat you in such a way. But dads are dads, have their own burdens, are imperfect, and so on. Let it go! Your dad doesn’t see it perhaps, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Right?

Finally, consider taking up a metta meditation practice. When our light has burned low, dear brother, we need to refuel. We can help our body heal its stress by intentionally thinking about happiness for ourselves and others. Buddha taught that the mind grows concentration quickly when it cultivates metta, and other teachers describe a smooth and peaceful quality to mind as we practice. It very directly helps to open up that space of inner ground, where the tender shoots of joy can take root inside us. Consider “Sharon Salzburg guided metta meditation” on YouTube, if interested.

Namaste, brother, may your fields come alight as you practice.

With warmth,
Matt