In Your Right Mind

Meditation and mindfulness in a chaotic world

Hi Zan, Hi Pa

Volume #39

April 25th, 2025

HI, PA: I recently finished up a little at-home meditation retreat, which has got me thinking about mindfulness practices and their effect on mental health. You were the one who taught me how to meditate, so I have to ask: what led you to meditation and when was that?

HI, ZAN: I tried to get you interested in it only by example, not by enforcement or even suggestion. I figured that, if you saw me meditating, if it was just a regular thing with no big fuss made over it, then it might pique your curiosity, and if you tried it you might like it.

ZAN: Well that certainly worked! How did you learn about meditation?

PA: The short answer is I had a very strange and pleasurable interior/mental/spiritual experience while rowing crew one day at Boston University. It wasn’t until six years later that I started meditating (before that, I thought it was a weird activity), but now I look back on that moment as the beginning.

I can’t think of anything that’s been more important to my mental health. I often say that it saved my life and/or kept me out of jail, and I don’t think those are exaggerations. It’s also been tremendously helpful in marriage, in raising our two wonderful daughters, and in dealing with pain, fear, illness, anger, and all kinds of other mental detritus. There’s still a lot of cleaning out to do in my interior rooms, but at least now the mess isn’t knee-deep.

Do you agree that there are a number of misconceptions about meditation? If so, want to get into those?

ZAN: There are so many! Probably the most common thing I hear when I tell people I meditate is “Oh I’ve tried that and I’m not good at it.” Honestly, I don’t think anyone (except maybe the Dalai Lama? Buddha himself?) is “good” at meditation. If I’ve been keeping up with a meditation habit for a stretch of time I may have a few seconds here and there in my meditation where I feel able to keep my focus completely and feel a deep sense of peace, but then some thought will pop into my head like don’t forget to put away the laundry! or you should reach out to that high school friend you haven’t spoken to in a couple of years, I wonder what they’re doing? And I’ll be knocked off track again.

ZAN (CONTINUED): But to me, that’s the whole point of meditation—it’s not something to be good at, but a practice, much like going to the gym or flossing before you brush your teeth. It’s in the moment I recognize that a thought has distracted me and I bring my focus back to the meditation that I am practicing a little bit of control over my mind.

I think another common misconception is that meditation has to be a spiritual practice. I think it is for you and for me, but what do you tell people when they ask if you have to be religious or Buddhist to meditate?

PA: Yes, those are the two big ones. To the first I’d add a comment I’ve heard: “It doesn’t work for me. My mind doesn’t go blank.” That’s like saying, “I tried running but it doesn’t work for me, I can’t run a mile in four minutes.” Or, “I tried golf. I’m not as good as Tiger Woods.”

You’re right to liken the practice to gym workouts. In order for weight or aerobic workouts to have any benefit, the key is not natural ability but consistency, persistence.

Meditation’s not for everybody. Some people find it deeply upsetting. Some call it ‘navel-gazing,’ which I don’t like.

ZAN: I don’t like that either—to me it makes it sound like introspection is inherently selfish, when I think it’s for the best of ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities to do some self-reflection.

PA: Yes, exactly. In some ways it’s the least selfish thing you can do.

I had a friend say once that she thought meditation is mainly for people with very active minds. Maybe. But I think you don’t know how active your mind is unless you try to do nothing for a little while….or if you wake up at two a.m. and can’t go back to sleep.

Professional athletes and soldiers have taken up meditation, and in some of those cases, at least, there’s no religious component. There certainly doesn’t have to be. I think of it in terms of mental health more than anything, but there’s really only a very blurry line for me between spiritual practice and psychological health.

Oh, that reminds me of another misconception—that if you meditate regularly you’re bound to have a ‘religious experience’ or a ‘mystical experience’. In fact, the teachers I’ve read counsel you not to get too excited about the experiences you have while meditating, no matter how wonderful. They’re just another distraction, another ego-temptation, something to brag about.

Do you think the modern lifestyle makes a meditation practice more difficult? Phones, computers, multi-tasking, rush?

ZAN: Absolutely—I saw an infographic recently that said the average attention span of a human being was 12 seconds in 2000 and now it’s 8, which is a whole second less than that of a goldfish. I wonder what it would be for people who meditate…

Whenever I re-enter the world after a meditation retreat, it feels very jarring. There are always dozens of things competing for our attention at the same time—TVs in most restaurants and bars playing sports or shows or commercials, notifications popping up on our phones, traffic rushing by, music in the background in businesses and homes. What would our minds and bodies be able to tell us if we all found a little more silence?