May 16, 2025
Spiritual practice—and spiritual life in general—is full of paradoxes. We all like to think we’re good at holding them, but truthfully, we’re often not. As a teacher of meditation, this presents a real challenge. There are paradoxes of spiritual truth where two things that appear mutually exclusive are both, in fact, true. And it’s difficult to teach them.
The easiest way is to water both truths down. If you have Truth A, which is absolutely true, and Truth B, which is also absolutely true—but the two contradict each other—the tendency is to soften them. You make A more relative. You dilute B. You bring them toward the middle. The result is a mushy compromise that’s easier to accept. But in doing so, you remove the very paradox that gives the truth its transformative power.
Some spiritual truths simply cannot be “mishmashed” away in the middle. You must hold both at once. One of the most important of these is this: to advance on the spiritual path, you must completely surrender. You must let go and open fully to grace. At the same time, you must apply 100% focused, concentrated effort—a level of intentionality strong enough to catalyze awakening.
Twenty-five years ago, I spent two months on a retreat that transformed my life. During that time, I wrote a book called The Miracle of Meditation, based on insights I recorded in my journal. Everything I’ve taught since was seeded in those pages. Let me share what I wrote on Day 16:
Who is it that’s judging the progress of my meditation?
Letting everything be as it is, is a totally volitional act.
You do it. You do it quickly. You do it decisively.
And when you recognize that a thought is pulling you away, you let it go—
And you don’t look back to see what it was.
All thought is a distraction from not-knowing.
All thought is temptation to doubt the unknown.
Leave it behind, and don’t look back.
We are deeply conditioned to keep our attention rooted in thoughts, feelings, and sensations. Our awareness habitually clings to the objects that arise in consciousness. But in meditation, with tremendous effort and focus, we can move awareness off those objects and into the emptiness beyond them. Yes, the old habits will return. Thought, emotion, and sensation will rise again. But that’s okay. Just move your attention back. Don’t restart. Don’t give up. Just gently return to the unknown.
When we rest our awareness in that empty space, something extraordinary begins to happen. By riveting your attention in the unknown, you’ll begin to feel yourself drawn—irresistibly—into the mystery of being. Because that unknown space is not bland. It is not vacant. It is alive.
You begin to feel the life inherent in being. A sense of acceleration begins—into what? Into the unknown. Into the mystery. This is why it’s called the mystery—because you don’t know what it is. You are simply being pulled.
Thoughts will return. But you can turn away from them, again and again. And if you do this with your whole heart, you will begin to feel the accelerating draw of the Divine, as she pulls you into herself more and more deeply. Even now, just writing these words, I feel the ecstasy of contact with the Divine.
The stillness of meditation is not just “emptiness.” It is the Being of the universe. It is the Divine. When you focus on her, and her alone, she pulls you in. The more deeply you are pulled in, the more you want to be pulled in. And the more you want it, the faster it happens.
This is not just meditation. It is an ecstatic journey into the heart of creation.
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