Cory Muscara
@corymuscara
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Former Monk. Author of Stop Missing Your Life. Positive Psych Instructor at University of Penn. Meditations Heard 25 Million Times in 150 Countries.
Palo Alto, CA
Joined October 2014
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I meditated 15 hours a day for 6 months straight with one of the toughest Buddhist monks on the planet.
Here's what I learned:
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1. Finding your true self is an act of love. Expressing it is an act of rebellion.
2. A sign of growth is having more tolerance for discomfort. But it’s also having less tolerance for bullshit.
3. Who you are is not your fault, but it is your responsibility.
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4. Procrastination is the refusal or inability to be with difficult emotions.
5. Desires that arise in agitation are more aligned with your ego. Desires that arise in stillness are more aligned with your soul.
6. The moment before letting go is often when we grip the hardest.
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12. If you don’t train your mind to appreciate what is good, you’ll continue to look for something better in the future, even when things are great.
13. The belief that there is some future moment more worth our presence than the one we’re in right now is why we miss our lives.
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7. You don’t find your ground by looking for stability. You find your ground by relaxing into instability.
8. What you hate most in others is usually what you hate most in yourself.
9. The biggest life hack is to become your own best friend. Everything is easier when you do.
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Buddhist monks have some of the strongest & happiest minds in the world.
I wanted to know why.
So, when I was 22, I spent half a year training with them in a Burmese monastery.
My biggest insight and transformation was NOT what I expected.
Here's what it is:
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10. The more comfortable you become in your own skin, the less you need to manufacture the world around you for comfort.
11. An interesting thing happens when you start to like yourself. You no longer need all the things you thought you needed to be happy.
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16. Sometimes we need to get out of alignment with the rest of the world to get back into alignment with ourselves.
17. Real confidence looks like humility. You no longer need to advertise your value because it comes from a place that does not require the validation of others.
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14. There is no set of conditions that leads to lasting happiness. Lasting happiness doesn’t come from conditions; it comes from learning to flow with conditions.
15. Spend more time cultivating a mind that is not attached to material things than time spent accumulating them.
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23. Meditation is not about feeling good. It’s about feeling what you’re feeling with good awareness. Plot twist: Eventually that makes you feel good.
24. If you are able to watch your mind think, it means who you are is bigger than your thoughts.
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21. Bullying yourself into enlightenment does not work. Befriending yourself is how you transcend yourself.
22. Peak experiences are fun, but you always have to come back. Learning to appreciate ordinary moments is the key to a fulfilling life.
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29. Your mind doesn’t wander. It moves toward what it finds most interesting. If you want to focus better, become more curious about what's in front of you.
30. Life continues whether you’re paying attention to it or not. I think that is why the passage of time is scary.
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18. High pain tolerance is a double-edged sword. It’s key for self-control, but can cause us to override the pain of being out of alignment.
19. Negative thoughts will not manifest a negative life. But unconscious negative thoughts will.
20. To feel more joy, open to your pain.
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27. There are 3 layers to a moment: Your experience, your awareness of the experience, and your story about the experience. Be mindful of the story.
28. Life is always happening in just one moment. That's all you're responsible for.
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This is Sayadaw U Pandita. He was notorious for his unwavering belief that enlightenment is possible in this life & his ruthless expectation that his students get there. We slept 2-5 hours/night. No reading, writing or speaking. Lots of pain. Lots of insight. Let's get into it👇
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33. One of the deepest forms of peace we can experience is living in integrity. You can lie to other people about who you are, but you can’t lie to your heart.
34. Be careful not to let the noise of your mind overpower the whispers of your heart.
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25. Practicing stillness is not about privileging stillness over movement. It’s about the CAPACITY to be still amidst your impulses. It’s about choice.
26. The issue is not that we get distracted. It's that we're so distracted by distractions we don't even know we're distracted.
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35. Monks love to fart while they meditate. The wisdom of letting go expresses itself in many forms.
36. You can't life-hack wisdom. Do the work.
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Sayadaw U Pandita passed away in 2016. While I often resisted his style of teaching, I had the deepest respect for him. Through his teachings, my life changed in ways I can't describe; a sentiment echoed by thousands of others. I am forever grateful.
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31. You cannot practice non-attachment. You can only show your mind the suffering that attachment creates. When it sees this clearly, it will let go.
32. Meditation can quickly become spiritualized suppression. Be careful not to use concentration to avoid what is uncomfortable.
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Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this thread:
1. Follow me
@corymuscara
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2. RT the tweet below to share this thread with your audience
I meditated 15 hours a day for 6 months straight with one of the toughest Buddhist monks on the planet.
Here's what I learned:
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Don't meditate to find peace.
Meditate to meet reality.
By meeting reality, you'll develop clarity & acceptance.
With clarity and acceptance, you'll soften the need to run from what is true.
By softening the need to run, you'll find stillness.
In stillness, there is peace.
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Letting go is key to a happy and successful life.
But how do we do it?
Here's a Zen story that has helped millions of people let go.
Maybe it will help you too:
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Nearly all of the transformative moments of my life were preceded by pain, fear, and confusion.
If you’re going through something difficult, you may be gearing up for your next great transformation.
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I don’t believe our world needs more positivity.
I believe our world needs minds that are equipped to be with the complexity of life.
Minds that can hold nuance and polarity.
Minds that can stay grounded, centered, and open to the full range of what it means to be human.
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The belief that there is some future moment more worth our presence than the one we’re in right now is why we miss our lives.
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Show me the ways you avoid stillness and I'll show you the patterns that run your life.
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With consistent meditation, you:
Replace judgment with understanding.
Hatred with compassion.
Tension with ease.
And you develop a deep self-respect because you see just how messy and confusing it is to be human, and the courage it takes to keep showing up for it.
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At the end of the day, we have to go through this life alone.
We can have great friends, family, and support, but it's YOU who has to experience your inner world, from birth to death.
And if you are your own worst enemy, life will always be difficult.
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Meditation is not about meditation.
It’s about moving closer to our human experience, learning how to dance with it, to be at peace with it, and maybe even enjoy it.
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Not being willing to let go of a life that we like is often the reason we don't have a life that we love.
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Meditation is not about tolerating thoughts.
It's about connecting to the part of you that can be aware of thoughts without getting sucked into them.
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COMPLAINT: I’ve been meditating for 3 months and my mind still thinks
RESPONSE: We’re not trying to stop our thoughts. We’re trying to understand the impermanent, impersonal nature of thoughts so that our sense of self doesn’t feel limited to our momentary mental storyline
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People who pursue their dreams aren’t necessarily more confident than anyone else.
They've just realized the security of playing it safe is not worth the pain of never knowing what it’s like to feel truly alive.
Sometimes, we’re just no longer interested in living a safe life.
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Everything you do is wrong...to someone.
Everything you say is wrong...to someone.
Everything you believe is wrong...to someone.
If your goal is to be "right" in the eyes of other people, you'll always think you're failing, or you'll always change what you stand for.
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The Biggest Flex:
Putting your head on the pillow at the end of the day and being so damn proud of how you're navigating the absolute shit show of being human.
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Do you struggle with being focused and present?
Here's a 2-minute exercise you can practice in real-time.
All you need to do is slow down and read the thread below.
But make sure you pause 3-5 seconds between each sentence (very important).
Let's see what happens . . .
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The main reason we don't follow our intuition is our ego’s resistance to it being true.
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"What do I want to do for the rest of my life?"
This is the wrong question.
You can't possibly know who you'll be 5, 10, or 30 years from now.
Here's a better question:
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The main question people ask when they hear I spent 6 months in silence is:
"What did you experience?"
They're expecting some trippy, transcendent, ego-death-type stories.
And yes, I have those.
But the biggest thing I got from my time as a monk?
I became my own best friend.
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In meditation, you turn toward your experience with presence and compassion.
Meeting whatever arises--pain, difficult thoughts, negative emotions--with curious, loving awareness.
In time, you learn to be with, relax into, and find steadiness toward all aspects of yourself.
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The opposite of fear is curiosity.
Fear is the impulse to turn away.
Curiosity is the impulse to turn toward.
Fear is the desire to close down.
Curiosity is the desire to expand & explore.
Fear presupposes danger.
Curiosity presupposes safety.
Be curious, my friends.
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When going through something difficult, console yourself like you would a good friend.
When going through something positive, celebrate yourself like you would a good friend.
When trying to accomplish something, encourage yourself like you would a good friend.
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If other people talked to you the way you talk to yourself, you’d cut them out of your life.
Maybe try talking to yourself the same way you expect a friend to.
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Meditation is not simply a life hack to help you be a more optimized you. That's the ego extracting from the soul.
True meditation is an offering, where we surrender our ego's ideas of who we are and bow in humility at the altar of our soul.
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It's like I have a constant inner companion rooting me on, reassuring me, and reminding me of what's possible.
It has made EVERYTHING in my life easier, especially the hard times.
And I'm so grateful for it.
How did it happen?
I'll explain:
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The more comfortable you become in your own skin, the less you need to manufacture the world around you for comfort.
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When you're caught in a negative pattern:
1. Slow down
2. Take two inhales & one long exhale
3. Feel the feeling that's pushing you into action
4. Say, "Although it feels like I need to do this, it's just an urge."
5. Ask: How would a wiser version of me respond in this moment?
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Life is hard enough. It doesn't need another enemy in you.
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People pleasing ruins your life.
You abandon your needs.
You lose respect from others.
And you never form real relationships.
The only thing you gain is a false sense of being liked.
But it's never enough. And it never fulfills you.
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To be human is to live in paradox.
We must care deeply, but also let go.
We crave to be trusting, but also need boundaries.
Spirituality is not about rectifying these paradoxes but learning to hold polarity without collapsing into the comfort of a more simple but partial truth.
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If you're concerned that becoming happier will make you complacent, there's a good chance your current source of motivation comes from anxiety, fear, or low self-worth.
Happiness does not create stagnancy. It shows you how your energy flows when you're not trying to fill a void.
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My word for 2023 is Permission.
Permission to feel, care, work hard, be confused, struggle, love, cry, not know, experience awe, repeat patterns, get angry, be direct, be soft, relax, grind, explore, collapse, try again.
Permission to be human.
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PROBLEM: I can’t calm myself down before a stressful event!
SOLUTION: Instead of trying to calm down, visualize the experience going amazingly well.
Positive imagery helps your brain reinterpret anxiety as excitement.
Don’t fight the energy. Turn it into something useful.
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FRUSTRATION: “I can’t let go.”
SUGGESTION: Instead of trying to let go, try letting be.
LOGIC: Letting go implies moving away from something, which can feel impossible. Letting be implies staying with something but giving it space, which is often more feasible.
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So many people are overqualified for the life they're currently living.
Fear keeps us stuck in old patterns even though we have the resources for a new way of being.
We often just need to move through the fear to see that we'd be okay on the other side.
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If you ask, “How can I make it through this?” you’ll get answers that help you survive.
If you ask, “How might this experience bring out the best in me and help me grow?” you’ll get answers that help you thrive.
Empowering questions create empowering responses.
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Instead of asking, "What do I want to do for the rest of my life?"
Ask:
"What do I feel inspired to explore more deeply at THIS point in my life?"
This removes the pressure to plan your whole life in a single moment & trains you to honor the ever-changing truth of who you are.
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To build a great life, slow down.
Anyone can caffeinate & push hard toward a goal. But it's not sustainable.
Long-term energy comes from alignment.
And alignment requires feeling the subtle difference between energy created from anxiety & energy created from inspiration.
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For whoever needs to hear it:
It's okay to let go and not know what will come next.
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Action without stillness is reactivity.
Stillness without action is resignation.
Action informed by stillness is purpose.
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To create internal conflict, ask:
“Why am I feeling this?”
To create internal safety, ask:
"What is it like to feel this?”
The second question replaces judgment with curiosity and helps you meet your emotions with greater presence and understanding.
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Reasons to meditate that have nothing to do with relaxation:
• Less Fear
• Self-Trust
• Authenticity
• Better Listening
• Cognitive Health
• More Confidence
• Stronger Boundaries
• Deeper Relationships
• Responding vs Reacting
• Becoming Your Own Best Friend
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If you’re single, hang out there for a bit.
Start by creating a healthy relationship with yourself before taking on another person.
It’s a gift to you and your future partner.
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To meet your soul's purpose requires letting go of your mind's dreams.
If you want to align with the life you are meant to live, you have to let go of all of your preconceived ideas of who you should be, where you should go, and what your life should look like.
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Since we often have an easier time being caring & understanding with our friends than we do with ourselves, a starting point for becoming your own best friend is to imagine how you would interact with someone you care for & then practice bringing that same orientation to yourself
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Feeling an emotion is different than becoming it.
Next time you experience a difficult emotion, try labeling it:
"This is anger."
"This is sadness."
"This is jealousy."
This will help you hold the experience in a spacious way, instead of being sucked into it unconsciously.
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"Just this breath, just this moment."
When you find yourself overwhelmed, come back to this mantra.
Your life is always just one moment at a time.
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So many of us are overqualified for the life we're currently living.
Fear keeps us stuck in old patterns even though we have the psychological & emotional resources for a new way of living.
We often just need to move through the fear to see that we'd be okay on the other side.
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"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone."
-Blaise Pascal
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Make space for all parts of you.
Joy. Grief. Fear. Love.
Breathe into them.
Relax into your wholeness.
Presence can hold all of you.
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If you want to be safe, don't do anything.
Don't go out, drive, experiment, learn, try. Nothing.
Then you'll be safe.
And one day, you'll still die.
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Spiritual and religious people tend to have a very complicated relationship to money.
Let's be clear:
The belief that "I shouldn't make money if I'm spiritual" is your ego masquerading as wisdom.
Do not mistake a scarcity mindset for spiritual maturity.
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Obsessively taking care of other people is often a subtle form of bypassing the more difficult work of taking care of yourself.
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There’s only so much you can learn about yourself in isolation.
As social beings, there are parts of us that will only emerge, and be healed, through relationship.
Thus, a comprehensive spiritual path must include time alone, and time with others.
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Be careful not to mistake your fear of being seen for humility.
It's a convenient virtue to hide behind when we're afraid to step fully into our life.
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STRESS: “When your perceived demands are greater than your perceived resources to meet those demands.”
The keyword is “perceived.”
Mindfulness reduces our perceived demands to what is ACTUALLY demanding in this moment, and grows our mind’s resources to meet those demands.
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Just because you can see potential in another person does not mean that you're the one to bring it out.
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What if this were your last year on earth?
What would you prioritize that you've been putting off because you believed you had more time?
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Things that WON'T make you happier:
-More ego
-More anger
-More attachments
Things that MAY make you happier:
-Fame
-Money
-Relationships
-Positivity
Things that WILL make you happier::
-Self-love
-Forgiveness
-Alignment w/ your values
-Understanding Impermanence
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From your perspective, you may be lost right now.
From a friend's perspective, you may be lost right now.
From the perspective of the unfinished novel of your life, you are not lost; you’re one page turn away from understanding how this experience connects to a bigger story.
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Using a positive mindset to override underlying trauma is like playing loud music to muffle the cries of suffering outside of your window.
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You can't bully yourself into enlightenment.
To transcend yourself, you must befriend yourself.
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For whoever needs to hear it:
It's okay to let go and not know what will come next.
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The amount of negativity that you tolerate from other people is often directly related to the amount of negativity you tolerate from yourself.
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Stillness holds the secrets to a happy life.
But many of us resist it.
Here's a key reason why and what to do about it:
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The voice of self-compassion:
"There's nothing you could think, say, or do that makes you more or less worthy of love. You may make mistakes, get confused, and even cause harm at times. You're human. Let's meet this moment together and decide how to best respond. I'm with you."
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Be careful not to mistake your fear of being seen for humility.
It's a convenient virtue to hide behind when we're afraid to step fully into our life.
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According to neuroscience, difficult emotions should only last 90 seconds.
Then why do we get stuck in emotions for hours, days, and even years?
Here are 2 reasons why (and how to change it):
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When working on something difficult, imagine a crowd of people cheering for you.
It's a pleasant alternative to the usual crowd of inner critics.
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PROBLEM: I keep falling into the same pattern.
RESPONSE: Many patterns were created to give us control, predictability, or safety.
SOLUTION: When the pattern arises, smile, show it that you're safe, and say, "Instead of our usual routine, can you help me try something new?"
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The greatest loneliness is not being disconnected from others, but being disconnected from yourself.
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"I think everybody should get rich & famous, and do everything they ever dreamed of, so they can see that it's not the answer."
-
@JimCarrey
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There is a difference between detachment from process and detachment from outcome.
The former stems from apathy, the latter stems from wisdom.
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You don’t need to be confident.
You just need to meet your life with presence, courage, and an openness to starting again.
And again, and again, and again.
Confidence will grow from there.
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Revenge is a misguided attempt to heal a pain that we refuse to accept.
But it will never heal you.
The best it can do is give you a false sense of power over your experience and temporarily distract you from feeling what you don't want to feel.
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"If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."
A recipe for emotional suppression, poor communication skills, and projecting your anger onto the rest of the world.
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