There is goodness to discover in many kinds of practices, from dance to storytelling, from art to yoga, from ceremony to various therapeutic reorientations. It raises an important question: is there anything that special about seated meditation?
Yes: simplicity.
Body still, mind awake. It’s one of the lowest common denominators of human experience. Minimal external distractions and interactions, no special movements to remember or complex tasks to engage in. Even if there’s lots of thinking, even if there is still an internal process involved, the magic of meditation is that it unfolds in an environment of comparative simplicity.
There are some significant things about this kind of environment. For one, we’re more likely to notice our background state: stable or distractible, clear or muddy, open or contracted, relaxed or emotionally agitated. Wherever we are on the mind-body roller-coaster, we suddenly see it. We hadn’t noticed before, in our busyness. We thought life was just like that. But now we realize life isn’t like that. We’re like that.
And so, we have an opportunity to tweak the mixing board. To make small adjustments in attention and presence, to dial up the clarity, to ease off the gripping and fixation, to prioritize settledness and sanity. The many subtle adjustments we learn to perform in the simple medium of sitting meditation become ones we also learn to perform out in the world. They are skills. Yet we may never have sensed the possibility of developing these skills had we never taken the time to sit in the first place.
Meditation in stillness is the best place to notice our baseline, and to learn to make the necessary adjustments.
So that’s one side of simplicity – the virtuous, proactive side. There’s another side, one that may be even more significant. That side hears all this talk of “adjustments” and “skills” and is like: “Meh, sounds like a lot of work.” This side is the lazy, bad angel on our shoulders. Except this lazy, bad angel is actually the really really good angel. Because this angel knows the antidote to all our ridiculous self-improvement is … to do nothing whatsoever.
Oh how I love this angel. Thankyouthankyouthankyou I think, when I sit. I’ve never been the religious type, but, in my flawed and frenetic way, I am devoted to the God of Nothing. All our life we run and run act and control and push and scheme and do. And every wise sage who ever lived – and every pseudo-wise wellness hack who got paid to write copy for a meditation app – all say the same thing: sometimes the right thing to do is nothing at all.
And in that pause, in that place of naked simplicity and non-striving, we make space for something to find us. Something deep and true and good that we can feel, but never quite fathom. It gets humbling. It gets spiritual. It gets to be not about us at all.
And then we open our eyes, and bring that back with us into our busy days.
So: thank you, meditation. You do nothing for me. And by nothing, I mean everything.
Jeff
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Quick note—
Our next live gathering, The Lounge, will happen this Monday, June 9, hosted by Lilli. We’ll listen to the week’s Home Base meditation together, and then hang out, sharing reflections, making connections, being human. It’s like a book club, but for meditation. No prep, no pressure—just come as you are.
Last week, 30 of us joined for our first Lounge. One person summarized it: “I think you can see how much joyful conversation it opened up, leaving people feeling part of a real community of like-minded folks. Amazing.”
This next Lounge is open to all — after that, it’ll be a special weekly-ish perk for paying subscribers. Click on the date below to register:
Mon, June 9 at 1 - 1:30 PM EST
(to see the time in your time zone, click here)
Home Base Greatest Hits
New to Home Base? We have over 50 guided meditations in our library. Check out the most popular ones here.
Being Human Takes Practice – New York
August 15-17, 2025
Omega Institute, Rhinebeck, NY
This retreat explores what meditation teaches us about being human. It teaches us about resistance and fixation. It teaches us about healing stuck emotions and expanding stuck views. It teaches us mercy and forgiveness, majesty and humility. It teaches us how to fall asleep sitting on a cushion!
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