The Art of Being Natural: How to Let Go of the Struggle [Episode 49]

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

As we settle into our first meditation, I want to invite you to take your meditation posture, allowing yourself to formally leave behind the cares and concerns of your life, your to-do list, and whatever is on your mind.

For this practice, I want to invite you to simply allow yourself to be as you are right now. Allowing yourself to be as you are means not resisting. It means not resisting anything about the experience you’re having in this moment.

The invitation here is to be completely and utterly natural. What does it mean to be natural? When we first inquire into being natural, often some image comes to mind of feeling very easeful, very free, flowing, and relaxed. And that could be a byproduct of a practice like this, that we might end up feeling that way.

But of course, a feeling like that isn’t something we can generate through intention. It’s not something we can practice. You can’t really practice feeling a certain way, can you? Try saying, “Okay, feel easeful. Feel very flowing and natural.” We don’t know where to go with that because we don’t control our feelings. Being natural must therefore be something more fundamental.

What if being natural simply meant being this way—the way you are right now? Why would that be considered unnatural? How do you feel right now? Maybe you feel happy. Maybe you feel peaceful because you’re taking a break from life. Maybe you feel anxious, distressed, or even depressed because you’ve slowed down, and now you’re getting to feel what’s actually here. Life, the way it’s unfolding, may be generating feelings that are unpleasant, and now they’re present simply because you’re sitting still.

What’s unnatural about that? Nothing. Being natural, in this sense, means not trying to force anything, not trying to control anything, not trying to make reality fit your agenda or your fixed ideas about how it should be.

How do we apply that to this moment of meditation? It means we fully inhabit our experience of this moment. We embrace it and allow it to be. We allow ourselves to be.

The Subtlety of Letting Things Be

There is a lot of subtlety to this practice, and that subtlety often lies in our ability or willingness to make room for tension. When we try to “let things be” or “be as we are,” we often aim for some state without tension, some tensionless way of being where we’re totally relaxed, peaceful, and content.

But when we’re willing to be however we are—even full of tension, complexity, uncertainty, or discomfort—we open to it completely. We stop judging our experience as good or bad, more meditative or less meditative. We simply open to all experience. And when we do that—when we allow ourselves to be however we are—that’s when the miracle of being natural starts to reveal itself.

Part of what it means to be natural in meditation, and probably in life, is letting go of our ideas and beliefs about what is or isn’t natural. Notice how it’s the idea that life should feel a certain way, or that I should be a certain way, that sets up this dynamic where we’re struggling against what is—struggling against ourselves.

We sit down in meditation, and it becomes an attempt to engineer our experience into a perfect state of consciousness that we imagine is better than our natural state. But being natural isn’t about having a certain special experience. It’s about embodying, fully inhabiting, and fully embracing the person we are, the moment that’s occurring, and the experience we’re having.

We give up the idea that something’s wrong—that there’s a problem with how things are or how we are.

If you want a simple way to be natural, just practice not making a problem out of anything. Don’t make a problem out of anything that’s occurring.

See if you can notice any part of your experience that you’re judging as a problem—something that shouldn’t be happening right now, something that doesn’t belong in meditation. Maybe your mind is more active than you think it should be. Maybe you feel distracted and think you shouldn’t. Or maybe you think you should be feeling more peaceful.

Whatever it is, however subtle, notice anything you’re rejecting or making into a problem. Then include it without judgment, without it being a problem.

And also, don’t make a problem out of the fact that you’re making a problem out of something. That has to be welcomed too.

Clarifying What It Means to Be Natural

Allow yourself now to gently begin to ease out of the meditation.

As I mentioned, this practice of being natural has a lot of subtlety to it. I want to clarify one thing, because you could hear everything I’ve said as if I were implying that all human behavior is totally natural, that all of our thoughts and feelings are natural, and that being natural just means being however we feel like being from one moment to the next.

You could hear this as an invitation to stop trying to improve yourself, stop trying to be a better person, stop regulating your ego or shadow, and instead be impulsive and simply express whatever comes up. If you’re in an irrational rage, go ahead and rage. If you’re caught in neurotic self-preoccupation, just let that happen.

Do you see what I mean? There’s a way the instructions could be misheard like that. But that’s not what I mean, and I want to explain why.

First, we need to make a distinction between meditation practice and daily life. That distinction is almost primary.

In meditation, I am saying: stop trying to control your experience. Take a fundamental position of letting your experience be. Let your feelings change from one moment to the next. Let your thoughts shift from one moment to the next. Let it all be, let it all flow. Stop making meaning. Stop concluding that something is a problem, and then trying to fix it in meditation.

Even in meditation, though, it’s not that some states aren’t more conducive to depth than others. Certain states of mind or feeling may be more or less supportive of going deeper. So there are still relative distinctions between experiences we could have.

But what I’m pointing to is a particular relationship to experience. We’re not trying to have a specific experience. We’re learning to cultivate an enlightened relationship with whatever experience arises. We’re practicing a liberated way of being with this ever-shifting experience of being human.

Absolute Practice and Daily Life

This is something we can do in meditation in a very absolute way. We can let it all happen. We can refrain from making a problem out of any of it. We can stop trying to control anything. We can simply let go and be free.

We can do this in meditation because there are no real-world consequences. We can just sit, fully open and uninhibited. No one gets hurt. It’s a very free space in which to practice in an absolute sense.

However, take this same principle off the meditation cushion, and the picture changes. In daily life, there are consequences.

If I said, “Go through your whole day not making a problem out of anything, not judging anything as good or bad,” that could lead to all sorts of trouble. Let’s say something genuinely dangerous is happening. You might say, “I’m not going to judge this as dangerous,” and then walk off a cliff, or step into traffic, or fail to move out of harm’s way.

In meditation, I’m saying let yourself be completely unfiltered with whatever is moving through your mind. Let whatever is happening, happen. In that space, you can have no filter, no boundaries, no controls, no constraints. Let the whole event unfold freely.

But if you tried to be totally unfiltered in life, that would be different. We’re adults managing impulses, drives, and tendencies. Sometimes your temper flares, and you can say, “There’s my temper flaring,” without acting on it. But if I were to tell you to be completely unfiltered, you might start blurting out things that aren’t kind, aren’t helpful, and don’t come from the better parts of yourself.

Taking a practice like this in an absolute sense into daily life could lead to all kinds of consequences, so I’m not encouraging that.

That’s the first important distinction around this practice.

The second, which is in some ways deeper and more significant, concerns the higher reaches of spiritual awakening—the realization of non-duality and what that really means, and how it actually shows up.

Because this practice is making room for that. Through it, we’re learning to set aside all of our judgments, agendas, and controlling tendencies so that a more natural way of being can arise organically from the depths of our being.

Beyond Superficial Acceptance

I’m not implying that the goal of meditation is simply to rest in ordinary consciousness and be content with it, as if that were the whole point. It’s not just about being content with what is, even if it feels mundane or difficult, or simply stopping judgment of yourself.

There’s a lot of that idea circulating in the psychological and spiritual world today—the notion that the goal is to “love what is,” “accept yourself,” “stop struggling,” or “trust that the universe is looking after you.” While these phrases sound comforting, they often represent what I would call superficial understandings.

Sorry, that may sound a bit judgmental, but there isn’t much depth or subtlety in that approach. It doesn’t lead to anything very profound if we only practice at that level. I’m not saying there’s no value in it, but that’s not what this practice is truly about.

I’d like to say a word about the broader progression of the spiritual journey.

One way of understanding the spiritual path is as a movement from darkness to light—from ignorance to wisdom, from unconsciousness to consciousness, from our animal nature to our divine nature.

As we progress along the path, we often experience moments of illumination—insights or encounters with the sacred that awaken us to our deeper potential. We might touch something profound within ourselves, a glimpse of our divine nature. When that happens, it tends to reinforce a sense that there are two parts of us: the primitive, less evolved, unenlightened self, and the higher, more evolved, enlightened self.

We then feel that the path is about getting from the lower to the higher, from ignorance to awakening. And that’s not untrue. That’s how most of us experience the path, and it can lead to tremendous growth. I teach within that framework some of the time, and it’s a very legitimate phase of the journey.

The Higher Realization of Non-Duality

But the higher spiritual realization—the ultimate awakening—reveals a very different relationship to everything.

It shows us that the sacred, profound essence we taste and glimpse in our highest moments is not separate from our ordinary experience. That essence is always here. It is the essence of everything. There’s no moment that isn’t infused with enlightened consciousness.

There is no experience that stands in the way of awakening, and no thought, feeling, or sensation that lies outside the sacred dimension of being.

When we truly accept and understand this, we begin to see that every experience we have is equally a gateway to the sacred. In that realization, we can finally let everything be and allow naturalness to take over.

We recognize that nothing is outside of this, nothing is excluded. All of the things we judged about ourselves or tried to overcome so we could be spiritual—all of those, too, have the same essence.

In Vajrayana Buddhism, this is called one taste or same taste. Everything shares the same divine flavor. The nectar of awakening infuses everything, and when we see and know this directly, we enter what’s called the natural state.

In that realization, we no longer need to struggle. We can simply be ourselves, and life can be itself. Nothing is a problem, nothing is an obstacle. Everything equally reveals ultimate reality.

Practicing in Alignment With Ultimate Reality

What I’ve described is something we can come to understand and glimpse, but for it to be truly meaningful, it has to become real. It can’t just be an idea that makes sense to the mind. We have to realize it directly.

You can’t fake this. “Fake it till you make it” doesn’t work here.

However, we can practice in a way that aligns with this understanding and opens the door to it. When we practice in this way, we remove obstacles to realization.

When I give instructions such as “Don’t make a problem,” “Let your experience be,” “Be as you are,” “Be natural,” “Don’t resist,” or “Don’t struggle,” these are not merely relaxation techniques. They are invitations to cultivate a liberated relationship to experience—one that is fertile ground for awakening.

In this space, ultimate realization can arise and establish itself naturally, because the conditions are aligned with truth.

That’s why this practice matters. That’s why it works. That’s why it’s important.

To tie this back to what I said earlier, I simply want to distinguish this deeper practice from a more superficial version—the idea that we just accept our mundane experience and call it enlightenment. It’s not about resignation. It’s not about settling for ordinariness.

This practice points to something far greater: the recognition that all of life, in every moment, is already radiant with the sacred.

This is a big point, and a subtle one. But I hope these signposts and clarifications help create the right context for this practice and for what we’re doing together.

Even though the instructions may sound simple, the depth they open to is anything but ordinary.

The Practice of Doing Nothing

Now, I want to invite us back into practice. Settle into your meditation posture again.

For this practice, I invite you to simply do nothing. Do not do anything.

Doing nothing means just being. It means not trying to make anything happen, not trying to change anything.

The practice of doing nothing often reveals the part of us that always wants to be doing something—as if, by not doing, we’re failing to be productive, useful, or purposeful. We might feel that even meditation must be about doing something, about making something happen.

But give yourself permission to be free from all of that. Allow yourself to not need to do anything.

Notice what happens when you catch yourself doing something in this “do-nothing” meditation. Does that discovery itself become something to do? Do you try to stop doing that thing? Now you’ve given yourself a new task—to fix or change your doing—and you’ve once again created a purpose.

Instead, when you notice yourself doing something, allow the noticing itself to be enough. Simply return to doing nothing. From the moment you become aware of doing, continue doing nothing, including doing nothing about the doing you discovered.

Someone once asked me, “What about letting go? Isn’t letting go a kind of doing?”

From the purest point of view of doing nothing, yes, even letting go is a kind of doing. It implies that something is wrong, that something needs to be released. Letting go is very close to the practice of doing nothing, but there’s still a trace of doing in it, isn’t there?

See if you can go one step further. Don’t even try to let go of anything.

Simply rest in the practice of doing nothing. Whenever you notice any doing, don’t do anything about it. Just keep doing nothing. Stay right on that delicate edge between awareness and effort.

Allow yourself now to gently let go of the meditation. Thank you.