How I Write These Meditations

I write these pieces about a few weeks before they go out, which creates this weird time warp. I'm responding to what I sense people need right now, but "right now" is actually several weeks in the future.

This requires a different kind of listening. I pay attention to what my friends are struggling with. I notice what keeps coming up in conversations.

I watch for the stuff that's in the air but nobody's talking about yet—the collective mood shifts, the seasonal changes, the cultural moments that are brewing.

But mostly, I write what I need to hear. Because if I need to hear it, chances are good that someone else does too.

We're all walking around with the same basic human hearts, dealing with the same basic human problems. The details change, but the themes are pretty universal: love, loss, meaning, hope, the difficulty of being alive in a complicated world.

It starts with 40 minutes of sitting meditation. When it concludes, there's this brief moment where I'm still between worlds. Not quite back in regular consciousness, but not lost in the meditation either. That's when I open my computer or grab some paper.