This lesson arrived on a hard day.
I was sitting with confusion and grief, the kind that pulls you under before you even realize you've stopped swimming. Intellectually, I knew my practice could help me see more clearly. But I hadn't paused. I hadn't asked myself why I practice in the first place.
When the reminder came, it was simple: we are, at our core, good. Every being wants to be happy and free from suffering. That's it. And somehow, being reminded of that opened something in me. It didn't solve anything. It just gave me room to breathe.
What remains difficult is remembering this when the world asks me, every hour, what I think about everything. The modern social landscape is relentless in this ask. And our minds are eager to comply. We are wired to react, to categorize, to place ourselves on the right side of whatever line is being drawn.
So when tragedy happens, and it does, constantly, we intellectualize. We polarize. We perform our grief in ways that are really arguments dressed up as feelings. We are extraordinarily skilled at this.
What gets lost in all of that is the actual grief. The felt sense of loss. The compassion that rises naturally when we let ourselves be moved by what's actually happening rather than what we want to say about it.
I keep learning that touching my innate goodness isn't an intellectual exercise. It lives in my body. It's the warmth in my chest when I'm not braced. It's the recognition of shared pain in a stranger's face. It's the small, unglamorous act of being present with someone without immediately reaching for a take.
I don't need a well-articulated manifesto on every tragedy that finds me. What if, instead, I spent that same energy building a reverence for life? One that shows up in how I speak, what I consume, how I love, and what I protect.
That's the practice I keep returning to. Not perfect execution. Just the sincere attempt, again and again, to see clearly and respond with care.
On teaching ethics without judgment
I was raised in a strict household. The teachings on respect that I received as a child often backfired because the teacher wasn't living what they were asking of us. Children notice this immediately. Most people do, if they're paying attention.
That early experience left me with a deep sensitivity to the difference between ethics taught from a position of authority and ethics modeled from a place of genuine practice.
The best teachers I've had admitted what they didn't know. They stayed curious about the person in front of them. They didn't need to be right. They needed to be real.
As a teacher in training, I hold this responsibility carefully. I want to bring humility into the room. I want my students to already see the wisdom inside themselves, and I want my teaching to confirm it rather than replace it.
Meditation teachers, by virtue of the uniquely powerful intersection of education and spirituality, should expect to be held to a high standard. Not a punishing one. An honest one. And when we fall short, as we will, the answer is community and accountability, not shame.
On community as the structure that keeps us honest
I've spent most of my adult life living with people. Housemates, roommates, family. I am a more careful, more generous version of myself when I'm in proximity to others. I take better care of my home. I show up more consistently. I don't fully understand why this is, but I've accepted that it's true.
The same thing happens in my meditation community. The peer group I sit with in teacher training isn't just a learning cohort. It's an accountability structure. When I use language in a guided meditation that lands wrong, my mentor and my peers tell me. They offer something better. And that feedback is one of the most direct ways we reduce harm together, by staying awake to each other's blind spots and having enough trust to name them.
That's what I want to build as a teacher. Not a following. A community. A group of people who are learning to see more clearly and are honest enough to help each other do it.