Dear friends,

There is a Bulgarian movie called The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner, based on the novel by the same name. I’ve neither seen the movie nor read the novel, but the title is not something you forget easily.

The past month has been quite difficult for me. By now, I’ve learned that inner healing usually involves an encounter with long-avoided hurt… But it is one thing to know this as a principle, and quite another to experience it anew. And yet this latest cycle of my journey has brought me a new understanding of healing.

I now know I’ve been fleeing from suffering for most of my conscious life—through compulsive behavior and thinking, through workaholism, perfectionism, and countless other semi-conscious avoidance strategies. It took years of personal work and therapy for me to discover that fact. It took me decades to understand that sometimes (often) the healthiest thing you can do about suffering is to just allow yourself to experience it.

As soon as I recognized my avoidance of difficult emotions, I swung to the other extreme, and my defense mechanisms adopted a new strategy: trying to solve suffering. Now my response became mindfulness, or rather, an aggressive, impatient attempt at mindfulness. My assumption was that if I just concentrated my awareness in the right way, it would dissolve every experience that is not peaceful, joyful, and loving. Our “original mind” is free of defilements and suffering, the Buddhists say, so I concluded that if I was suffering, that just meant I was not mindful enough.

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Dear friends, two months ago, I announced that I was working on something: a guide for the journey of shadow work. Something that can help us discover the hidden parts of our psyche and find a healthy way to relate to them.

That work is now finished, and I can finally share the new Shadow Workbook.

Through over 40 pages and 8 exercises, the workbook explains the key principles of shadow integration and offers practical ways to implement them in your life. It also includes 5 companion videos linked at key sections, an appendix, and a map of literature, film, art, and music to enrich your journey.

All the theory and exercises in the workbook are based on the writings of key figures in depth psychology, such as Carl Jung, Edward Whitmont, James Hillman, Barbara Hannah, Liliane Frey-Rohn, Erich Neumann, and others.

You can buy the Shadow Workbook as a printable PDF here.

Meeting my shadow has been (and remains) one of the most transformative paths on my journey. I hope this tool offers a useful entry point to those who are yet to begin this work and a reliable companion to those who have already descended into their depths.

With love and gratitude,

Simeon

P.S. I created the Shadow Workbook in collaboration with my partner, Elly, and I want to give a shoutout to her for all the hard work she put into making this project a reality!

P.P.S. I also want to thank everyone who shared their feedback and ideas when I first announced this project. Your comments, messages, and emails helped shape the workbook into the most useful tool Elly and I could create.

P.P.P.S. If you need the Shadow Workbook but you cannot afford it, reach out via email and we will figure something out.

I invite you to watch the recording of my recent live stream about shadow work, where I present 3 practical exercises you can try out today.

Phil calls the Odyssey “the original seeker account”, seeing Odysseus as a man on a quest to win back his soul. In our conversation, we explore the spiritual wisdom of the epic and the lessons it can teach us to live more wisely ourselves. Some of the questions we touch on are:

- How do we heal the wounds that violence and temptation open in our souls?
- What can help us choose life over the false paradise of pleasure?
- How can telling our own story help us reclaim our lives from trauma and addiction?
- What is the force that can help us endure the dark night of the soul?

I hope this conversation inspires you to rediscover Homer’s masterpiece, and that it serves you as a companion on your own odyssey through life.

With love and gratitude,

Simeon

P.S. You can order Phil’s new book here. Your purchase would earn me a small commission at no extra cost to you.

The Wisdom of the Odyssey by Phil Cousineau

Our insistence on not suffering may well be the greatest source of our suffering. In our natural (and understandable) effort to avoid unnecessary pain, we quickly forget that there is necessary pain.

It is a sentiment of deep entitlement, once we consider it objectively. From subatomic annihilation through the indifferent brutality of nature and human culture, to the collision of galaxies—the world is engulfed in strife. And yet in the midst of that, we demand ever-persisting peace, joy, and flourishing. If our lives do not embody this ideal, we conclude there must be something wrong with our lives, not the ideal. We then view suffering as something unnatural, a bug in Creation that God overlooked on the seventh day.

One of the genius moves of the Buddha (or those who later compiled his teachings) is that he named suffering the First Noble Truth. This means suffering is not a bug, not even a feature of life—but one of its core building blocks.

To deny suffering (whether through resistance or through escape) is ultimately to deny life. The Buddha taught liberation from suffering as his first and last concern, but he insisted that this liberation comes only through a deep, sustained, curious, and compassionate look at the pain in our lives and where that pain comes from. Suffering is ultimately a teacher; once seen and heeded, suffering itself becomes our guide to liberation.

May we seek insight rather than escape,

Simeon

Suggested Reading

The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius

Written in prison in the months before his execution, Boethius’s The Consolation of Philosophy stages a dialogue between a condemned man and Lady Philosophy herself, who dismantles his grievance against fortune argument by argument. One of the oldest and clearest cases in the Western tradition that suffering, faced rather than resisted, need not be the end of peace.

Order here to support SEEKER TO SEEKER at no extra cost. You can also browse my personal list of favourite books here.

Why are we never content? Whatever we come to possess, experience, or achieve, it only brings us fleeting satisfaction and then leaves us with a hunger for more. Is it even possible to find peace and happiness that last?

Over two millennia ago, the Buddha confronted these same questions, and this led him to one of his deepest (and most counterintuitive) insights: that the very thing we’re all doing to find happiness is what keeps it from us.

A Gnawing Feeling

Anxiety, regret, disappointment, the gnawing feeling that something about our life is not quite as good as it can be... We humans have always had reasons to be dissatisfied, but probably never as many as we have today. We are, after all, living in the age of “endless opportunity”, which also means endless missed opportunities.

For every choice we’ve made, we know there are a million others we could’ve made that might just have turned out better. The fact that no achievement, experience, or possession grants us lasting contentment seems to confirm our suspicion. As does social media, constantly feeding us airbrushed images of perfect lives and ads for the next purchase that will solve all of our problems. We thus keep one another on the hamster wheel, never arriving at the life we are craving, but ever departing from the life we are actually living here and now.

This restless searching and discontent is not a modern malaise. Millennia ago, the Buddha diagnosed it as the universal affliction of human beings. In Pāli, the language of early Buddhism, it is called dukkha.

Dukkha is a notoriously difficult word to translate. It covers a whole range of meanings: “dissatisfaction”, “stress”, and “suffering” are different shades of it. But by dukkha, the Buddha does not mean any particular experience; he means the fact that every experience, sooner or later, brings us discontent.

Painful experiences bring discontent because, well, we would rather not feel pain. Pleasurable experiences bring discontent because they never last and only leave us wanting more. Even neutral experiences bring discontent, as their unstable coming and going keep us always on our toes, chasing fleeting peace and satisfaction in an unpredictable world.

This teaching can seem like a bleak view on life, like a form of pessimism or nihilism. But if we consider “the teaching within the teaching”, as it were, we actually find the key to that peace and happiness we are all craving.

The Teaching Within the Teaching

Think for a moment what it would mean to live as if nothing can bring you contentment. What would it be like to live your life exactly as you are already living it, with the only difference that you do not seek happiness in any achievement, possession, or experiences of whatever kind?

It’s easy to confuse the Buddha’s teaching with New Age slogans such as “peace comes from within” or the like. Owning a Porsche might not be the key to happiness, but then maybe a meditation retreat will do the job, or some life-changing psychedelic experience?

You see, the Buddha’s teaching goes deeper than merely internalising our quest for contentment. In the original suttas, he does recognize the bliss of deep meditation as superior to sensual pleasure. But even such transcendent experiences, the Buddha says, bring discontent. Why? For the simple reason that they never last.

It is irrelevant what we are pursuing in our quest for happiness, the Buddha says, be it a material or a spiritual thing. Our mistake is not that we are trying to get contentment from the wrong things. Our mistake is that we are trying to get contentment.

We are like a man looking for his sight. He will wear himself out searching the whole world and never once even glimpse it. If some well-intentioned guru tells him to look for his sight within, the man will only get more confused.

The heart of the Buddha’s message is that the very search for contentment is bringing us discontent. The search itself creates the lack it is trying to rectify. And the Buddha did not just talk about this; he exemplified it in his life.

Think of all the things you derive pleasure, joy, or satisfaction from in your life. These may include your relationships, your work, your home, money, sex, food, etc. Now imagine losing each and every one of these things. Imagine living penniless, stripped of all social status, owning only one set of clothes, living on whatever food strangers have to spare, and avoiding all sensual pleasures.

For most (if not all) of us, the above is a worst-case scenario. It is a life deprived of all our familiar sources of pleasure and comfort. But that’s exactly the kind of life the Buddha chose for himself and his most devoted followers! In the early suttas, we read:

Just as a bird, wherever it goes, flies with its wings as its only burden; so too is [the monk] content with a set of robes to provide for his body and almsfood to provide for his hunger. Wherever he goes, he takes only his barest necessities along. This is how a monk is content.

Samaññaphala Sutta; DN 2

For the Buddha, monastic life is not about deprivation or punishing ascetic practices. It is a life devoted to freedom. And a happy life.

It is staggering that most people’s worst-case scenario is actually the kind of life the Buddha embraced as most conducive to contentment. And we know as a historical fact that the richest and most powerful people of his time would visit his cell to seek guidance on how to live happier lives. Even just thinking about this can release some of our anxiety about not achieving or owning the right things. You don’t need more than a set of clothes and some food to be happy, the Buddha says… And in fact, he goes further. You don’t need anything at all.

Peace that Passeth Understanding

Let’s briefly look at nirvāṇa, or nibbāna in Pāli. Nibbāna is famously known as the goal of Buddhism, the end of all discontent. But the popular understanding of it as some great achievement, event, or experience is not what the Buddha had in mind. Here is how he speaks about nibbāna:

There is, monks, an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated [...] precisely because [that exists], escape from the born — become — made — fabricated is possible.

Nibbāna Sutta; Ud 8.3

I know this may sound way too mystical and abstract at first, but allow me to elaborate. The Buddha is making one of his most important points here.

Nibbāna is essentially what we are all craving: complete peace and happiness. Now, what could the Buddha mean by calling this “unborn” and “unfabricated”?

In our everyday language, the Buddha means that true peace and happiness cannot be produced, gained, or achieved. The things we produce, gain, or achieve—whether a Porsche or spiritual ecstasy—these come and go. And no matter how pleasurable or profound they feel, they always leave us with the aftertaste of discontent and further craving. Nibbāna is contentment that neither comes nor goes, but always is.

I understand this may seem removed from our everyday experience, but it is not only monks and scholars who can benefit from the Buddha’s deeper teachings. Living as a monk, practicing meditation, and studying the suttas can greatly help one realize nibbāna, but they are not necessary for it. And that’s the whole point. Nothing is necessary for nibbāna.

There is nothing you need to do, no place you need to visit, no experience you need to have, no item, knowledge, or teacher you need to be content. The reason why the Buddha recommends letting go of attachments is not that deprivation produces happiness. Nothing produces true happiness, as he clarifies; nibbāna is unfabricated. Rather, as we learn to no longer seek contentment through external or internal sources, we begin to recognize the unborn, ever-present contentment inherent in being. We don’t achieve nibbāna—we realize it.

I don’t think the only way to embody this insight is to retreat from the world and become a monk or a nun. I think we can realistically retain most of our interests, goals, plans, and activities, with the only difference that we are no longer milking them for fleeting pleasure or some imagined satisfaction. We can continue doing what is necessary and what brings us joy, only we no longer burden it with the expectation that it will sate our thirst for peace and happiness. We recognize nothing will sate that thirst, as the only reason this thirst exists is that we’re failing to recognize that which is already and always present.

Of course, discovering the truth of this insight is not as simple as reading this essay or a few suttas. An intellectual conclusion lacks the power to truly change our deeper patterns of thinking and behaviour. The Buddha knew this, and that is why he was not a philosopher. He acted more as a physician, and he prescribed a holistic approach to liberation, with guidance on the way we speak, act, work, meditate, and more. He called this approach the Noble Eightfold Path, and it is his practical guide to nibbāna.

So here is the paradox of the matter. There is nothing we need to do to be happy, but there are all these ways in which we are keeping ourselves unhappy that we need to relinquish. Even though nibbāna is not some distant destination, there is a path that leads to it. That path, however, does not consist of accumulating, but of releasing, not of making something happen, but of recognizing that which already is.

I invite you to read my essay on the Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path next, where we explore it with the help of one of the most powerful suttas. As always, thank you for reading, and remember: What you seek is seeking you. See you next time.

Dear friends,

I had a peculiar encounter recently that I want to share with you. I was with my fiancée and stepson in Greece, and I was struggling to fall asleep in our hot, tiny hotel room, which faced a noisy main street. I was sweating all over, tossing and turning, suspended in some kind of liminal, hallucinatory space where dream and reality intermingled. In this space, there appeared before me, just as real and matter-of-fact as the furniture around me, my old mentor, the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

I was not in any way surprised by Nietzsche’s presence. If anything, I felt happy to see him after such a long time apart. As soon as I greeted him, I started sharing about my experiences in recent years and the lessons life has taught me. I was eager to hear his thoughts and for the two of us to celebrate our shared love of wisdom, as we had in old times. But this time, something was off.

Whatever insight or opinion I shared with him, Nietzsche obliterated it with impeccable logic and psychological criticism. Without mercy, he pointed out the vanity and inconsistencies in every bit of wisdom I thought I had acquired. The experience was humiliating. To make something good out of it, I decided to take it as a learning opportunity. I started agreeing with Nietzsche’s arguments (which appeared unassailable) and ended up extolling the exact opposite of every idea and view I had shared at first. I hoped my mentor would be pleased that, while I had not been able to reach the right conclusions myself, at least I could recognize the errors of my thinking.

To my utter dismay, Nietzsche shook his head in disapproval. He took each of the arguments he had given me—arguments I had just agreed with—and demonstrated how crude and naive they were. While at first I had been unable to defend my own position, I was now just as unable to defend the opposite of my position! Desperate and confused, I started suggesting alternative concepts, theories, and interpretations, hoping that something would land, but Nietzsche kept refuting every statement I made. Seeing that whatever I said only got me more tangled up in his web of logic, I gave up.

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How often do we break ourselves in our search for wholeness through work! We act on an assumption so deeply rooted as to be indistinguishable to us from truth: that we are incomplete in ourselves and only great effort can make us whole.

Regardless of whether it is work of the hands, the mind, or the heart, the goal is to make something happen that is worth the trouble. And—so the assumption goes—the greater the trouble, the worthier the work! We live an alchemist’s life, transmuting incompleteness and hardship into wholeness and achievement.

It is not that we are absolutely delusional. Some of the most important work is some of the most difficult, indeed. It is rather that we reduce creativity and activity to a linear model in which achievement is equivalent to the amount of suffering it requires. Sometimes, that’s just not the case. Sometimes (and the more mature the work, the more this applies), achievement lies not so much in what we make happen, but in what we allow to happen.

As our skill develops, the quality of our work is increasingly defined by how little effort it involves. How little we get in its way. This kind of work cannot arise out of the same anxiety and incompleteness that drive effort. Immersion, play, and celebration are necessary conditions for it—so much so that what we once called “effort”, we now experience as love.

This highest form of work cannot be our means for achieving wholeness, as it requires wholeness from the start. It is a means only to itself, having itself as its only end.

May we learn the art of effortless work,

Simeon

Suggested Reading

The Joyous Science by Friedrich Nietzsche

In The Joyous Science, Nietzsche writes philosophy as song, experiment, wound, laughter, and provocation. It is a book about learning to affirm life without needing life to become painless, moral, or safe. For readers interested in the creative life, it offers a bracing reminder that the highest seriousness may not appear as strain, but as freedom, style, and play.

Order here to support SEEKER TO SEEKER at no extra cost. You can also browse my personal list of favourite books here.

I am happy to present my second conversation with Peter Russell, where we speak about his new book, How to Meditate Without Even Trying. Peter and I go deep into both the practical and the metaphysical side of meditation, and he explains how relaxing into the practice can lead us deeper than our best efforts could.

I think this episode will be useful for anyone who has ever felt they are “bad” at meditation, unable to quiet the mind, or unsure how to bring practice into ordinary life. Peter and I explore the fundamentals of meditation, how to stick with it even with a busy schedule, what to do when thoughts and strong emotions appear, and how not to turn it into avoidance of the personal work we have to do. We also had a deep discussion on a few audience-submitted questions, and I thank everyone who helped shape the conversation!

Thank you all for your support, kind comments, and feedback! I hope you find this episode useful, and know that I couldn’t do this work without you.

With love and gratitude,

Simeon

Suggested Reading

How To Meditate Without Even Trying by Peter Russell

Order here to support SEEKER TO SEEKER at no extra cost. You can also browse my personal list of favourite books here.

“This once, but never again,” we hear a curse in the moment. And we toil at loud things to ring out through the ages, and at monuments to stand the test of time. But there is no test. From silence we come and to silence we return, along with our names and all we have named.

So we imagine our gods eternal, as we fail to perceive the divine in the moment. We argue for truths universal, as the relative slips the grasp of our minds. We close our eyes to the here and now and retreat into dreams of heavens. This desertion of life is called wisdom and faith by many!

We assume God so weak as to need to be eternal, truth so poor as to have to be universal, and heaven so distant as to be other than life. We assume that, like all else, these would burn away if placed in the furnace of time. And we don’t allow for the possibility that they may be the very spark of the present. What if it is a blessing that the moment carries?

“This once and never again… But forever!”

May we bless the moment back,

Simeon

Suggested Reading

The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel

What if eternity does not stand beyond time, but opens within it? In The Sabbath, Abraham Joshua Heschel teaches us to enter time as a sanctuary, where the fleeting moment is not an obstacle to the sacred but its very dwelling place.

Order here to support SEEKER TO SEEKER at no extra cost. You can also browse my personal list of favourite books here.

Dear friends,

I started working on something recently, and I want to share a bit about it with you. Any thoughts or feedback you could give me on it would be very valuable!

I’ve done a number of pieces now on shadow integration (working with the difficult parts of our inner life). Your comments on these have shown me just how universal this topic is and that it remains relevant at all stages of the path. So, I’m thinking of creating a tool that can aid shadow work, regardless of a person’s experience.

What I have in mind is a digital, printable workbook on shadow integration. It will be based on the work of key depth psychologists like Carl Jung, Erich Neumann, Liliane Frey-Rohn, and others. I see the workbook as containing brief theoretical explanations, followed by exercises adapted from the writings of the authors. The workbook will offer a structured path through the three stages Jung outlined: Recognition, Listening, Negotiation. This builds on the video on shadow integration I made last year: https://www.seekertoseeker.com/p/face-your-demons-and-grow

I imagine the workbook as something you spend 20 minutes per day on for a week or two and that guides you in encountering and making peace with those aspects of yourself you find most difficult to accept. Some of the exercises can be redone periodically as you deepen your understanding of your shadow.

This is the idea in brief. The workbook will be priced, but if anyone needs it and can’t afford it, they can reach out, and I’ll provide it for a symbolic price.

And here are some questions I have for you:

• Would you use this workbook if I create it?

• What would make it more valuable to you?

• Does €15 feel like a fair price for it?

I will be grateful for any feedback you can give me on this! If I go ahead with creating the workbook, your comments will help me shape it into the most useful tool for you.

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Working with my shadow has changed my life, and continues to change it. I hope this tool will open this experience to more people. Thank you for reading and for all your support!

With love and gratitude,

Simeon

Dear friends,

I’ve had something of a revelation recently that I want to share. It concerns a vulnerable, not-yet-healed part of myself, so I will approach it from somewhat farther away.

Lately, I’ve been reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. A key element of the story is the One Ring, forged by the Dark Lord in the fires of Mount Doom. As evil spreads over the land, the people’s final hope rests with two unassuming friends tasked with sneaking the Ring back into the mountain where it was forged. Only by casting the Ring back into the fires it came from can it be destroyed, along with the evil that created it. It is a gripping story, but only recently have I begun to appreciate how meaningful it is.

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The story of how the Buddha converted a killer is, really, the story of each of us. We all have darkness within us, whether we know it or not. And often, the harder we try to be “good”, the more we deepen our inner conflict. Today, we will look at an ancient Buddhist story that depicts this psychological trap—and points the way out of it.

What follows is my personal retelling of Aṅgulimāla Sutta, which is one of the most striking pieces of Buddhist scripture. Here, I’ll present the story through a Jungian or symbolic lens to bring out its deep insights into human psychology.

This is a good place to pause and consider what the story is saying. Notice that the moment Aṅgulimāla spots the Buddha, the killer assumes he is being attacked. He cannot conceive of another reason why somebody might approach him. If we read the scene psychologically, we might ask ourselves:

In depth psychology, these repressed, unwanted parts of ourselves are known as the “shadow”, and we all have them. Like the townspeople in the story, we habitually avoid facing these loathsome thoughts, feelings, and urges of ours—or we outright deny having them. But how does the Buddha treat the killer Aṅgulimāla?

Notice how the story refers to the Buddha here:

That comes from the original sutta, not my retelling, and I think it is the heart of the message.

Only after being seen with compassion does Aṅgulimāla begin his transformation. Compassion, mind you, does not mean approval. At no point does the Buddha say, “Oh, I don’t mind you wearing human fingers around your neck; killing people is totally fine!” He does the opposite, in fact. He urges the killer to change his ways. But not as an accusation or condemnation. The Buddha extends his hand in invitation.

This ancient Buddhist sutta has many uncanny parallels with stories from the Gospels. Five centuries after the Buddha visited Aṅgulimāla, Christ would dine with tax collectors, prostitutes, and “sinners” of all stripes. Both He and the Buddha teach us that vice is not to be destroyed or conquered by virtue; vice must be transformed into virtue. And how does this miracle occur? Through the practice of compassionate seeing.

Now, let’s return to our story and see what more it has to teach us about inner transformation.

This part of Aṅgulimāla’s story reads more like a fairytale than Buddhist scripture, but it conveys profound insight nonetheless. To understand its psychological meaning, let’s apply some concepts from Jungian psychology.

Aṅgulimāla, as we saw, is a depiction of the shadow, or everything within us that we condemn. Everything we want to be rid of. King Pasenadi would then be a depiction of the ego, or our self-identity.

For most people, most of the time, the ego and the shadow are in constant conflict. For example, when I say, “I am a good person,” I identify with all my impulses to help others. These become part of my self-identity, part of my ego. But then, what happens to my anger, my envy, my hatred? Well, I deny having such feelings, so they get pushed away from the ego and become shadow. As a result, the more I seek to be good (or to see myself as good), the more divided I become.

When King Pasenadi describes how he’s been hunting Aṅgulimāla to no avail, this is a figurative description of our internal dynamics, the way the ego is constantly chasing its own shadow. But then the king discovers the killer transformed into a monk; the shadow has become light. The psychological equivalent of this is to see our vices turn out to be virtues, to see the worst within us turn into a force for good. You may wonder whether this is possible, and the king shares your disbelief. But the Buddha insists: “the killer you once hunted is the monk who has now quenched your thirst”. If the story claims such an inner transformation is possible, then how can we achieve it in our own lives?

The story is actually clear that we—meaning, our egos—cannot make it happen. The king tried everything, but never managed to catch Aṅgulimāla. Indeed, one of the core insights of depth psychology is that the ego’s efforts to overcome the shadow only feed the shadow further. Remember, the shadow is made of our attempts to get rid of certain aspects of ourselves. If we try to get rid of the shadow, we only give it more of what it is made of! For example, if we have anger issues, one sure strategy to perpetuate the problem is to keep telling ourselves, “I shouldn’t be angry!”

So, what can we do? Since the way of the king doesn’t work, we may try the way of the Buddha. How does the Buddha, using no force or deception, manage to convert a killer into a saint? Let’s examine the chain of events.

First, all the townspeople warn the Buddha not to enter the woods where Aṅgulimāla is hiding. What is the psychological significance of this?

We all have a tendency to avoid facing certain aspects of ourselves. We often prefer to explain away certain feelings, thoughts, or actions of ours, or to pretend like they are not there. This, of course, prevents us from engaging with exactly those aspects of our personality we most need to work on. If the Buddha had listened to the people, he would never have converted Aṅgulimāla, and the killer would have gone on to claim many more victims.

Next, we learn that the Buddha enters the forest unarmed, though he is aware of the danger lurking there. He goes to the killer as a “compassionate great seer”. To follow the Buddha’s example would mean to intentionally seek out everything within us that we find difficult to accept. But—and here is the key point—we must approach this difficult material not as adversaries, but as compassionate seers.

Shadow integration is subtle and often counterintuitive work. We learn that trying to get rid of the shadow is actually what sustains it. But then, if we try not to want to get rid of it in order to get rid of it, this is only a subtler form of the same issue, and the shadow persists.

The way to cut this Gordian knot is to accept that we really cannot destroy or fix, or transform the shadow—but we can allow it to transform itself. How? By giving it the one thing we’ve been depriving it of: compassionate seeing.

Only once we invite our darkness into the light of compassionate awareness can it begin to heal. In the story, remember, it was Aṅgulimāla who pleaded with the Buddha to accept him as a monk. All the Buddha did was visit Aṅgulimāla and offer him a hand, not approving his crimes, but not condemning him for them either.

Shadow integration is more of an art than a science. It is not a matter of mechanically following a formula like “observe your vices, don’t judge them, and they’ll change”. If we are using a formula, strategy, or technique, we are already approaching our shadow with condemnation, which only deepens our inner conflict. To heal the shadow requires a fundamental change in our attitude, a different way of living, really. It is something you can’t fake or achieve by following a prescribed formula. For the shadow to change, the ego must change. It must grow humble, like the king bowing to the Buddha, and accept that its condemnation may be the very root of the problem. Only then does the miracle occur.

Once our vices are truly seen with compassion, they begin to mature into virtues. Anger develops into the ability to stand up for oneself. Envy settles into the skill of admiring others and learning from them. Hatred resolves into acceptance of the true complexity of others and of oneself.

Integrating our shadow may seem like strictly personal work, but it actually improves our relationships with others as well. As the fractured parts of our psyche reunite, we learn to accept both ourselves and others whole, not just the parts we find pleasant. Ironically, the more we let go of our “good” self-image, the more peaceful and understanding we become. No wonder Jung exclaimed:

I would rather be whole than good.

–C.G. Jung (attributed)

The encounter between the Buddha and Aṅgulimāla depicts the psychological drama of each of us. Making peace with our shadow is one of the most important initiations of human life, and yet many never undertake this task consciously. Many of us live our lives split in two, caught in an endless civil war between what we accept and what we don’t accept within ourselves.

If this piece resonated with you, one of my previous essays goes deeper into the practical side of shadow integration, according to Jung’s experience and insights. I invite you to read that next, if you want to learn more.

Thank you for reading, and remember, “What you seek is seeking you”.

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Meditation, as I understand it, is the practice of uncovering awareness by letting go. But even meditation can become an object of attachment. “How should I do it? For how long? And what if I miss a day?” Such worries turn the practice into yet another enterprise to occupy the mind with a profusion of thoughts, fears, and desires, which only obscure awareness.

In an effort to let go of vain ambition disguised as spiritual discipline, we may drop formal meditation altogether. Instead, we may seek to imbue our everyday activities with mindfulness. We thus attempt to “meditate on the go”, to observe the mind in the midst of action. For most of us, this is not a sufficient replacement of formal practice. We live in a fast-paced, craving-fed world where our attention is constantly preyed on from all sides. It is not impossible to go through the day with presence of mind, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Sitting silently for a few minutes during the day is vital in reminding us that the peace and completeness we seek outside is inherent within us.

I would suggest a third way to approach meditation—a “Middle Way”, to echo Buddhist terminology—which can retain the benefits of the practice without developing attachment and anxiety around it. Instead of treating meditation as some special, “spiritual” activity, we may see it as something similar to taking a shower.

Most of us shower more or less consistently without making a big deal of it. To shower is technically not necessary, but it is good for us. Just as importantly, it feels good in a wholesome way. There are many benefits to it—physical, psychological, and social—but we don’t do it with some distant goal in mind. We don’t feel like less of a person if we occasionally skip our usual shower, since we are not deriving our sense of self from it. Taking a shower is both a core part of our lives and nothing special.

To approach meditation in the same way (as a “mind-shower”, if you will) is a good way to relax our relationship with it. Our practice ceases to be a spiritual chore, a permission to feel enlightened (or getting there), or an activity burdened with fantastical expectations. To thus bring meditation down from its transcendent pedestal to the level of the ordinary doesn’t lessen our practice, but actually deepens it. One may argue that we haven’t even started meditating before we’ve let go of our ideas about what meditation is.

Shikantaza (只管打坐) is how Sōtō Zen refers to the practice, which means “just sitting”. Once we relax into this attitude free of attachment, free of expectation, free even of the idea of a “practice”—then, simple experiences such as water streaming down our skin or being aware of being aware reveal themselves as anything but ordinary.

May we meditate meditation away,

Simeon

Suggested Reading

How To Meditate Without Even Trying by Peter Russell

I recently read Peter’s new book and spoke with him about in on the podcast (the episode will come out in about a week’s time). At a time when I had complicated my relationship with meditation unnecessarily, his book was a good reminder of the fundamentals of the practice—and of it’s profound value. Whether you are a seasoned practitioners or just starting your meditation journey, I think you’ll find much insight and inspiration in Peter’s book.

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In our previous conversation, physicist-turned-mystic Peter Russell joins me to explore why consciousness may be more fundamental than matter, touching on Maharishi and TM, non-duality, science vs. spirituality, time and eternity, and what kindness asks of us.

To say a bit about Francis, he is a student and long-time friend of Jean Klein, as well as the teacher of Rupert Spira. As you’ll hear in the conversation, he teaches non-duality more as a way of life than a concept, viewing it as “the common ground of Advaita Vedanta, Ch’an Buddhism, Zen, Taoism, and Sufism” (from his website).

In our conversation, Francis and I explore what non-duality means and how understanding the nature of consciousness can transform the way we live. We discuss how everyday experiences can give us insight into consciousness, and Francis offers several pointing-out instructions… Including a joke about the Pope! We also explore the cycles of desire and suffering, the fear of death behind our activities, and how all this is rooted in ignorance about our true nature. This leads us into a discussion on the role of psychotherapy and how it relates to spiritual insight, and Francis shares a unique perspective on that (delivered with fine humor for good measure).

I have done more than a few of these conversations, and this is one of the rare occasions when I felt I was in the presence of a “teacher” in the full sense of the word. I hope you find meaning and inspiration here as well!

With love and gratitude,

Simeon

Perfect Meditation

Above, I’ve clipped a particularly meaningful moment from the conversation, which gave me a new perspective on the role of meditation on the spiritual path. In fact, a new understanding of what “meditation” even means in the first place.

A few days ago, I had the chance to speak with Advaita Vedanta teacher Francis Lucille, and I want to share a deeply moving exchange I had with him. An exchange that may not seem like much on the surface, but is nevertheless the most moving teaching I’ve received in recent memory. It came as a single line Francis sent me over email:

Ninety-nine out of a hundred times you read Francis’ email, it says nothing special. But like a Zen kōan, if it meets you at the right moment and the right state of mind, it can shake you to the core. It did me.

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Love that can bear no hatred is only hatred on a finer level. Freedom that cannot dwell with limitation is but a tyrant in disguise. Only that rest which remains in the midst of movement is the “peace that passeth understanding”.

What is it that holds life in all its contradictions, yet remains whole? What is that Yes that covers the world like rolling thunder and “maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust”?

Is it not the very ground we stand on? The space that holds everything beautiful, terrible, and absurd within us? That love that never recedes, that freedom immune to limitation, that peace beyond understanding—is it not you, reading these words?

May we find the source and rest,

Simeon

Suggested Reading

The Perfume of Silence by Francis Lucille

“[The realization of Oneness] means being constantly open to the possibility that we are like two flowers looking at each other from two different branches of the same tree, so that if we were to go deep enough inside to the trunk, we would realize that we are one. Just being open to this possibility will have a profound effect on your relationships and on your experience of the world.”

― Francis Lucille, The Perfume of Silence

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In my search for the eternal, I flee from time, place, and circumstance. I flee this cage of a self, barred in by fear and desire, regret and ambition, and all things mundane. I flee the concrete in search of the absolute, and end up stranded in between.

For such is the mystery of the absolute, that it is always only concrete. Such is the play of eternity, that it speaks only in the moment.

What separates here from everywhere, now from always, is only a way of seeing.

May we rest and see,

Simeon

Suggested Reading

The Essential Dogen: Writings of the Great Zen Master

Dōgen’s writings return us to the intimacy of the present moment. What we seek as timeless, he suggests, is not hidden behind the world but shining through its suchness. His thought refuses every easy division between absolute and relative, eternity and time, awakening and ordinary life.

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Sometimes, it won’t be me who sees you, but a kid lost in the ruins of a childhood. Sometimes I won’t look at you, but through you—and you’ll be the facade of all my fears.

At times, your smile will open wounds so wide, we’ll both be swallowed. At times, my love will shrivel into want, and my want crumble into need.

There will be days that sink down a me-shaped hole. Days when we know our love only by the pain its absence brings.

On days like these, don’t pass the cup. Don’t spare your eyes. What needs healing first needs seeing. Be my eyes when I go blind, and show me to myself.

May we both be seen and seeing,

Simeon

Suggested Reading

The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self by Alice Miller

This is one of the books that has most impacted my self-understanding. Alice Miller explores how early emotional wounds shape the adult self, often invisibly directing our perceptions and relationships. What we take to be love may conceal unmet needs; what we see in others may reflect what we have not yet faced within ourselves…

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Dear friends,

I hope you are well in these confused and trying times. Something that has served me as an anchor for years (and even more so lately) has been my meditation practice. I thought I might share a new perspective on it that’s recently opened for me.

I try to do a bit of formal practice every day. Some sits feel like a waste, as my thinking has so much inertia that no amount of mindfulness seems to slow it down. (Still, I think this makes these sessions no less valuable, as it is one thing to be distracted and quite another to know just how distracted you are.) But sometimes, the mind does cool down, thought subsides, and the openness of non-dual awareness blossoms. It is after these sessions that something special occurs.

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“In this organism I begin, and in it I end. This body-mind, with its thoughts, feelings, and organs—this is who I am.” So goes the “self” superstition I live by.

But then a bird warbles in the branches overhead, and my heart leaps to dance. This joy then is my own, part of my self, but the birdsong that called it forth is not?

Or I open a book, whose beauty consumes me, whose depth and power reshape me. When I close the book, has it not nested within me? Does it not live through my actions and speak through my words?

I am lost in the ecstasy of my lover’s embrace, the smell of her skin, and the call in her eyes. Her body is my body, and my mind is a nameless passion; who or where am I then?

This self—or body-mind—isn’t it made of birdsong, poetry, and lovemaking just as much as of thoughts, feelings, and organs? Isn’t it life itself that speaks when I say “I am”?

It is thinking that fractures life into inner and outer, into self and other. But even thought, in its violence, is nothing other than life at play, life blooming, life exploring its abundance from endless angles, sinking in ever-deepening enchantment at its own mystery. And you and I are that!

May we rest as the mystery,

Simeon

Suggested Reading

The Interior Castle by Teresa of Ávila

In this classic of Christian mysticism, Teresa of Ávila describes the soul as a castle whose innermost chamber reveals a profound union with the divine. The journey inward becomes a discovery that the deepest center of the self is not separate from God. A luminous account of the unity underlying all experience.

Order here to support SEEKER TO SEEKER at no extra cost. You can also browse my personal list of favourite books here.