I’m learning how to trust myself again after setting fire to my perfect life.
Now, I’m learning how to trust the process.

Every creative life has seasons. Busy seasons. Harvest seasons. Seasons where the phone won’t stop ringing. And then there are the waiting seasons. The sit here and sip the chai seasons. The ones where the emails slow down after a big project wraps and all you can think is: what’s next?

I hate these seasons. (I’m learning to love them too.)

Especially because when you finish something big, the only thing you want is another big thing to throw yourself into. Another project. Another obsession. Another reason to stay in motion.

Pema Chodron teaches me about this feeling. I have a way of paraphrasing the teaching; “stop being a little bitch and be still.”

But if you want the full teaching read this:

Sometimes the next big project is to wait.

Sip tea.

To sit still long enough to realize your value is not only tied to movement. To trust that silence is not abandonment. To trust that rest is not failure. To trust that the quiet has something to teach you too.

I’ve found myself there lately. In that strange in-between place. Waiting for the silence to say something back. To fight back. But the silence has no punch.

So i started collecting music for playlists again, instead.

Some of these songs found me while I was in the Azores, Portugal.

Some while wandering through Bed-stuy Brooklyn this spring.

Some while driving around town with my sons.

Some while dancing in the kitchen late at night after long days.

These songs have been my company this season.

Music is such a beautiful offering. One of the few gifts we can give away endlessly. It costs me nothing to hand someone a playlist. And yet a song can completely shift a day. A season. A memory. A life.

There’s something deeply intimate about sharing music. About saying: this helped me carry something.

So today, I just wanted to offer these songs to you.

Maybe they’ll keep you company too.

This weekend, I’m sending out the very first package for Art Mail Club.

I started this as a simple idea. If someone decides to support this Substack as a paid subscriber, I wanted to give something back that feels tangible. Something you can hold in your hands, not just on a screen.

It was important to me that, everything I make on my sub stays free. The meditations, the writing, the artwork, the reflections from my studio. I never wanted to build a wall around this practice. But I did want to create a way to return that support with something meaningful.

So I offer two exclusive things to my paid subscribers.

1. The first is a standing discount on prints through my gallery at larkinart.co.

2. The second is Art Mail Club. A quiet exchange. Where I send you art in the mail. At least once a quarter. And sometimes more.

I was late on this first one. Life moved how it moves. So I’ll likely send a few this quarter to catch up. That feels right.

This first package is a print from my very first mural in the Azores, Portugal.

It’s a portrait of Muddy Waters, painted on Sao Miguel island. There’s something about that moment that still feels like a beginning to me - so I wanted to share it with my people.

Each print is signed and dated by hand. Limited. Small. Personal. And with a little note in tow.

You can keep it, collect them all or gift it.

Honestly, I’m just glad to be putting something real into the world on a regular basis. Something that can arrive.

If you have questions about art mail club email: pathofshabazz@Larkinart.co

If you want to join Art Mail Club, I’d love to have you.
I’ll send you art. I’ll send good vibes.
And maybe a little love note too.

Ken is the founder of Confidant. A tiny but mighty ad shop in Nashville doing Global work. The most under-talked about agency in the south. Ken likes to do great work and keep it moving. Mark of a great leader.

We worked together at Confidant, just before Covid pulled me into a long sabbatical from the industry. At that point, I had stepped away from traditional branding to focus on social impact work. But at Confidant, I tried again - taking swings at big brands.

When I was there, I started asking a different question. Could we bring that same empathy into mainstream brands like Sony? What if we approached them with the same earnestness that i was bringing to these social impact companies?

We made a film for Sony that honored the creative community. We worked with Birchbox and used it as an excuse to talk about self-care. A lot of what we made came from that place. Honest. Earnest. Trying to make something that meant a little more than it had to. We even got to remix a Stevie Wonder classic with Haley Cyrus.

This conversation feels like a continuation of that. We talk about change. The kind happening across the advertising industry, and the kind that comes with getting older and kids growing and life happening.

We even get into what a ten-year plan might look like, shifts in his business, evolving his partnership with the PR wing of his agency. There’s some dreaming here. Some wandering too. But at its core, it’s just a real conversation between friends.

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In this meditation, we use the story of Kali Ma as a mirror for our own inner world. It is a space to notice what feels stuck, what feels heavy, and what may be ready to change.

I created this audio as a companion to a painting I made after a monthlong meditation sit, as a way to translate that experience into something you can feel for yourself.

You do not need to believe anything about this deity to do this. You just need to know her story to understand. Just bring your attention, your breath, and a willingness to see.

Sit, look into the eyes of Kali, and let me tell you an old story.

Here is the full transcript of the story of Kali Ma and the meditation practice.

Long ago, when the world was still young and full of shadows, something ancient began to rise.

Not just a creature, but a force inside all beings.

It came like a storm, laughing, demanding, devouring.

Wherever it moved, it wanted more.

More praise, more power, more control.

It could not be reasoned with.

It could not be satisfied.

It was not just a monster.

It was the ego made flesh.

It burned villages, shattered temples, and made even the gods tremble.

Worse still, every time someone struck it down, its blood hit the ground.

And from that blood, a copy of that being would rise.

Every womb gave birth to another self. The more it was fought, the more it multiplied.

This being was not content with the earth.

It began climbing toward the heavens to steal the thrones of the gods themselves, according to the old Hindu myth.

And then the gods whispered the name of this being.

But when they whispered it, they whispered it in fear.

Raktavija.

The gods had faced many demons before, but this one could not be defeated by force alone.

So they did what they always had done in the most desperate hour.

They called on her.

Her name was Durga.

Throughout the ages, she was the goddess they turned to when no one else could finish the battle.

She is where grace meets power. Where gentleness becomes fire.

Her name means the invincible one and she who eliminates suffering.

Durga came into being through the light of all the gods.

Each one gave her their power, their weapon, their faith.

And she rode into battle on a lion with fire in her eyes.

She fought that demon fiercely with every weapon in creation.

But even Durga could not stop the blood from falling.

Even she could not halt the ego’s endless replication.

And so, from the heat of her frustration and the depths of her knowing, Kali was born.

She burst from Durga’s brow like a flame from a storm cloud.

Her skin was black and blue as deep space.

Her hair flew wild.

Her tongue hung long and red from her mouth.

Around her neck was a garland of skulls.

In her hands, she held the tools of truth and time.

Kali did not ask.

She did not hesitate.

She stormed into the battlefield and began to devour.

She caught every drop of the demon’s blood before it could touch the earth.

And she drank it all.

And so, at last, he was destroyed.

Not by power alone, but by the force that swallows illusions whole.

But ego, once swallowed, can still burn inside you.

Kali could not stop.

She raged on, drunk on justice and holy fire.

She struck down everything in her path.

The world held its breath.

Then from the edge of the battlefield came Shiva.

The god of stillness. Of presence. Of pure being.

And he laid down in her path, offering nothing but himself.

When Kali’s foot landed on his chest, she stopped.

She looked down and saw the one who loved her.

And at that gaze, she remembered herself.

Her eyes widened. Her tongue pulled back.

And with that breath, the fury passed.

And that is why she is remembered today.

Kali is not just a goddess of destruction.

She is the mirror of truth.

She teaches that the ego cannot be fought with fists alone.

It must be faced, swallowed, and transformed.

Durga reminds us that love can fight and protect and rise.

Kali reminds us that even the fiercest force must one day return to stillness.

So as you sit with this image, let your body be still.

Let your gaze settle gently on her eyes.

Kali Ma.

Let them meet yours.

She does not look away.

She does not flinch.

She has seen it all.

The fear, the pretending, the hiding, the harm.

Now let your own seeing deepen.

Notice the skulls that hang around her neck.

Each one was once a hindrance.

Each one a lie shed, a mask removed, a fear devoured.

They are not trophies of violence.

They are symbols of what she has helped you let go.

Kali Ma is a scary being to look at until you realize she is there to eat your pain.

Your fear.

And the things that stand in your way of your spiritual path.

Now ask yourself quietly inside.

What in me is ready to be released?

What part of me is clinging to something that no longer serves?

You do not need to name it out loud.

Just see it.

See it in her eyes.

Feel it.

Let it rise.

And now, if you are willing, offer it to her.

Let Kali take it.

Not with anger, but with fierce compassion.

You do not have to believe in Kali.

You do not have to think that she is real.

You only have to believe that there is something inside of you that is ready to transform.

Whatever that part of you is, give it away to that part.

There is no judgment.

There is no shame.

There is only transformation.

Let her wear it as a skull around her neck.

Not to shame you, but to remind you.

You are not that fear anymore.

Take your time.

Look into her eyes.

You are safe to change.

You are allowed to release.

You are allowed to be free.

Let her show you what it feels like to stand in your ruthless liberation.

Feel what it is to be still with the groundlessness.

You do not have to be Hindu.

You do not have to believe in Kali Ma.

You do not have to be or believe anything.

But the truth inside of you.

Let the truth inside of you be alive.

Believe in your truth and your power to transform.

The fire of transformation is not out there.

It is here, now, in this moment, in this body, in this breath.

In this breath.

And you have already begun.

We once made a film together called Jump. A film shot for suicide prevention. Heavy subject, but we approached it with care. With intention. It ended up being something really beautiful. It was also the first film I ever directed. It was cool project because it was always screened with a live music score and therapists on site.

We’ve been friends ever since.

Life did what life does. We both left NYC. He went back west, started building a life, raising kids. I moved to Nashville building mine too. Time passed the way it always does with old friends.

So this conversation was really just a chance to catch up.

Somewhere along the way, we went right back to where we first connected - trying to save the world by dealing with our traumas in public.

Johan is also a coach. (Some people would call him an inspirational speaker. I wouldn’t. Not because he’s not inspiring, but because the term is corny and too small of a box for what Johan offers the world.) When I first met him, he was inspiring students in auditoriums, these days he works with pro-athletes, top-executives and people operating in super-human capacities.

What strikes me about what he works on with them is how incredibly down to earth and wholesome the work is - it’s the same stuff we all need to get into. We talked about how we show up. The stories we carry and the ones we aint trying to pass on.

And right now, seems like the what he is working on right now, is at home.

We Got into the 90-second pause.

That moment where instead of rushing or forcing something, you just stop and be with your child before you just rush through. Just pause instead of forcing everybody to go so quickly. All you need is 90. Good tip.

We got into what parenting actually is about.

We both grew up thinking you’ve got to make something happen, shape your kids into something. But Johan pushed back on that. What if the real work is just making your kids feel safe?

We got into him coaching parents to be parents, athletes to be athletes and commitments to be commitments.

He’s working with athletes, executives, and parents, helping people see what’s really going on underneath performance. We touched on commitment, coaching, and what it actually takes to follow through on something.

And toward the end, we got into something that stuck with me:

As an artist, the idea that i can paint a life resonates with a lot of sentiments I’ve been feeling. That one stayed with me.

We got into a new and upcoming podcast of his: More Than One Thing.
Definitely something to look out for.

Have a listen for yourself.

-

Johan and I have committed to part two.
You have any questions you want me to ask Johan? Let me know.

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Communication Arts. D&AD. The One Show Books. Do they still make these?

We flipped through them not only to see what had been made, but to understand what was possible. To understand, quietly, what kind of accolades might be available to us if we followed the path of breaking the rules correctly.

There was a path that was sold to us.

It was not spoken outright, but it was understood to me.

You would become a creative director. You would work on global brands. You would make work that would be seen. And in being seen, you would become something. Maybe blazer and chucks wearing important someday - that was the uniform of the successful creatives back in the day.

I remember being asked, in those early days, what I wanted my life to look like in ten years.

I did not have language for it then. But I had images.

I would be an award winning creative director, working at an award winning agency, working on award winning global clients and making a lot of noise doing it.

And so I walked toward that image.

And a few months out of grad school - I found myself inside those images i was supposed to do in 10 years.

I was working on global brands. I was making work that was recognized. I was being paid more than I had ever been paid before.

But what do you do when you reach your dreams a lot sooner than you thought. You realize your dreams were shit and you find new ones.

I turned to the awards. Those will make me happy!

One Show Pencils. Clios. Cannes Lions. Effies. Bring them on!

They arrived, one after another, like confirmations.

I remember working on a small brand in Seattle, Nuun. My first award - The One Show Pencil.

Years later, I still see that work in the wild. I see it in stores and in hands I will never meet, and I am struck not by pride, but confusion. How did something I made so long ago travel this far?

To this day, I tell my cashier at Whole Foods that I designed this logo.

“Oh, wow.” They Say. “That’ll be $450 sir.”

The awards, when they came, did what they were designed to do.

They opened doors. They brought calls. They placed my name in rooms I had not yet entered.

But they did not do what I believed they would do all those years ago when I was studying the books.

There was an unspoken belief that these objects would grant a kind of arrival. That they would secure something inside of me. That they would confirm that I had become who I was meant to be.

I did not say this out loud. But I carried it.

And yet, when the awards were in my hands, I found that the feeling did not arrive with them.

The object was real. The recognition was real. But the transformation I had imagined was not.

It was around this time that my work began to change.

I stepped away from selling things that did not need to be sold, Vodka, Tequila, promises of joy and happiness, and I moved toward work that asked something of me, and perhaps asked something of the world.

I remember making a film about maternal mortality.

It was not made for awards. It was made because there were stories that needed to be told.

When people watched it, they wept. Not out of politeness, but because something in them had been moved. The film hit different.

People would ask to show it at non-related conferences, at bible studies, and small gatherings of people who felt compelled to share it with others. I do not know the full extent of what it changed.

But I know this. No one left it untouched. Whenever I showed it to someone, I also had to offer them a hug to help with the shock.

And in that, I began to understand something that the awards had never given me.

There is a difference between recognition of big ideas and making big impact.

ideas are measured in attention. Impact is measured in feeling.

One is held in the hand. The other is carried in the body.

The industry continues to move, it’s looking really different now. But It always has. I started my career back when “Non-traditional advertising” was the buzz of the day.

What is valuable today becomes ordinary tomorrow. What is celebrated today is forgotten in time. Look out influencers, AI is coming for you too.

The awards, for all their shine, do not resist this.

Eventually, the blue check will wear off.

They guarantee nothing.

But the people we sit beside. The people we create with. The people we choose to see and to be seen by. And hug. And Toast. And cry with.

They remain.

I think often now about the young creatives I have worked with, the ones I have mentored, the ones I have shared long nights and uncertain mornings with.

It is not the work that stays with me.

It is their presence. Their smiles.

It is the off topic conversations. The laughter. The shared effort of making something together, even when we did not know what it would become.

Our quality of a life or success or accolade that we chase is not found in the objects it accumulates, but in the relationships it sustains.

And it’s the people that have nothing to do with the work that makes the work meaningful - the people in your life, your family, your friends, your lovers, your kids or future kids.

I missed so many personal days, and birthdays, and holidays, and weddings, and even my grandmother’s funeral - working late nights and early mornings in service to a big award winning campaign idea.

One day, I will be gone. And on my tombstone i hope it says nothing of my big award winning work. But only the people that i stood shoulder to shoulder with to get them.

Remember me by how i made you laugh. By the ways in which I showed up for your joy. By the ways in which I made space for your bullshit. By the ways in which I chose to care for your pain.

And so, to the young creatives who are just beginning to look through the books, and build follower counts and collabs with big brands and whatever external validation that y’all get all hot and bothered by these days, I offer this:

Be inspired.

But you must be careful about what you believe those blue checks will give you.

You are not only building a career.

You are building a life.

And in this life, you will be asked, again and again, what matters.

You will have the ability to create almost anything. Well, fuck it - anything.

You can create work that takes from people. Or work that gives something back.

You can create images that tell people what they need. Or stories that remind them of what they already got.

I despise ad campaigns that speak of love. Ad agencies sell oppression in the name of love to make them feel better about the work they do. Insert image of handing a Pepsi to a cop in riot gear, here. This happens because we mistake talking about love in the work with showing the love while we make it. Do not hide behind the campaigns about love, but may you be the definers of what love means - with your lives.

You can use your talent to sell the dreams of our billionaire benefactors and multi-trillion dollar companies. OR YOU CAN USE YOUR GIFTS to TOPPLE CAPITALISM, PATRIARCHY, XENOPHOBIA, GREED, LUST from within.

My name is Shabazz Larkin I’m a writer, painter, fine artist, former Executive Creative Director to the Gods and un-offical unc to the creative industry.

I’m available for hire > creative@Shabazzlarkin.com

Brand Portfolio: Shabazzlarkin.myportfolio.com

Fine Art Portfolio: www.Shabazzlarkin.com

This article was originally posted on my linked in.

A photo essay of traveling solo again.
And maybe the new theme of my life.

International solo travel has a way of opening something up in me. It strips life down to its essentials. A body in motion. A bag. A passport. A camera. A few old questions returning with a fresh face.

Who am I when no one is there to confirm it?

What remains when my familiar way of life fall away?

Can I really be here, on a beautiful island traveling, alone?

I had not really traveled alone like this since grad school, when I traveled to Kenya, then was living in London for an internship at Mother London, and took a weekend trip to Paris. I remember wandering those streets with my Canon Rebel, taking pictures of everything that seemed to hold a kind of grace I wanted for myself. Lovers kissing by the water. Champagne and oysters at café tables. Jazz moving through the air. I had no lover then, no companion, just my own looking. Mostly I walked. That is what I have always loved about travel. To walk a place is to submit to it.

A few decades later, I found myself doing it again. No lover on my arm. No wife beside me, no smart woman managing the logistics that used to overwhelm me. At JFK, I fumbled through my bags looking for my passport and felt, in that small panic, the shape of an old absence. There are some kinds of love you do not only feel in the heart. You feel them in the systems of daily life. In who remembers what. In who steadies the map.

Alone this time, I made my way through. I did something I could have never done as a young, broke, naively-religious, intern, I went in the Air France lounge, a perk of my upgraded seats, and drank a glass of wine, though I do not drink. It felt ceremonial, a gesture toward some version of myself I did not yet know but was trying, however imperfectly, to meet. Around my neck was a new camera, this time it’s a little Fuji X-Half with a red strap, and I used it the way just like I used to when I was a young single man in grad school. I photographed the croissants. The wing outside my window. The evidence of departure itself.

I was flying to São Miguel in the Azores, to stay with collectors I had only known through Instagram. It was not until I saw them standing before me that I understood the strangeness or bravery or stupidity of what I had done. I had crossed an ocean to stay with people I had never truly met in person. There is a kind of faith in that. Or maybe a kind of magic. It wasn’t until I saw there faces that I realized we’d never met before.

But when I arrived, I was greeted not with strangeness, but with warmth. Ryan. Kathryn. Luna. Tammy. Hugs, drawings, breakfast, small tendernesses offered without ceremony. I had texted ahead that I would be arriving like a wounded dog, and I meant it half as a joke. But there was truth in it. I was tired. Tender. More in need of gentleness than I had admitted to myself.

I had come to the island to write. I was stuck at the beginning of the second act of my novel and needed a breakthrough. That was the center of my intention of the trip for me. But the island had other ideas.

There was the family itself, which charmed me almost immediately. Ryan cooking breakfast. Luna sending me notes from her loft using a slinky. Kathryn and I talking about art and ailments of growing in age. Nova the dog and Lucky the cat curling up near my feet despite my allergies, as if the body too can be persuaded by welcome.

There was the landscape, black volcanic rock and an Atlantic Ocean so enormous and unruly that it altered my sense of the sea. I grew up around the beaches of Virginia, but those waters prepared me for nothing like this. Back home, you could measure a waze by comparing it to the size of a car. “Oh look, that one is the size of a truck,” you could say. Here you could compare them to th e size of a house - “ooh that one looked like the size of a 3 bedroom bungalow with a long driveway. The waves and the rocks that they beat on were ancient. Beyond any human idea of control.

Even the drive from the airport to the house became its own lesson. What should have taken forty-five minutes took nearly twice that because I kept pulling over to take pictures with my little Fuji Camera. I told myself to stop. I did not stop. There are some forms of beauty that do not ask permission. They interrupt you and demand witness.

The views were enough to interrupt my plans.

There had been loose talk of a mural before I arrived. The first wall that we were planning was too rough, for the intimate style I was planning. Then we found another, smaller one, just outside my door. Every day I looked at it, trying to understand what belonged there.

Every morning I walked to a nearby coffee shop and ordered a one-euro espresso in my rough beginner’s Portuguese. Um café, por favor. I listened for bom dia and obrigado and thought about language, about history, about why there were grown men drinking beers this early in the morning at a coffee shop. And how it could only cost one euro, and tase so good. It was weak coffee, and a small cup. But it had that international charm of coming from a smile and a wave.

Every day, I tried to write the novel, but jet lag clouded the ideas. My days were blurred. The first night i slept for 12 hours, the first day lasted for two days. Still, somewhere in that confusion - stillness arrived. And the second act began to reveal itself in meditation. That was true in the novel, and it felt true in my life as well. That’s when the trip started getting metaphysical.

Because what is a second act if not the moment after the life you assumed would continue forever has already ended? I had thought I would always be married. I had thought I would always inhabit that particular architecture of family. And so to sit inside this other family’s tenderness on a remote island in the Atlantic was to be deeply inspired and moved by its beauty and pierced by it too. Sometimes I looked at them and wept in secret, not only because what they had built was beautiful, but because some things has a way of illuminating your losses as much as your longings.

There is a Portuguese word that doesn’t exist in english. It comes to mind, saudade, which means to long for something that has yet to come. I remember learning this word from a friend in grad school - I’m not sure if I’m using it right, but the word keeps bubbling up in my consciousness.

So I took pictures of them. On walks. At meals. In passing moments. Playing in dormant volcanos that smelled like sulfur and in the lawn with the dog and with moms. I wanted to remember what a new tenderness looked like.

And finally, the mural came to me. I decided to paint Muddy Waters and his wife Geneva. I have long loved the photograph of them, the closeness of it, the easy romance, the unguarded dignity. Ryan and Catherine are artists, and Ryan has been building a children’s project rooted in hip hop pedagogy. I wanted to leave behind something that felt like company. Something musical. Something Black. A gesture of recognition on an island where Blackness is not that common. Maybe those painted figures could greet the next Black person who came through. Maybe they could greet everyone. Everybody needs a little reminder of the Black Magic that changes the world.

Painting Muddy and Geneva in the Azores felt, to me, like a way of connecting the American South to the global South. A small bridge made of image and intention. A declaration that our stories belong in places where they are not expected, perhaps especially there.

I had never painted a mural before. My work has mostly lived on canvas, in private collections, behind doors opened by invitation. But walls are different. Walls speak to the people - all people. Not just the rich ones that can afford my work. Walls enter the weather. Walls belong not just to an owner, but to a place. And perhaps this is where I am headed now.

In truth, my first mural was in my mother’s kitchen. As a little boy, I drew a city skyline in Sharpie across her wall. I did not yet have the language to call myself an artist. I was simply a child compelled to mark the world around him. It took nearly forty years for me to write on another wall, and now I wonder if this is part of my calling. To paint walls with the qualities I most want to cultivate in myself and encounter in the world. Love. Compassion. Joy. Equanimity. The four boundless qualities I have been studying from the Buddha and through my teacher Pema Chödrön.

I want to paint those qualities wherever I can.

So yes, this is an invitation and a shameless plug for my work. If you have a wall in Nashville, in Texas, in Virginia, in Paris, in Cape Town, anywhere, and you want something on it that carries love, joy, compassion, and equanimity, I would like to paint one for you too. I’m on a mission to paint 100 walls. Will yours be number 2?

But it is also a reckoning. I came to the Azores to solve the second act of my novel. Instead, I also found myself standing inside the second act of my own life. I found a family and friends, a new chosen brother, sister, moms and niece I had not expected. A mural I had not planned. A softness I did not know I was seeking. And now I am left with the larger question. Whether I can meet this chapter of my life with the same curiosity I bring to a place I have never been. Whether I can offer myself the same compassion I am trying to offer the character I am writing. Whether I can slow down enough to truly read the story I am already inside.

For now, the story remains full of surprises. That may be another way of saying it remains full of drama. So much drama in the LBC.

And I am grateful that, for a little while, I stopped long enough to see it.

Bom Voyage for now, or better yet - Boa Viagem.

In February, we gather to ask a profound question to the artists of our community. Which is a beautiful question to ask.

And in the era of history being ripped out of our schools and out of the public conversation when there is an invitation to teach Black history, I think it’s important to take it.

And this time of year we always go about the business of unraveling what it means to be Black. But you can’t study Blackness without studying Whiteness.

You can’t actually be from Whiteness. You can be from Tennessee or Germany or from the Mississippi, or from America or from the West, but Whiteness is no place.

For those of you that go around and say that you’re just white, I invite you to find out where we’re really from.

Because identifying as White is a choice.

Whiteness is not a nationality; it’s a power structure designed to oppress African American people. But then it went on to suppress all brown people.

So for those that identify as White, consider the history of where this idea comes from. Maybe you don’t have to identify with the power structure.

When I was a kid, I just thought that Whiteness is something that existed before time. This bizarre idea was designed that way.

As you could imagine, early American life was tough, rough, and profits were slim Pickens. the rich, ruled the ships, which means they ruled the government, which means they ruled the jobs and the way of life. They set the plans, and the poor people did the work.

But! the poor outnumbered the rich. So the rich had to listen to them; they had to hear them when they said they needed more money or more food or more privileges. Or Opportunity.

But the rich knew. If they paid everybody more money and gave everybody more privileges, there wouldn’t be enough money and privileges to go around for themselves.

So they thought, “ I wish there was a way to divide up these people into classes where we can give some of them more money and more opportunities to keep them all believing they can get those opportunities”

They thought if they could divide the poor then they would have less loyalty to each other, less cohesion on what they wanted, and with less cohesion means less power, and when the poor have less power, the rich get more rich.

They decided to invent the idea of American whiteness. Those from European countries would ban together, in what they call the great white race. White because it was superior to those of the African diaspora. They had to convince themselves that the people of the African diaspora were not even human. How would they get the same rights as actual men?

And that is exactly what they did. It was a very successful and early DEI program.

All kinds of poor people from all over the world.

I mean all over Europe. Got to take a bite out of what they call the American dream. A chance for everybody to get ahead.

Everybody but the children of the African diaspora.

Now, we know how the story goes from here.

The children of African were dehumanized. Profitable like a horse or an ox, but not like a fellow man. They were enslaved, paid no wages, separated from their families, beaten, killed, and raped for centuries after.

Let me repeat, centuries.

If I were an alien hearing this story for the first time, I would assume the children of Africa would contribute nothing to American society. How could they? Maybe they would burn it down into an anarchist hole of chaos. When I was a kid, in my history books, the only thing that they said about my African ancestors was that they were slaves. No stories. No heroes. No founding fatherdom. No great contributions outside of peanuts and MLK.

But history tells us that this couldn’t be further from the truth.

(film by )

Black people built the infrastructure for this country; we advocated for laws that made equality a mandate. From black culture, every American genre of music was made: gospel, jazz, bebop, rock, R&B, blues, country, soul, rap, dance, house, hip-hop.

All black music.

There was no American Theatre until there was black theater. We invented improvisation as a theatrical American staple and musical treasure. Picasso was known as the greatest artist to ever live by using African ideas in his art. Black people are the inventors of American barbecue and soul food. We are champions of sports and spirituality. The black creative has an influence that reaches around the globe.

As legend has it, the term BLACK (or NEGRO) took a long time to catch on. It’s a term that was meant to curse the souls of Africa. It was an idea meant to mark us as the lesser people. Opposite to whiteness. But overtime, and after centuries of unfair wages, brutal living and Jim Crow laws and redlines and all the horrible plans that continue to try and divide us even up to today.

We took this curse and made it our power and pride.

The irony of what the idea of whiteness has done is that it was meant to usurp the power of Black people, but it’s actually worked to reveal the power.

The black creative has subverted this curse continually overtime.

And overtime, our contributions have been stolen, white labeled repackage with the new face that isn’t ours.

And this is the reason it’s so important today - to ask the question:

how do we celebrate the black creative?

But a better question might be, how do you?

-

I’m the host of a podcast called Museum of Presence. We tell the stories through the lens of the creative community here in Nashville and beyond. Our latest episode we released features Maria Magdalena Compos Pons - a Cuban black woman that showed right here at the Frist. Our next episode features Brenda Morrow, who is an activist fighting to keep a park in the hands of the community. A park that dons the name of the first black artist to ever show at the moma, from right here in Nashville, William Edmondson Park. She keeps fighting. And she keeps winning.

This season of Museum of Presence, we’re talking to Chuck indigo. Isaac Kirk. Trenton wheeler and many more.

My Name is Shabazz Larkin and I’m proud to bring these incredible humans and children of Africa to the stage.

The film clip inserted above was made by who also produces BLACKNEWS. It is not at all related to this post’s content creators, but thought it is a great punctuation to the essay. You can see their work on their instagram channel or a museum near you.

The theme was “Hot Takes.”

The prompt was “Nashville ain’t that Country.”

And my take was simple. You’re right. It’s not just Country.

So what are we going to be?

I started imagining what it would look like if an artist wrote the rules for public art in Nashville. Here’s what I came up with.

-

NEW ART RULE #1: NO MORE GUITARS

We got it. Yall like country music, but there are other instruments. Also other music. Also other people.

NEW ART RULE #2: PUBLIC ART SHOULD BE FOR THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE HERE

Not just the tourists. The people who actually have to dodge tornadoes and KKK rallies downtown. Our stories matter.

NEW ART RULE #3: SHOW US ALL THE PEOPLE (not just old European men)

All of them. Because the art in your city should look like all of us.

NEW ART RULE #4: LET MURALS DIE

Everything doesn’t have to last forever. Cities change.Art can too.

NEW ART RULE #5: STOP ART DIRECTING THE ARTISTS

If you already know what it should look like…why hire an artist? Give the artists trust. Give them intention. Give them your problem or your dream - but don’t tell them what to do.

NEW ART RULE #6: NO GENERIC, COPY-PASTE, AI, PHOTOSHOP PRINT OUT ART

If it could live anywhere…it doesn’t belong here. Let’s make stuff that feels like it can only be spit out of the mouthes of a Nashvillian.

NEW ART RULE #7: DON’T BE AFRAID OF A POINT OF VIEW

Everything doesn’t have to be for everybody.

Sometimes it’s for somebody. And that’s enough.

That’s what makes art feel special.

NEW ART RULE #8: BELIEVE IN MYSTERY

Leave room for something you don’t fully understand. That’s where the magic is.

-

And here’s the truth. Nashville is full of dope artists.

Megpie.

Lance Scruggs.

Dylan Camp.

Reggie Wayne.

Elishiba Mrozic.

Dylan Camp.

Doughjo.

Sensai.

Omari Booker.

Reggie Wayne.

And so many more.

People making real work.

Work with presence.

Work that actually feels like something.

We’re not missing talent.

We’re just not choosing it.

So if Nashville ain’t just country…

then what is it?

That’s not a branding question.

That’s an artistic one.

And the people best equipped to answer it

are the artists who live here.

We should be writing the rules.

—

If you’ve got a wall, a building, or a space and you’re trying to tell a bigger story (or if you know someone that does)…

I want to make some art with you.

Take a look at my work at www.shabazzlarkin.com

Email me: studio@shabazzlarkin.co

I’m shifting my studio toward public art. Work that lives outside. I want to place sculptures and murals at the center of my studio practice. Work that responds to people, to place, to history. And I’ve realized I can’t do it alone.

I want to sit with people who are building. Artists, entrepreneurs, healers. People shaping things in real time. Not just talking about what they’ve done, but what they’re working on right now. The messy middle or doubtful beginning. The part that’s still forming.

And not just the professional work.

I’m just as interested in their personal work. Personal growth. Their spiritual practice. The internal work that everything else sits on top of.

That’s where this comes from.

What You Working On Right Now? is a series of show-and-tell conversations. It’s me being a little nosey. Sitting with people I respect, people I can learn from, and asking them what they’re building, what they’re figuring out, and what’s actually moving in their life right now.

This first one is with my brother, Christopher Latouche.

He told me he’s “slinging coffee waste.” And that opened up a much bigger conversation about Jamaica’s Blue Mountain coffee industry, the scale of waste that gets left behind, and what it looks like to take something overlooked and turn it into something valuable.

But more than that, it set the tone.

This isn’t about finished work. It’s about work in progress. Ideas in motion. People building things that don’t fully exist yet, while also doing the quieter work of becoming who they need to be to build them.

That’s what I’m interested in.

What you working on?

If you want to learn more about Christopher’s Ital Coffee project email: chris@italcoffee.co

Or go to www.italcoffee.co

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Recently, I got to talk with my friend LeXander Bryant. He’s that kind of friend.

LeXander has been traveling through the Global South filming life, neighborhoods, and artists. It’s part of a project he calls We Are the Archive.

I’m grateful he pointed the lens toward my studio in East Nashville.

Part of the conversation happened while I was doing finishing touches on some huge portraits of artists with roots in Tennessee. Which, BTW, will soon live inside the Bankers Alley Hotel, here in Nashville.

Standing there, looking at these works, I started thinking about how art begins to live once it leaves the studio.

People will walk past it.

People will sit underneath it.

People will make significant memories around it.

Few will stop in awe.

It’s a pity. But there is a reward for those that do.

That’s how the archive grows. It becomes a backdrop for the germination of rememberings, ideas, and conversations.

LeXander put together this short film.

I’m excited to share it with you.

The rest of us sit at home watching Star Search trying to forget what day it is.

Can I offer myself the same softness I rush to give someone else? Can I celebrate my own survival? My own becoming?

This episode of Meditation Club is a practice called Metta Meditation. Metta means loving-kindness. It’s one of the Brahma Viharas, or as I like to call its,
the four divine vibrations of the heart:

Metta is about generating good vibes on purpose. Not waiting until I feel loving. Not waiting until life calms down. Practicing and generating the vibe of love before I get caught on the high way with a jerk that cuts me off. I’m ready for the jerks before I even meet them because of Metta.

It is, practicing safety before I feel threatened.

Practicing ease before I’m overwhelmed.

This is grown-man work, son.

Usually, we do this, picturing people outside of ourselves, but today we’re doing it for us, to us, about us, with us. Cause, this is how I’m going to boo me.

I learned this from a great teacher and practitioner Joshua Alafia.

Boo-bop-bin-bing-boo-bop-bam.

Here’s how it goes in short - we offer the same phrases over and over:

May you be happy.
May you be safe.
May you be protected.
May you be at ease.

-

This isn’t therapy.

It’s cultivation. It’s a valentines day date with yourself for 20 minutes. Do this alone. Do this with your lover. Do this with your kids. Do this in your car. Just do this.

I’m boo’ing me this year.

And hopefully building a heart that doesn’t collapse when love gets complicated.

The mechanics of this practice are simple, and fun.

First, I imagine a crane in the meditation hall of my mind.
The crane hovers above the alter, where the teacher sits.

The crane’s wings open and close slowly, beautifully, magestically.

I breathe in sync with the crane’s wings.

On the inhale, the wings slowly rise.
On the exhale, the wings slowly fall.

Seeing the crane’s wings are your anchor,
the crane’s wings are a visualization of your breath.

Enjoy this feeling. Enjoy the sight of this glorious crane of your imagination.

No incense. No performance. No judgment. Just breath turning into wings.

(The wings flap too fast in this clip, but this video is a reenactment of my inner vision, thanks to the help of artificial intelligence.)

Part 2. Naming the drifts.

Don’t get me wrong, the mind will drift. Don’t worry. My thinking - stay thinking.

My brain stay writing books, sketching paintings, writing speeches. It rewrites arguments. It builds whole companies and brands out of thin air. It is brilliant and restless and a little undisciplined. My brain does not clock out just because I lit a candle.

And that’s the entire point of this practice.

Meet the elephant in the room

When I have ideas. I think of them as elephants that enter the meditation hall. Mostly because I love the idea of elephants. They make me happy. Maybe it was years of watching Babar as a kid.

When I start thinking about a new book I want to write or a friend I want to talk to or anything pleasant or neutral that’s got my mind. I don’t push it away or get mad at myself. I hold no judgement. I’ve done nothing wrong. I didn’t ruin the meditation.

As soon as I realize I’ve drifted from the crane - I say, “Oooo, an elephant is here.”
It’s a pleasant reaction. I see the elephant. And I escape the content of the idea.

It’s just a big floppy ear, cute elephant now. And I smile to the elephant. And let it roam there, and eventually, I come back to the crane. On long mediations I spend more time with the elephant before forcing myself back to the crane.

NOTE:
If you’re new to this practice, stop there. That’s enough.
But if you want to go deeper…

Meet the Bull.

Whenever thoughts show up that aren’t so pleasant — the itching, the rushing, the hunger, the pain.

Any energy that feels wild, demanding, impatient, trying to yank me out of stillness — that’s a bull.

Sometimes I call him “The Colonizer.” Because those thoughts come with whips. With urgency. With demand. With the lie that I am behind and need to prove something right now.

A bull kicks the door open snorting,

you wasting time,

you’re not good enough,

just give up on this.

Now it’s not some invisible pressure squeezing my chest.

It’s a creature in the field.

I can see it - rushing in.
I can nod at it.
I don’t have to saddle it up and ride.

I am not the bull. I am experiencing the bull.

I just watch it.
And return to the crane.

There can be others too.

The ones above are the most important to this practice, they mirror the concept of vedena - noticing pleasant and unpleasant and neither. But there are other animals I use in this visualization.

The Buffalo appears with duties, steady, strong and hardworking when tasks, work thoughts, obligations, to-do’s arise. These are neutral feelings mostly. sometimes a little unpleasant due to the urgency of them, but I just let them stroll in and out.

The Bear appears with big feelings, I was once dealing with anger toward someone and the thought of them kept coming in my meditation. It was hard to practice. We were in conflict. I kept fighting the thought - thinking it was a distraction to the practice. Until I let it into the practice - it was the largest bear I ever saw. I cared for the bear. I hugged the bear, like a child. It wasn’t there to hurt me, it was there to protect me. But until it knows it’s protection is not needed it was blinding me. I learned to treat big feelings like this with kindness and they seem to shrink.

Writing this now makes me think, we will need to return to this one in a later session.

Make up your own.

There can be tigers for confusion/debate. Snakes for unwise temptations. Flowers for growth. Butterflies for itching. You can create whatever symbols support your practice.

Just don’t get lost building a zoo!

The point isn’t to categorize every thought or experience in the body. The point is to form a relationship with them without getting caught in their content. I’d only make up another one if its an experience that you feel is unique to you and just wont leave you alone. This just let’s you know that thing is NOT YOU. It is something you are experiencing.

And then return to the crane.

Return to the breath.

Return to the present moment.

Why do this practice?

Because here’s what I’ve learned:

We are not controlled by the thoughts we can see.

We are controlled by unnamed thoughts. By the blur. By the feeling we can’t quite articulate but still obey.

This is the father of addiction. And unwise behaviors and patterns. Of self-betrayal.

And we name what arises. We awaken the heart.

The crane/breath keeps moving.

Up.
Down.
In.
Out.

While the elephant wanders.
While the bull runs.
While the buffalo strides by.

We are not suppressing anything. Most days I’m smiling at the thoughts. Bowing to the thoughts. Grateful the mind is alive.

But I’m just not getting caught up in their agenda.

I’m just not letting the fog run the house.

I am the master - this practice is an exercise of our sovereignty.

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This image is taken in the Oakland airport, an installation from the artist Hung Liu

I wrote this poem some time ago. It comes with a sobering truth. It lets go of emotions, hopes, and fears and embraces reality. This could be a very morbid poem, or it could be an entirely liberating one.

I decided to share this as a follow-up to two things.

First was a talk I heard from Stacey Abrams. She said we keep looking for some kind of savior, the way our parents looked to Martin Luther King or to elected officials. But an autocracy can only be interrupted by a great, communal coalition of people.

This is also a good follow-up to the story I shared the other day about the four mountains closing in. See it here:

When we close our eyes, it’s hard to see, so we imagine delusions of our future. When we open our eyes to what’s really here, our path forward becomes clearer.

This is the spirit of awakening. The way of the bodhicitta.

We Are The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For

A poem by Shabazz Larkin

No One is Coming

In the quiet hours of the night,

When shadows dance with fading light,

We search the skies for signs above,

For a hand to guide, and a heart to love.

But the moon remains,

still and far,

No savior riding on a star.

No voice to calm our nightmares and fears,

Not enough cleanex to dry our tears.

Preachers and prophets may whisper ancient stories,

Of heroes bold in days of glory,

But their swords are rust,

their glory dust,

And their movements lie in

the earth’s crust.

No one is coming to save us

but us,

No divine scripture, no martin luther

king to trust.

The god we seek is in our veins,

In blood and bone, in joys and pains.

We are the ones we’ve waited for,

The keepers of our inner chores.

With fists empty, we rise and stand,

Our destiny within our own hand.

Through all the wack news,

we find our way,

if you can hear what I’m saying,

you’ve survived

every day. 

Every trial.

Every shade.

Even when you do the job and don’t get paid.

No bricks are needed for the house you made.

Even if you stumble,

your path

is yours 

alone,

To make this flesh and bone a home.

No one is coming to save us

but us,

We keep writing and rising as we must.

In our own presence,

we find a god

to trust.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound.

In the mirror our hope is found.   

Our courage blooms,

when our own spirit guides,

Holy is the ground that we abide.

in our own presence, a power lies—

To lift us out of a sleep.

Get up!

No one is coming to wake us up.

There is no wine made from water in our cup.

No one is coming to make us rich

Or pull us out of the darkness ditch

No one is coming to save us

but us,

And us,

my friend,

my son,

my daughter,

my love,

The resilience in US is a truth to trust.

Get up!

No one is coming to save us

but

us.

I wanna be clear about something before I say anything else.

I’m not sharing this because I’ve mastered meditation. I’m sharing it because I used to believe I couldn’t do this at all.

When I first started practicing, I couldn’t sit still for two minutes. Not exaggerating. My mind was loud, my body was jumpy, and I thought something was wrong with me. I kept hearing people talk about stillness like it was easy, like it came naturally.

It didn’t for me.

And honestly, with ADHD and a few other neuro-spicy ingredients in the mix, sitting still felt impossible. My brain wanted to go everywhere. My body wanted to adjust every five seconds. I thought, maybe this just isn’t for people like me.

But I stayed curious. Mostly because of a documentary I saw on Netflix about some monks that can heal their own mind. That’s a story for another day.

Slowly, gently, over time, I realized I wasn’t broken. I just needed the practice explained in a way that made sense to my real life ADHD, fast life, hyper dad, moving and shaking, hustle man, sized situation.

That’s why I’m sharing this. Because if you’re here reading this, you’re already doing something brave.

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The First Thing I Learned:
DUH, I Deserve Five Minutes

This isn’t a duty, this is a 5 minute vacation.
You better take that vaycay, gurl.

This was the shift.

With everything going on. Work. Stress. Bills. Kids. Showing up for other people. Trying to hold life together.

Out of twenty-four hours, I deserve five of those minutes - for me - to me - about me.

Now, SAY IT WITH YOUR CHEST!

I DESERVE 5 MINUTES!

You do - DUH!
(Soon, we will be saying TEN MINUTES, 20 MINUTES, 30MINUTES)

That thought cracked something open for me. It gave me permission. And that leads to my next point:

Every meditation starts with permission.

If you don’t give yourself permission to be here, you won’t be. You got to choose to take the vaycay. let it be top of the list of your priorities. Your body might sit down, but your mind will be halfway out the door handling imaginary emergencies.

So before you sit, tell yourself:
I’m allowed to be here for five minutes. (or whatever time you set)

That’s not selfish. That’s survival.

Use A Timer

This is a simple one - use a timer. Don’t try to guess how long you been there.

Without a timer, your mind keeps checking. Thirty seconds will feel like an hour. Set a timer and let it hold you.

Sit How You Sit

Let’s kill the myth real quick.

You don’t need to sit on the floor twisted up like a pretzel. Those were tiny people from a long time ago. I love them, but my knees and hips said no.

I sit in a chair.

One of the best tips I ever got was putting a pillow behind my lower back. It supports you without letting you slump or lean back. You don’t want to collapse forward or recline like you’re watching Netflix. You want balance.

One teacher said it like this: stack your spine like coins.
Another said imagine a string gently lifting the top of your head.

My favorite version: hard back, soft front.

Structure like a tree, upright but bends without tension.

Breathe Like a Baby

Most of us breathe shallow without realizing it.

Try breathing low. Like two or three fingers below your belly button. When you breathe in, your belly expands. When you breathe out, it softens.

Babies breathe like this naturally. No forcing. No performing. Just breath doing what breath does.

Keep It Simple on Purpose

Here’s the practice.

When you breathe in, say in your mind:
I am breathing in.

When you breathe out, say:
I am breathing out.

That’s it.

This isn’t basic. It’s foundational. Knowing what you’re doing while you’re doing it is the whole thing.

You’re Allowed to Enjoy This

If the breath feels good, let it feel good.

If a small smile shows up, don’t push it away. Enjoyment doesn’t ruin meditation. It actually helps the body feel safe enough to stay.

And when your attention wanders, that’s not failure. That’s the whole deal. The moment you notice, just come back.

Breathing in.
Breathing out.

That’s it.

I share all of this because I love this practice. I love how simple it can be. I love how it meets real people where they are. Especially folks who were told, directly or indirectly, that stillness wasn’t for them.

It is.

If you’re here, you’re already doing the work.

Don’t be scurd.

Stay Present.

(Stay Tuned - Look out for part two of this series)

Share The Path of Shabazz

Two days ago I got up from the couch and had a pain in my foot that I couldn’t explain. No basketball injury. No assault. No random obstacle I accidentally tripped over. I just got up to get a glass of water. Now I’m walking with crutches.

I haven’t been to the doctor yet, but I’m sure it’s some kind of tear in my plantar fascia.

I’m reminded of The Five Daily Remembrances taught by the Buddha.

I say them like this:

1. We all will grow old.

2. We all will have ill health.

3. We all will die.

4. There’s nothing we can do to keep what we love from separating from us.

5. The only thing that we truly own is our actions.

The Buddha was always teaching about non-attachment to stuff. So much so, he required his Bhikkhu disciples to shave their hair, eat one meal a day and give up sex, owning anything, having a home and eating more than once a day. Extreme much.

(side note: he was known as the least strict spiritual teacher of his day - lol)

So it’s important to take note whenever he talks to lay practitioners - cause you know… a brother’s gotta eat. On this day, he was talking to a king that was aging and worrying about what would happen with his kingdom, here’s a paraphrase of how it went down.

He said:
Imagine four massive mountains were closing in on you and all you love. They are coming toward your kingdom from all directions. They are headed for your people, your family, your homes, your food and you.

Not armies, not hills. Mountains.

Mountains so big nothing could stop them.

They’re crushing villages, people, animals and all. Everything in their path.

No army can hold them back. No money can bribe them. No bombs. No pleading, no democracy, no strategy works—nothing will stop them.

What would you do? He asked.

The king said - in essence,

There wouldn’t be much to do except live well.

Live in peace. Live well. Be good to those around me.

And enjoy what’s left.

The Buddha replied,

Those mountains are already coming.

They are:

Aging.

Illness.

Death.

And losing everything we love.

They’re closing in on all of us.

Kings included.

Sit with that for a second.

There is nothing we can do to hold off these mountains.

I think the point of the story and these great remembrances is that anxiety is here, yes. Danger is here, yes. Hard times are coming, yes. But what we have left is what we have left.

Enjoy it.

Why waste time trying to hold onto my youth? Why waste time arguing with those that don’t want me? Why continue to grieve a love that is lost? Why waste time quivering about the pain in my foot, and grieving the foot I used to have?

Care for the pain. Heal to the health that is still possible. Love this body. This Foot. This life. This middle-aged madman. These two kids. This three-story house. This small circle of friends and family.

If my only possessions are my actions, I want to own treasures of love, kindness, bravery in the face of oppression, stillness in the face of hustle and recovery in the face of addiction.

I’ll stand ten toes on that dharma.

PS. I was writing this post, when my sons challenged me to make an animation in three hours. Just as I was about to tell them to ‘scram,’ I thought I’d take the opportunity to make the Pixar-worthy animation above, telling of the story.

PS-PS.
For those that find themselves alone on Valentines Day, I just released a song about the joy and pain of being home by yourself, for yourself, with yourself, to yourself.

Listen to "By Myself" on Apple Music

Listen to "By Myself" on Spotify

It’s a lovely thing to find relaxation in meditation. When I began practicing, that was the only thing I thought meditation was for. That’s what the apps sold me: peace, calm, serenity and good vibes. In some ways, that worked.

My practice changed the way I related to my body and my mind in profound ways.

But it didn’t change the way I related to my world and the suffering I felt until my practice met the Dharma.

I’ve come to know the meaning of Dharma as “the natural way things unfold.” But is most commonly known as the teachings of Gautama, the enlightened one - AKA the Buddha.

Before meeting the Dharma for myself, it was like trying to grow flowers without dirt.

This is a common move in the West: to teach Buddhist outcomes without naming Buddhist teachings. The wisdom is still there, but the lineage is scrubbed clean.

Some of the most influential breakthroughs in modern mental health come directly from these teachings. You’d never know it, though.

The serial numbers have all been scratched off.

Here are a few thinly veiled and widely used Buddhist practices:

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) by Jon Kabat-Zinn
Introduced meditation into clinical medicine by translating contemplative practices into a secular therapeutic framework focused on stress, pain, and illness.

Internal Family Systems (IFS) by Richard Schwartz
Works with inner “parts” and a calm, centered Self that relates to them without judgment or force.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) by Steven C. Hayes
Teaches people to notice thoughts without obeying them and to live from values rather than avoidance.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) by Marsha Linehan
Builds emotional regulation by holding opposing truths at the same time.

Somatic Experiencing (SE) by Peter Levine
Resolves trauma by tracking sensation in the body rather than reliving the story.

Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) by Paul Gilbert
Treats shame and self-attack by cultivating internal safety and warmth.

Hakomi Method by Ron Kurtz
Uses gentle inquiry into present experience to surface core beliefs and organizing patterns.

Sensorimotor Psychotherapy by Pat Ogden
Integrates body awareness with talk therapy to work with trauma stored in movement and posture.

Mentalization-Based Therapy (MBT) by Peter Fonagy & Anthony Bateman
Strengthens the ability to observe one’s own mind and the minds of others without collapsing into certainty or reactivity.

Non-Pathologizing / Strength-Based Models by multiple clinicians and traditions
Frame symptoms as adaptive responses rather than defects to be eliminated.

To be fair, this wasn’t a con. It was a strategy. Jon Kabat-Zinn has been open about the fact that he translated the practice on purpose, so it could survive in hospitals, universities, and ordinary American life without getting dismissed as “flaky.”

And in his own writing, he also names the source plainly: MBSR was developed as “one of a possibly infinite number of skillful means for bringing the dharma into mainstream settings.”

That move opened the door for millions. But it also created a western environment where people can receive half the Buddhist outcomes while never meeting the whole Buddhist Dharma.

In the western world we like to create shortcuts to peace. But, beware of shortcuts to peace.

_/|\_


Today, my practice looks a bit different. It still offers a great deal of peace and calm, but not the way it once did.

It feels more like that scene in the Christian Bale version of Batman Begins, where he trains to become some kind of samurai in the League of Shadows—then he goes back to Gotham, still as Bruce Wayne and meets his deepest fear. He descends into that dark cave, surrounded by thousands of bats, engulfed by the very thing that once paralyzed him with fear. He doesn’t fight them. He doesn’t escape. He stands still in the middle of it all. And he rises from that walking nightmare as The Batman.

For a long time, my meditation practice was the opposite of that. If anything distracted me—noise, discomfort, restlessness, big emotions—I believed it wasn’t a “good” meditation. If the conditions weren’t quiet, clean, serene, I thought the practice was a failure.

Now I’ve come to learn that my distractions aren’t distractions.

If everything is calm and pleasant, if nothing is tugging at me, that’s usually when the practice produces the least insight. The discomforts, the interruptions, the agitation—those aren’t distractions. They’re the curriculum.

What I’m learning is how to include everything.

To be open and flexible like seaweed on the ocean floor—bending, swaying, moving with turbulence—rather than rigid like a dry twig in a windstorm, snapping the moment the pressure gets too real.

Off the cushion, this has changed everything too.

My practice now teaches me that the things that scare me—the rooms I want to leave, the conversations I want to exit, the sensations that tell me I can’t be here—those are the exact places where my power is waiting to teach. Those are the places where true peace is forged by fire.

So instead of bolting, I’m training to stay.

Instead of numbing or drugging, I’m training to feel.

Instead of running, I’m training to stand still.

If I can stare down the things I’m convinced I can’t do - the things I’m sure I can’t live without - I learn my power.

That’s when my meditation practice meets the Dharma.

It’s a much longer road to peace, (a bumpier road too) but the calm I’m learning now doesn’t come from forcing myself to relax. It comes from allowing myself to wake up. From opening the eyes of my heart instead of armoring them.

This is the bodhicitta - the awakened heart - the willingness to stay present with what is, even when it’s uncomfortable or frightening or feels impossible.

I don’t practice so I can escape the world anymore. I practice so I can stand fully inside it. Like Bruce Wayne without the muscles or the money, I’m discovering I can do all kinds of things I thought I couldn’t, everyday.

And by learning that I can be still in the very places I want to run from, I’ve found a deeper, more sustaining, almost supernatural calm—the kind the Dharma has been pointing to all along.

This one is different. This is my remix on an ancient Tibetan meditation practice.

You can do this with my guided recording or do it with the sound in your room. No sounds are off limits. Or bad sounds. There is no such thing as a distraction from the meditation because all your sensations and sounds and thoughts and feelings are all a part of the meditation.

In this practice, the anchor is listening with the breathing. Not listening to anything in particular, but listening itself. Placing your attention fully in the ears and letting sound be the doorway into presence.

Breathing and listening work together as the anchor.

When attention wanders, as it always does, it doesn’t wander to something wrong. It wanders to seeing, thinking, tasting, feeling, remembering, planning. All normal. All human.

When that happens, the instruction is simple. Quietly say to yourself, “drifting.”

No judgment. No correction. Just noticing the movement of attention and gently returning to listening or breathing. Do this with gentleness.

Not because you did it wrong, but because noticing and coming back is the entire point.

That’s the whole practice.

Not staying perfectly still.
Not emptying the mind.
Just noticing where attention goes and coming back, again and again.

This is a love practice.
For attention.
For awareness.
For being here.

And when we do this, we see more clearly the hooks. And when we see the hooks more clearly, we are less hooked.

Don’t forget to enjoy the practice.