For the next few weeks, I’m going to be talking about meditation: the why, the how, the process, common misunderstandings, and yes, the frustrations. But today we start with the why: why meditate?

I’ll admit, of all the things I suggest to people as a spiritual director, I get the most resistance regarding meditation. Everyone agrees it’s probably a good idea. Most people recognize the merit of having a meditation practice. Some even have friends (like me) who continually rave about how life-changing it is, and what a powerful shift it created.

Still. People don’t want to meditate.

Like they really, really don’t want to do it.

If you currently belong to that camp, I’m not likely to persuade you. (Full disclosure: I was you for a long time!) But I will share why I believe meditation offers the very best path for an awakened life.

If you take a look around, the world’s a little crazy. And most people spend their days just navigating the crazy as best they can, trying to keep their heads above water and look out for their own. This is not peak living, in my book. It is existing on the surface of things. And you can be guilty of that even when your day job is “meaningful,” even when you have supportive friends and a good thing going. Some of the most unaware people I know are the people with the most resources. The surface beckons to all of us, and most of us take the bait on the regular, me included.

The truth is, it’s easy to live on the surface of things. But that easy feeling? Well, it serves as a very enticing illusion. If we take even just a few moments to dip our heads under the surface, we realize it feels fraught with anxiety and tension and fear and worry and pain. Which is why we quickly return to the surface! In Buddhist lingo, this experience of life is called samsara.

One of my teachers, Ethan Nichtern, describes samsara as “wandering around.” I love that, because it feels like the right picture. We don’t live our lives; we just wander around, aimlessly, skating on the surface of things. It’s not malevolent, necessarily, but it’s very far from intentional, or aware.

Enter meditation. Meditation invites us to stop wandering around and start noticing things. It invites us to wake up. And, over time, meditation teaches us to live underneath the surface of things. You see, we avoid deeper awareness because on some level we feel afraid. We think we can’t deal with whatever we find down there. All that nebulous emotion swirling around can feel so overwhelming. Bless us.

But guess what? When we practice meditation, we learn we can be present to a lot of uncomfortable things. It just takes practice. It just requires some trial and error and a willingness to figure it out as we go. Which is great news, because the first thing we discover when we begin paying attention to our minds is that our minds are ZOOS. They contain a plethora of weird and wild animals. Mine also includes a 24-7 radio station, which is super fun. All this time, I blamed the chaos on whatever was “out there” only to realize a good bit of it resides “in here.” Huh. (And oof.)

But here’s what’s beautiful: awareness leads to awareness. The minute we begin to notice what our minds do, things already start to shift. We notice patterns. We see the same old boring stories pop up again and again. Our hot buttons become painfully apparent. And all of this insight can lead us to change. It wakes us up, and we slowly begin to work with our minds in ways that feel more free and less illusory. We stop using Band-aids and start doing the actual work of healing.

In essence, I don’t believe anything else can bring us inner awareness the way meditation does. What other practice teaches us to mind our minds like this? To work with what we find, and offer gentle compassion to ourselves as we go?

So, why meditate? Because it’s the primary way to awaken to your inner life. And your life deserves your full attention.

Why meditate? Because life awake offers more honest living than a life of wandering around.