Before I went to study in Thailand, I had this notion that you had to be perfect to be allowed to be a Buddhist. I felt like Buddhism was the most aligned with my own deeply held beliefs, but there was this obstacle of my profound imperfection.

I remember standing in a market in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I was watching a scene unfold that changed my views on who could be a Buddhist.

Someone shoplifted something from a stall, and the women who owned the stall saw him. She was holding a live chicken by its legs when she took off running after him, screaming and flapping this poor chicken at him. I looked back at her now empty stall, and I noticed a Buddhist altar. It was mounted up high on the wall, the style of Chinese altars that you often see in Northern Thailand. 

My next thought was “if she’s allowed to be a Buddhist, then I’m allowed to be a Buddhist”. 

Buddhism drew me in with the ideas of reincarnation, that all sentient life is valuable, and the focus on meditation. I desperately wanted to feel calmer and more in control. I come from a family that was so fundamentally different from me in terms of how to interact with the world, that I was always an anxious ball of stress. 

People often thought I was a confident and strong person, when on the inside I was desperately trying to hold things together. I would fly into a rage or break down crying over things that seemed trivial to the outside world, but to me they were an accumulation of unmet needs and pent-up feelings I didn’t know how to handle. 

My first teacher in Thailand was Mama Nit. I’d gone to Thailand as a leap of faith, hoping to study with her. I’d read about her in a book; you had to meet her first before she’d accept you as a student.

Fortunately, she accepted me, and I began my studies. My official course of study there was traditional Thai massage. I’d had one a few years earlier, and it made such an impression, I wanted to learn how to do this magical thing.

The thing with Thai massage is that it’s considered a Buddhist practice. Which means it’s considered a good deed, with roots that are said to go back to the Doctor to the Buddha. This technique is traditionally taught in Buddhist temples, and it’s important to say a prayer before you begin.

So this is how my first genuine success in meditation began. Mama Nit had a Buddhist monk who would help her teach, translate here and there, and teach the prayer. I learned the full prayer, but I also learned an abbreviated version, which became my daily prayer. 

I’d tried to learn meditation from books, I didn’t even know about mantra meditation yet. Doing this brief prayer, as the monk taught me, turns out to be mantra meditation. Out of respect for my teacher, I kept doing the prayer. I enjoyed the idea of lineage, and I didn’t want to break the chain from teacher to student, and this prayer was a critical link. 

Over time I noticed some differences in the way I reacted to things, there were differences in the way I felt about things. The people around me noticed too. I finally connected the dots and realized I’d been meditating, and it had changed me. 

I got serious about learning more about other techniques, I studied with more teachers, mostly Buddhist teachers from Asia. A neighbor who’s also a Tibetan Lama allowed me to meditate with him, and he gave me a Tibetan name, that’s something along the lines of “Meditation Teacher”.

Along the way I realized that an actual teacher, not just a book, made all the difference to me. So with some little nudges from my teachers, I started teaching meditation.

There are classes, apps for your phone, podcasts and more that teach meditation without acknowledging the roots of their own practice. I don’t want to do that. My roots include Theravada Buddhism, Gelugpa Tibetan Buddhism, along with some Zen and Taoism. I’m a certified Lay Buddhist teacher, and I received my Medicine Buddha initiation from H.H. the Dalai Lama. 

Though I break meditation down into small, easy-to-understand pieces, and the Buddhism isn’t always obvious, I want to assure you that the roots are there. If you are a person who believes that your religion doesn’t practice meditation, or that you’re being indoctrinated into something dangerous, I assure you that’s a terrible misunderstanding.

Meditation is done in all the major religions. It’s often called other names, like chanting or contemplative prayer. My father was a fully ordained priest, and though many Christians don’t think it’s a Christian practice, meditation is mentioned dozens of times in the Bible. My father They taught my father to meditate in the seminary, but they were taught it was too hard for lay people.

So I bring you a technique that can be adopted no matter what your spiritual tradition is, and I’m happy to report that I’ve worked very hard at creating an approach to learning mantra meditation that’s beautiful in its simplicity.

If you haven’t already, I hope you’ll give mantra meditation a try. You can start with my free course here.

*typos and other errors provided for your entertainment.