Let's Not Try So Hard

Lets Not Try So Hard

Most people who begin a serious spiritual practice end up in the same place eventually. Not enlightened. Exhausted. Every difficult moment becomes a test of the practice. Every negative emotion becomes evidence of insufficient development. The tradition that was supposed to make the life lighter has become another job. Another standard to fall short of.

In this episode, Kit Mann makes the case that Taoism actually asks three things of you. Live in the present moment. Notice when you are not there, and return. Understand your nature and be true to it. That is the whole path. Not a simplified summary for beginners. The actual path.

Kit also talks about what happens when pain is used as spiritual material too quickly, why the meaning-making that arrives before the feeling has finished is not processing but avoidance, and what a Zen master named Nansen said to a monk who kept pushing for the special technique.

Also: a listener question from James in Adair, Oklahoma, who has made serious mistakes in his past and is trying to become a better person — and whose conscience, Kit argues, is working exactly as it should be.