Mindfulness Superhero With Meditation Cat

This one was a challenge. I hope you enjoyed it.

Figuring out how to expand on Rongo’s meditation needs and make him a superhero without preaching the benefits of mindfulness while also making it fun and funny—not easy.

A shower of thanks goes to the friends who gave feedback and suggestions. Especially to comedy writer Danny Yang, who helped me tie it all up with a nice button at the end where the cops also meditate.

It was an enjoyable challenge.

Thanks for reading!

Meditation Cat Reaches the End of Thought

A cute comic about discovering deeper meditation.

Creating this story was a fun way to see if I could illustrate a cute character and also turn an article I wrote into a comic. I'm not sure if Rongo, which is a word from New Zealand's indigenous Maori people that means peace, will become a recurring character, but I enjoy drawing him.

It was so enjoyable I’m putting it out there as a practice for you too.

Assignment: Turn your writing, new ideas you’ve learned, or entries in your journal into a short comic. Try taking your writing, pulling out the main idea, and designing a character to show readers your experiences or ideas.

It could be several panels or something short, like a one-panel cartoon similar to the ones you see in The New Yorker. Even if you’re drawing stick figures, see if you can bring your writing to life or something you just went through yesterday with visual storytelling in a sketchbook or journal.

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If you’re interested in meditation, here’s the article I wrote in the publication Publishous on MEDIUM.

What Does it Mean to Reach The End of Thought?

You can get there with this frame of mind.

Photo by Ashley Batz on Unsplash

Getting up in the morning feeling nervous or upset about everything waiting for you in the day ahead can feel overwhelming.

I’ve been meditating for over twenty-five years and have always looked for simple ways to think about the practice. So many people tell me they can’t figure out how to do it or get to a place where they notice the benefits of being mindful.

I watched a powerful video by Dr. K on YouTube, or Alok Kanojia, a psychiatrist and co-founder of the mental health coaching company Healthy Gamer that stuck with me.

In the middle of “Why Finding Purpose is SO HARD today,” he explains about the concept of reaching the “end of thought.” I had never heard this concept before, but when he shared about it, I could finally put into words how to succeed in explaining the benefits of meditation.

Let’s go through the steps he talked about to reach this enlightened place.

Pick a time for mindfulness and sit with yourself

You can meditate traditionally with your legs crossed, sit in a chair, or even lie on a bed. Start breathing in slowly and deeply, paying attention to the different parts of your body one at a time.

It doesn’t have to be only while you’re sitting and not moving.

If you want to be mindful while taking a walk or even drawing, it’s possible if you intend to make the time to connect with the real you and avoid distractions.

“Get away from external stimuli so you can hear your inner voice.”

-Dr. K

There are several phases of awareness that will move you through to reaching yourself.

Sit with your “wants”

Most of your thoughts will first be related to something that’s irritating you or about what you want right now that’s outside of yourself.

Something you’re told should matter.

Mainly stuff you want to do today or think you need to possess, eat, play, or earn to make your life happy—aka desires!

Make it through the boredom

After all of your desires filter through, you’ll feel like you’re left with nothing but sitting there.

Bored.

Many people who try meditation give up on this part. They think, “I can’t meditate. It’s too damn boring!” Or, they think they’re doing it wrong and should be receiving some sort of divine guidance or inner glow after a few minutes of sitting and breathing.

Remember, boredom is your brain trying to get a hit of dopamine or excitement so that it can have fun again. Don’t let it stop you. Let boredom sit there and be bored.

Stay with yourself and give the emptiness time to just be. Don't get up.

You’ll notice your thoughts moving quickly at first and then start slowing down.

Reach the end of thought

If you’re still sitting with yourself, you’ll reach a place where all the other thoughts cease, and as you keep breathing, you’ll meet your true self.

When this happens to me, I notice a feeling of calm, and I even say hello to the real me. The me that’s not manipulated by what the outside world says I should want or do.

It’s lovely.

How long it takes to reach the end of thought depends on how much is going on in your life and how often you meditate.

I find it takes me around ten minutes to get there.

Not as long as you might think, huh? The nice thing is that you want to stay for a while once you get to that place within yourself. It’s comforting to sit with who you are and be at peace.

I look forward to it every morning.

If an emotion comes up, you can feel it intensely and let it dissipate when it’s done showing itself to you. Your shoulders relax, and you become more aware of your body as a whole.

Discover your personal goals

With your quiet connection to yourself, you’ll start to hear only your internal goals speaking.

Anything that’s important to your overall fulfillment will come into your mind. The values that are important to who you are will be easier to notice and remember.

All the distractions are gone, so you can find out what it is you really need.

The hard part will be accepting what your true self is telling you.

Create a life based on your values

One of the greatest benefits of meditation is the ability to tap into yourself and see what you need in order to be fulfilled.

Not what your parents want you to be. Not what society says you should be.

What do you truly want and need to be doing during your time on this planet? You might be surprised at what you hear.

Meditation helps you become aligned with your personal life goals. Once you know them, you can do the things you need to pursue and reach them.

Anytime you get distracted by external messages, remember to sit with yourself and tune in through mindfulness. You can always find yourself with a little quiet and patience with the present moment.

Dr. K talks about how people are always looking for the reason why human beings are here. What’s the meaning of life?!

“The purpose of life is not in life, it’s in you.”

-Dr. K

It’s all inside of you. Stop looking for someone to tell you what your purpose is and find it in yourself. Then, decide to take the real you exactly where you need to go.

Try meditating again today — maybe after reading this article — and sit for a long enough time to find where your thoughts end and your true self begins.

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Meditating at a Mountain Temple in Japan

What you can learn from my adventure of mindfulness

All photos were taken by or illustrated by the author.

I like knowing I’m doing the right thing. Who doesn’t?

Making sure to meditate every morning is something I think I’m doing right, but I’m probably wrong. Accepting your biases and thinking your point of view may not be accurate is something I’m working on improving.

I can say, sitting in silence for 10–20 minutes first thing in the morning helps me face my emotions head-on. When it’s time to write or draw, it’s easier for me to plug into my creativity and get going.

There must be something to it.

I just recently returned from a phenomenal trip to Koyasan, a town on top of a mountain full of ancient Buddhist temples in the Kansai region of Japan. I’ve wanted to go for many years. Visiting my in-laws in Osaka allowed me to finally get close enough to make the overnight expedition happen.

Even if you’re not a practicing Buddhist, you can pray in the temples, as long as you throw a few coins in the donation bin before clapping your hands twice and bowing.

Getting up to the temples is no joke.

You can only take a cable car straight up the mountain. Beautiful views, but you definitely feel far removed from the regular world below.

I believe Kobo Daishi, the monk who established the town over a thousand years ago, meant it as a place for zen training and meditation. You can tell by the calmness all around the area.

Many of the original temples were burned down during wars or due to lightning strikes but rebuilt multiple times over the years and are gorgeous.

The temple we meditated in during our visit. The doors were open, but no pictures were allowed inside.

This is the temple next to the ryokan (Japanese traditional style hotel) we stayed in during our visit. The doors are closed now, but they were open for us to have an enjoyable meditation class inside in the morning.

You’re not allowed to take photos of the interior but believe me, the decorations were ornate and beautiful. We had two monks sharing how to pray and meditate.

I remember them mentioning sitting with your legs crossed with the left one under the right. Your hands are in your lap, palms up, with your left hand under your right as well. Somehow, you should close your eyes almost all the way shut, not fully closed, and look down at your nose.

They said this helps you focus more, but I kept closing my eyes after about twenty seconds.

We couldn’t be in the full crossed legs position because the monks had us sit on small benches inside the temple. Placing our hands together and breathing deeply for several minutes is something we could do while sitting.

Looking at my nose and holding my left hand under my right, palms up, helped me focus on being in the present moment. Now, when I’m at home practising, on the floor with my legs folded and my hands, I notice how much smoother I ease into deep meditation.

My mind wanders less at first.

Getting your body in the proper position and posture truly makes a difference. I knew sitting on the floor with my back straight helped before, but now I’m even more convinced stacking your hands and touching your thumbs together helps to center your mind.

The monks showed us that rocking side to side helps to loosen your body if sitting in the position is uncomfortable at first. I understood that even monks have days when sitting correctly may be difficult.

In the beginning, you can always find a way to make something work better for yourself.

Calligraphy writing was surprisingly meditative

We also practised writing calligraphy with a brush pen when we returned to our room. I couldn’t write Japanese, but it didn’t matter. I mainly had to trace.

The kanji characters were underneath; all you had to do was brush over them. The writing is about living a peaceful life, and the monks recited this during our meditation practice time. Writing with a brush pen was meditative and took more time than I thought, but I stuck with it.

I felt there was a lesson there.

The results of my calligraphy writing practice.

As a cartoonist, one of my favorite details about Koyasan, and just about everywhere in Japan, is how they have cute mascots.

This little monk character, Koyakun, was everywhere we went, giving advice and showing us around.

Koyakun was everywhere with helpful signs to guide you.

Koyasan monks practice Shingon Buddhism. Therefore, how they taught meditation goes along with how that particular sect practices.

Even with their advice, I still believe you can meditate any way you choose. It’s easier if you think about it openly and not full of strict rules.

You should start a meditation practice if you haven’t already. We hear some of the benefits of meditation, like more self-awareness and clear thinking, but is this true for everybody? The statistics would say so. In fact, a lot of folks are into “facing themselves” daily.

-It is believed that between 200 and 500 million people worldwide meditate.

-Data from the National Health Interview Survey in 2017 showed that 16.3% of women meditate, compared to 12% of men.

-The Headspace meditation app has been downloaded sixty-five million times. [10]

Meditation should be relaxing, so chill out about the correct way to do it

If you’d like to try meditation, I suggest relaxing your expectations with how you think it should look. Sometimes you can talk yourself out of something great because you feel it must be done a certain way. Like it would be best if you resembled a bald monk sitting cross leg with perfect posture for hours.

I try my best to sit their way, with my left leg under and right leg on top and hands in my lap palms up, but sometimes I sit in a chair.

The most challenging idea for me to accept is that it’s all about mindfulness and not how you sit. Being present when and where you are and noticing your body and thoughts.

That’s it, pretty simple.

Whether you’re doing this for ten minutes — which I think is the minimum amount of time to notice a difference — or an hour, you can focus on yourself anywhere. There are times when I’m stressed that stopping what I’m doing and taking three deep breaths helps to calm me down.

All the distractions in our modern world can block our thinking. You must deal with your emotions, swimming around, desiring your attention, and making space to work things out in your subconscious.

Meditating is genuinely part of a creative life. Add as much of it as possible to your day, and watch as you calm down and think clearly more often.

Of course, I could be wrong, but it’s the most specific change I made to my life over twenty years ago, and I continually see positive results. When life gets crazy, I meditate more.

Here are more stats if you need a push to get started.

-Research conducted in 2016 sought to discover the health benefits of meditation and understand the practice’s growth. Below is the list of reasons given for starting to meditate:

• General wellness (76.2%)

• Improving energy (60%)

• Aiding memory or concentration (50%)

• Anxiety (29.2%)

• Stress (21.6%)

• Depression (17.8%)

In the case of all the above conditions, 60% of the people questioned in the study reported that meditation helped them significantly.

-People who meditate can reduce their chance of being hospitalized for coronary heart disease by 87%. [10]

The groundbreaking research was initially conducted in 1989 and followed up fifteen years later to see if the mantra meditation was still working its magic.

It was found that the group who used the technique had a lower CV mortality rate than those who didn’t participate in the practice.

The 1989 project focused on 73 residents, and further research has backed up the finding; however, it is still felt further research is needed to understand the full effects.

They, just like me, could be wrong.

-But wait! Did you know that 25% of people who meditate report having an unpleasant psychological experience? [23]

I guess meditation isn’t for everyone. A study of 1,232 participants found that a quarter experienced adverse effects such as anxiety, fear, and distorted emotions.

Sure, the study might have been confirmed, but we have no idea what was going on in the lives of the people in this study at the time. You know I’m open to hearing other arguments, but I believe most people will feel positive benefits from regular meditation if they try it for a month or more, and this should be enough time to turn it into a habit.

Try meditating more and see how you feel

You don’t need to travel to Japan and ascend a mountain to practice meditation—hopefully, I helped you see that. When you practice, I bet you’ll appreciate my shared benefits.

I love how you can become more aware of what’s right for you when you meditate regularly. Your “still small voice” gets louder, and you make better decisions. Decisions that are based on what you truly desire.

Knowing how to pause before, say, picking your phone right up when notification dings and waiting to finish writing that page is what I love. You can have more control over yourself when you’re aware of what you’re doing.

Thanks for joining my Koyosan adventure and learning more about meditation.

How do you meditate?

Meditation is amazing but, what if you hate being with yourself? 3 powerful ways to tolerate time alone with your thoughts

Life can be stressful. People say, “Make time to meditate. Quiet your mind, and it will melt all your worries away.” That’s nice and all but, what if you can’t stand being with yourself?

I’m serious, what if you feel like a jerk inside and want nothing to do with that person?

Let’s say you sit down, in that awkwardly uncomfortable folded legs position—lotus I think it’s called—puff your chest out and close your eyes. Your annoying mind keeps yelling at you.

Not even about important topics. Just dumb stuff, like what to eat for breakfast and which podcast you’ll listen to on the way to work.

Annoying.

You’ve heard some of those benefits of meditation; a focused mind, inner peace, and more patience to approach the challenges of daily life. It’s estimated that stress is the cause of 90% of doctor visits. That is insane.

We all definitely need more time for mindfulness in our lives. How can you shut off the mouthy jerk inside your head and focus on that sought after quiet? 

1. Accept that your emotions want all of your attention and will try and distract you while you meditate.

This is normal. You’re not doing it wrong.  

Let yourself be who and what you are at that moment. Be present. Even if all the mess in your head is driving you nuts. 

Make peace with the anxious, emotional, and overly fearful part of yourself. It only wants to be heard, felt, and acknowledged.

2. Make those emotions stronger

If you have a lot on your mind, sit there and listen to yourself. If you notice strong feelings, pay attention to them. In fact, amplify them and make the emotions stronger. 

Give each emotion and thought inside your head some of your time, notice where in your body the feelings are, and they will gradually dissolve away. 

You’ll see that by sitting with your annoying voices and negative emotions and giving them your full attention, it will help you release and move on to the more positive ones.

When I started meditating regularly several years ago, this was tough for me.

I knew that I was never going to get rid of feeling crappy sometimes. Having the courage to sit with the mess of my thoughts was no easy task and I’m still no expert. 

I have found, though, that giving all of those thoughts and their emotions, time in the spotlight then shining several other lights directly on them, helps them to disappear. 

Meditating is generally pretty simple. Sit in a comfortable position with your legs folded, or on a chair with your hands in your lap. Breathe slowly, in through your nose and out through your mouth. Focus on your breath. 

When the thoughts start flooding in, treat them like that annoying coworker you barely know, who likes coming up and telling you all of their problems. You smile politely and nod, give them their time, until they finish and go away. 

Know that you don’t have to be in total control. Even though it’s hard to let go and tune in, do your best to stay present.

3. Meditate for at least ten minutes 

There’s something magical about getting to the ten-minute mark.  

Give yourself time to move through emotions and reach calm. I’ve read that twenty-minutes of meditation is ideal, but I know for me, reaching ten minutes is where I begin to melt into the moment.

You’ll find those annoying voices will dissipate, and it will be easier to be in a state of tranquility.

You will begin to focus on the moment. You will find yourself. The true self that is always there but buried under all that mess.

Believe me, you’ll like how the “true you” feels. You want to make sure to meet.

What if you can’t spend 20-30 minutes meditating most days? Don’t worry about it. 

If you can only do ten minutes, that’s what you do. Paying attention to yourself is the key.

Scheduling meditation time—making it a routine—is what keeps me on track. Every morning, it’s one of the first things I do.   

I have grown to like my inner thoughts more, and I believe you can too. 

When you go out and face the world, you will notice how much easier it will be to pay attention to one task at a time. You will feel less rushed. Anxiety will take a backseat, and you’ll gain more confidence and acceptance with the process of your regular daily life. 

Do your best to sit in meditation for ten minutes every day. Experience all of your emotions fully. 

Over time, you will understand and love yourself more, and the magic within each day will transform your life.