Meditation -- A Beginner's Practical Guide

Yo, what's up?
It's Owen from RSD.

Just lookin' at the shot I got here.

[yawning]
And, uh, I had a long day, so ...

Been getting a lot of questions
about meditation [coughs]

and I thought today would be
a great day to answer them.

So let's do it.

Had a lot of questions asked
about this for a long time.

People are curious, my thoughts
on the topic of meditation,

so, even though I'm not the best
person to answer these questions,

'cause there's a lot of different
people that are experts at it,

a lot of people were curious what
my thoughts were on it,

so I'll give you my opinion, and if you
like the sorts of ideas I throw at you,

then what I'd encourage you to do is
go out and find a better teacher,

someone who is really,
really good at it,

and they can teach you how to do
meditation in a more detailed way.

But I guess a lot of people were
curious about my opinions on it,

because I'm not some, like,
spiritual woo-woo guy,

I'm just kind of like a practical dude,

and interested in the more
practical ramifications of it.

So, uh, y'know, if you want my
thoughts on it, here they are,

and otherwise you can
go out and look elsewhere.

Meditation is basically the idea that you
spend 20 minutes a day doing nothing, OK?

No thinking. No thinking about
the future, no thinking about the past,

but literally just resting your awareness
in the present moment.

All right, so, say I was gonna do that.
Sit here with you and do it right now.

I'm gonna cross my legs,
but actually, funny enough,

and this is the first thing I'll teach you,
you don't need to cross your legs, actually.

I'm not even very flexible. Look at this:
I can barely even cross my legs.

Probably some people that are into yoga
could teach me how to do that.

But I'm not flexible at all, so usually
I'll just sit in a chair in my home

and do it. I want to get as
comfortable as possible.

And basically, just resting my
awareness on the present moment,

I would do the following:

(laughs)

OK, fun stuff, huh? All right, well,
that's basically all that meditation is.

So you just sit down -- you could
lie down if you want,

I guess you could stand up.
I usually just sit in a chair, like I said,

and you don't think.

All right, so, if I tell you not to think,
what's going to happen?

Well, the first thing you're probably
going to be prone to doing

is judging yourself for how
much you're thinking.

So you'll be like, OK, don't think.
Wait, now I'm thinking!

Shit, now I just said I'm thinking!
OK, don't think.

But look at that leaf over there. It's
green. Shit, I'm thinking about the leaf.

I'm so bad at this! How do they do this?
How could you spend 20 minutes doing this?

How could someone spend
a week doing this?

Right, so that's usually what happens
when someone first tries meditation.

So what we'll do right now is an exercise,

where I'm gonna ask you to not think
for, say, five seconds,

and rather than not think, since
that's not gonna be effective,

what I want you to do is
simply shift your awareness.

So fuck not thinking, and simply shift
your awareness into your breathing.

OK, so as you breathe, just be like
[inhales and exhales slowly]

what I do there. Just shifted my
awareness to my breathing, OK?

So let's spend right now five seconds
-- only five seconds --

just basically shifting your awareness
from all the thoughts that you have

projecting into the future of things you
gotta do and concerns that you have,

or possible paths you're gonna take.
Stop thinking about the past,

and all those things that happened
to you and analyzing them,

and simply shift your awareness
away from those

and onto the fact that
you are currently breathing.

OK.

All right, maybe you're watching this and
you had no problem doing that whatsoever,

but on the flip side, maybe
you're watching this

and that was actually very
difficult for you.

If it was very difficult for you,
again I gotta really emphasize,

stop judging. Stop getting caught up
in how well you're doing,

and if you do have a thought like,
How well am I doing?

what I want you to do is let it go.

So any time that you do meditation
and a thought comes into your mind,

rather than analyzing it, or rather
than clasping onto it like a pitbull,

just simply watch it float by,
so to speak. OK?

Sounds kind of funny, but,
y'know, watch it float by.

So say you're meditating, you're like
[sound indicating focus: zhooop!]

and you're present, no thoughts at all,
just [focusing sound],

just aware of the sounds,
feelings in your body,

aware of the energy in your body,
that's it,

and then suddenly you think, Oh,
do I have to pay my rent?

Rather than say, Shit, I have to pay my
rent. Fuck! Oh, I thought -- shit! Fuck!

-- like that, instead just be like, I have
to pay my rent, and then go, like,

kind of like be aware, like, oh, I had
a thought, but just be aware

that you had a thought, and then
[focusing sound] back out.

So it's almost like when you're present
to the moment, OK, present to the moment,

again, not in the future, not in the past,
but [focusing sound] right here,

you're just present to the moment.

When you lose that focus, either
into the future or the past,

it's almost like a set of binoculars
or a camera that's like zhooooooop!

like that, right back into your head,
and then you gotta [reverses the sound]

back out, OK? So it'd almost be like if I
took this camera lens and went zhooop,

like that, and then [reverses sound]
back out.

That's basically how you
wanna think about it.

OK, now, let's say that you do this for,
um, 20 minutes a day, OK?

Let's say you're doing 20 minutes
a day of this.

What you're gonna find is that sometimes
you'll have a couple of seconds,

or even a couple of minutes, where you're
really, really present to the moment.

It's really clear.
It's a very relaxing feeling.

You're not eager for it to end,
you're just completely clear.

You're just aware of your boring room.

Now of course, this is probably one of the
most beautiful places on the planet,

at least in my opinion, so don't worry
about the fact that you're not there.

I usually do this in a room.
In fact, to be honest,

if I was sitting in my family room, it
would probably be easier to do than here,

which most people would
probably disagree with,

but that's just my personal prerogative,
'cause I'm used to doing it at home, right?

At home I can just stare at the wall.
I literally just stare at the wall.

Now you might have questions like,
should you stare at one specific point?

What happens if you look around?
What happens if you cough?

What happens if you shift? So here's
some of my answers for that.

What I like to do is I like to
do it for 20 minutes,

so I'll set my alarm on my phone,
actually for 21 minutes,

and I do that so psychologically I've
given myself one minute to shift around.

You'll find when you first sit down,
you want to scratch little itches,

you want to swallow a bunch of times,

you want to maneuver yourself
so that you're comfortable,

and if you don't limit that to
around a minute or two --

y'know, I use about a minute --
you'll keep wanting to scratch,

wanting to shift, keep wanting
to make it better.

But what's kind of weird, this is
really weird about meditation,

is that if you just stay still and you
accept it -- so for example,

when the itch comes, much like
the thought that you don't clasp onto,

you simply accept that the itch is there,
and don't analyze it or try to resist it,

you just sort of let it go and surrender to
the fact that this annoying itch is there,

or this annoying posture that
you're sitting in is there,

you'll find it kind of goes away,
which is intense, right?

It's intense to think about that.

I even find -- I don't know if
anyone else finds this --

but I find that I don't even need to
swallow saliva as much

if I'm very present to the moment.
It just doesn't seem to come up,

and I don't know if that's completely
delusional, but that tends to be what I find.

Now, I'm not gonna do this perfectly.
So if I meditate for 20 minutes,

it's pretty unlikely that I'm honestly
gonna sit there for 20 minutes perfectly.

At some point I'm probably
gonna shift around.

At some point I'm probably gonna swallow.
At some point I'm probably gonna cough,

maybe once or twice. But notice that you
shifted it from an ongoing need to do this

to maybe just a few different times.

If it's distracting you to the point that
it's messing up your session,

then just deal with it, but otherwise
don't worry about it.

Accept it and just let it flow past.
Now how about as far as how long to do it?

Why do I like to do it for 20 minutes?
Well, for me 20 minutes is really good

because I find that around maybe the
8- to 16-minute mark, type thing,

I'll become very present. So definitely
the first five, ten minutes for me,

I'm not gonna slip into it as easily.

And then a little bit later
I'll become very, very present,

and I'll slip into it no problem at all.

So, um -- what's up, dude?

So ... the reason that I wanna do it
a little bit longer is just that

if I only do it for one minute,
it's really not that different

than just sitting down for a minute.

If I do it for too long, then I'm
utilizing huge chunks of my day

to practice becoming present,
and that's not really something

that I'm interested in doing,
to tell you the truth.

So, the way that I like to do it
is I like to just become present

for about 20 minutes, and ideally I kind
of slip in and out of states of like being

very, very present to not being
that present, and then, uh ...

what'll happen is usually in the last
maybe 12 minutes to say, 4 or 5 minutes,

I'm really, really present. But I
don't want you to be analyzing it.

I don't want you to be saying, How
well did I do with meditation today?

Did I do well, did I do bad?
You'll kinda know,

because some sessions are just so clear,
and other sessions are, uh [laughs]

pretty slow-going and not that different
than just sort of sitting there

and thinking and thinking and thinking.
But that doesn't really matter, OK?

It's a lot like going out and learning
game, where some nights are amazing

and you're in the zone,
and other nights you're just not.

Meditation parallels this to
a freakishly similar extent.

How 'bout eyes open vs. eyes closed?

OK, so I like to do eyes open because
when I keep my eyes open,

that means that when I go up
to a woman, I'm talking to her,

I can look at her like this ...

and I don't have a lot of
flinching going on.

So I'm not going "Hm?" Like y'know,
she gives me a, say she says,

You're a pasty white, short,
balding ginger.

Instead of going Mmm, like, twitching
and getting upset, I'm just like ...

Mm-hm. Y'know, something like that, right?
I'm kind of like overthinking this now.

[laughs]

But anyway, that tends to be how I am.
So meditation with my eyes open

trains me to actually become present
in a dynamic environment.

A lot of people are into meditation
as a sub-culture.

So for example, they're in it to try to
become spiritually enlightened.

And that's cool. If you wanna become
spiritually enlightened, that's pretty cool,

but the reason that I'm focused on it
[laughs]

is that I like the day-to-day practical
benefits, so that's why I like to do it

with my eyes open, so that I'm not,
like, present,

like, I'm like a little ball of light,
then I open my eyes I'm like ahh!

Like that, y'know. I wanna train myself
to be present in my everyday life.

So I like to go eyes open,
seated anywhere,

and I put on the alarm because I don't
like to wonder how much longer I have.

I've personally just found that if
I don't know how long I have,

that I'm gonna keep wondering about it,
and now that I do it all the time,

I can generally sense the 20 minutes,
but I prefer to just put an alarm,

and different people have
different opinions about this.

I do it before bed because
I'm a night person,

and if I do it in the morning
I just find it's completely, uh,

almost like a waste of my time. Sometimes
I'll do a couple minutes in the morning,

but then I do it properly every night.
But most people, funny enough,

conversely, like to do it in the morning.
[laughs]

And they like to do it in the morning
because they find it sets off their day right.

I'm just not a morning person. That could
be from years of going out late at night,

it could be for any reason.
I don't know why.

I just find that I'm really, really
clear-thinking late at night.

Now funny enough, you'd
think to yourself,

well, if you do meditation
right before bed,

would the benefits of being more present to
the moment carry over into the next day?

And what I find is that they do.

Basically what happens is that
meditation kind of trains your mind

to stay in a different zone. So for
example, I hiked in here about 11 miles,

and what you'll tend to find is with an
11-mile hike, which is up and down cliffs,

so if you look at the cliffs in the
background, you're hiking along

the sides of stuff like that and
stuff actually a lot more sketchy,

is that the first mile,
you really resist it.

You're like, ugh, this is miserable,
I'm so tired.

And then the joke that I like to give
-- and this is just a joke,

'cause I like to be kind of like ironic --
is I say you have to give up hope.

I'll say this to my buddies, they're like,
how much longer is this, is it hard?

I'm like, Give up hope! There's no hope!
This is all there is: endless pain!

And I'll say that to them and it's a joke,
but what I'm trying to say,

'cause you know I like to be pretty
sarcastic a lot of the time,

just kind of clown around, I'm trying
to say don't resist it.

Don't sit there thinking, How much
longer do I have?

How much longer is this gonna be?
This is uncomfortable.

Just get rid of all that.
Just surrender to it completely.

When you do that, rather than thinking,
How far have I gone?

Or rather than thinking, How much
further is it for me to get here?

What you'll find is you just
think about the next step,

and when you're focused on the next step,
what that does is it draws your perception

out of the mind and towards each
step that's in front of you.

That is so vital on a trail like the
ones that you see here,

because if you roll your ankle out here,
or hurt your knee, or cut yourself up,

y'know, I'm sure you'll find a way out
one way or another [laughs]

but it's gonna be completely miserable.
So you do not want that to happen.

You wanna be fully immersed
in each step that you take.

This is no different than, say, building a
business that might take a decade or two.

If you start thinking about how far you
have to go, you could go crazy.

So you wanna think to an extent, because
you wanna be thinking about your plans,

you wanna kind of change the direction,
but then once you change the direction,

you can kind of come back out of your
thinking mind and just stay present

to exactly what's in front of you. If you
see the type of work I do right now,

I like to do my free tour events --
you've probably seen videos of that --

then I have my Hot Seat event,
and then I do Bootcamp,

and I've been doing that, actually,
on tour for a couple of years now.

So every single time I do a free tour,
when I walk to the free tour,

I know that I'm gonna go do it,
I don't think ahead.

I've seen a lot of people who do jobs
similar to mine, they psych themselves out.

I don't do that at all. I'm just in a
good mood, and I get there, I'm like,

Oh, I'm at the free tour, and then I kind
of melt into the moment, I merge into it,

I just rock it, and I love being up there
because it makes me very present

and time just breezes by.
There's nowhere else I'd rather be.

And then when I do Hot Seat, oftentimes
I'm on like two or three hours sleep only,

because I like to run my Bootcamps really
late, because once I start doing Bootcamp

I'm having so much fun I don't like to
sleep, and I'll just keep running them.

So sometimes I'll run them really, really
late, and then I wake up in the morning

to do my Hot Seat event early in the
morning, and I'm totally exhausted,

and I think, How am I gonna do this?
And again I just don't think.

And then I just get there and I start
to get into it, and I start to love it.

And then I get onto Bootcamp and I think,
Oh man, I'm gonna have to

approach all these girls, and it's gonna
be all crazy. Again, I just don't think.

You just go about it. You merge
into the process.

So you get away from thinking
about the outcome,

and you take the joy in the process itself.

So the paradox of being completely
immersed in the process

is that you wind up getting to the
outcome more effectively.

It's like, if you approach a girl, and
you're having so much fun talking to her,

as long as you have a general idea of the
general direction that you wanna go,

when you're fully immersed in the process
of it, you're having so much more fun,

you're just such a cooler guy,
that you wind up getting her.

You'll notice this especially even
in the late phases, when you've

got the girl in your room and she's not
sure if she's gonna sleep with you or not.

When you're just completely present with
her, just completely there,

she detects no outcome from you, you're
a lot funnier, you're a lot more sexual,

you're a lot more in the moment
in terms of your sexuality,

she just winds up hooking up with you.
Meanwhile if you're like, I gotta get laid,

gotta get laid, right? Then you're less
likely to do it, less likely to be funny,

less likely to entice her. So from
doing meditation regularly,

it's similar to the 11-mile hike in here,
where that first mile, your brain is still

caught up in this continual mode of
getting to the next outcome,

getting to the next outcome,
getting to the next outcome.

But when you hike for 11 miles, after a
while it really just breaks you down.

It just gets you to the point
of complete surrender,

and you start to enjoy the hike itself.
What you realize is

that it's not the destination
but the journey that's actually fun.

And really this goes for life, because the
end destination of life is to be dead.

So the journey of life is the fun itself.

So when you do meditation every day,
you're actually training your mind

to get into that zone, that sweet spot.
You're conditioning yourself to do this.

You can also do this by going out.

You can also do this by any
type of flow state activity.

So any activity that actually puts you
into a flow state

you'll find will achieve a similar
benefit to meditation,

but what I find is that sometimes people
will use flow state activities

as an excuse not to do meditation.
Or they'll use thinking a lot,

and planning their day a lot, as an
excuse not to do meditation.

So sometimes I'll tell people about
meditation and they'll say,

Oh, that's kind of like what I do,
I'll be in the shower,

and I plan out my day for like an hour.
That was a buddy of mine who said that.

Or they'll say, I'll just go out into
the woods and really think about my life

and what I'm doing with it. And that's
very different. That's a different activity.

I know with girls, they'll say that dancing
can be a very good flow state activity.

Or surfing, y'know, things like that, and
again, these are amazing activities,

just like for me public speaking and
teaching are my flow state activities

that I love more than anything, but
meditation is actually a 20-minute

chunk per day where you're spending it
with a deliberate intention

of training your mind to
slip into that spot.

Eckhart Tolle, who wrote the books The
Power of Now and A New Earth,

two of my favorite books ever, he talks
about the analogy of a bicycle tire

that's spinning, and it has its own
momentum, so when you stop pushing

on the tire, what winds up happening is
eventually it loses that momentum

and becomes still. Another example
would be like crossing a stream.

So if you're gonna cross a stream, and
you want to see what's at the bottom of it,

if you keep shaking up the bottom of it,
you'll never see it. It'll never be clear.

But if you stop shaking the bottom of it,
eventually you'll be able to see with clarity.

Or maybe a better analogy than a stream,
'cause that's always kinda moving,

would be like a little body of water, some
little small body of water, right?

If you keep kicking the dirt around, you
won't get clarity. So you need to stop.

That's really what meditation is,
is you're training your mind to stop.

So say that I sit here and I'm like,
I'm thinking, I'm thinking, I'm thinking,

right? And then I go like, OK,
I'm onto my breath now. [breathes]

Well, that kind of trained me one way to
get presence, but then let's say that I,

y'know, I go back into my head. And then
maybe I shift my awareness to the sounds.

Which are actually pretty cool. I don't
know how well you can hear it

through the mike. I hear birds and
waves and wind, so, can't beat that!

That's pretty good. You know, if you're
at home you probably hear

a refrigerator or something like that.
So that could be another way

to get presence. Another way could be
to take conscious breaths,

and you shift your focus to that,
but funny enough,

another way could be to just observe the
breath and not put any deliberate

energy into animating your breath, and
some people find that to be better.

Sometimes I find just, I get into a zone
where I'm just completely out of my head

and I'm just there. It's like locked in.
That's kind of intense too,

'cause you can be present for, like,
7, 8 minutes straight doing that,

and when you kind of knock back into it
you're like whoa, that was fuckin' presence.

So when you're present, I think a lot of
people are assuming they're gonna get

some kind of extreme bliss out of it,
and I don't think that that's the case.

But rather what you get is
a sense of general peace,

so you're not thinking very much,
and your body is not having these

cortisol adrenaline responses that you
would normally be having throughout the day.

So there's a great book by a guy
named Herbert Benson,

who was a Harvard medical doctor, and he
called that book The Relaxation Response,

so you can look that up, The Relaxation
Response by Herbert Benson,

and what he basically explained there
is that we have something called a

fight or flight response. And a fight or
flight response is the idea that in nature

you would experience stress in short bursts.
So for example you might bump into a lion

and get this huge surge of adrenaline
that shuts off your body's natural

repair mechanisms, and basically just
directs all of the body's energy

into being really alert and
having a lot of energy.

So that would be good in nature because
then you'd run away from the animal,

and you could go back to your village
and you'd be totally fine.

But what happens in modern society is that
the threat might be something like

coming up with rent money, or some kind of
social scenario that's bothering you,

or different complexities of modern life,
and that fight or flight response

is at like a refrigerator-hum low level
that's almost unnoticeable when you're in it

and it stays there permanently. So this
causes people to get sick, shortens your life,

compromises your immune system.
It's not a good stress.

Y'know, a positive stress, they call that
eustress, OK? Eustress.

And that's something more like where
you go on like a roller coaster ride

or play an exciting sports game, or
watch an exciting sports game,

where the stress is actually invigorating,

but chronic, low-level stress
is not healthy for you.

So what meditation does, and this is
what Herbert Benson explains,

is it elicits a relaxation response. It
actually flushes the cortisol

and adrenaline out of your system.

Some people also believe that when you
meditate, you're actually summoning

like a recharging of energy that goes
very, very deep into the cells.

So while you're sitting there you might
feel like you're accomplishing nothing,

but actually you're recharging. You are
soaking in good, present energy.

See, what most people tend to do is
they get addicted on either stimulus,

like, Huh? Facebook? Twitter?
Facebook? Twitter? Like that, right?

Y'know, energy drink? Redbull?
[laughs]

Gossip? Bullshit? Shit talk? Whatever?
What do people think of me?

Y'know, shit like that? Validation?
I guess I got a lot of these.

Or what they get addicted to is lower
consciousness, like alcohol, bleahh!

Pizza, carbs, bleahh! They wanna
become unconscious.

Well, what meditation teaches you to do
is, it teaches you rather than being,

uh, it teaches you to stop the cycle of
being addicted to stimulation,

or to being unconscious, and instead it
grounds you in an energy more like

[energy sound effect -- zhhhhh]

Like that, OK? Except instead of
the sound of zhhhhhh --

instead of that sound,
you just hear nothing.

But it's kind of like that. And this is
why teachers of meditation

will use things like little bells that go
dingggg, or a candle

that just kind of stays there,
flickering constantly,

because you're training your mind
to be present.

The more that you can train your mind
to be present, what's happening is that

you're removing yourself from
the cycle of basically being run

by biological impulses and
external social influences,

and you're creating a center
of gravity within yourself

where you start to develop
your own willpower,

your own sort of ...

How could I put it? I mean, think of it
like all through society,

and just through biology there's
like these different forces

that are at play, and you're kind of
sponging them up,

and then spewing them back out.
Well, what meditation does

is it makes it so that you
are the center of gravity,

and your ideas, or your intentions in
life, are coming from within

and going outwards. So what you'll find
is that whether you're happy or sad,

or say having a good experience
or a bad experience,

are not as relevant to you any more
when you do meditation,

because you realize that you can be
peaceful just within yourself.

So it takes the pressure away of
constantly achieving certain life goals,

and allows you just to enjoy the process.
It's kinda crazy, right?

Some people, when they do meditation,
it really messes them up, actually,

because they realize that they can achieve
complete contentment and happiness

on a deeper level than even making
money or even getting laid,

which is kinda crazy to think about.
And so they think, Why should I get girls?

Why should I make money? Why should I
do anything? I just wanna sit here.

That's pretty, I think, kind of
low-level thinking for most people,

unless your life's purpose is gonna be
to teach presence,

and to just be that source of present
energy for other people,

and you wanna just sit there for hours and
hours so you can be that person.

But unless you're gonna do that,
I don't think that's ideal.

Rather what I think is that when you do
meditation it helps you and prods you

to reconsider your life, reconsider what
drives you or what motivates you,

and to align yourself with
your life's purpose,

and that can be a really tough one
for a lot of people,

because finding your life's purpose is,
that can be a doozy, to say the least.

But when you find it, you find that you
get your main enjoyment in life

out of being engaged in the process
of whatever your life's purpose is.

So for me it's kind of funny, but ...

you probably can tell this
if you watch my stuff,

what I love the most is doing
videos like these,

teaching live, which is huge for me,
and then practicing game,

and I like to practice game
because I teach it,

so I like to teach something
really awesome.

And then the other thing I really like
doing is meditation [laughs]

because that helps me
with my life's purpose.

So that helps me to bring a lot
of presence into it.

A lot of people will say about my videos,
it's like addictive, or it's like crack,

things like that, and I laugh at that.
I think that's so funny,

because the reason why people,
I think, if they like my stuff,

which some people do and don't,
but the people who do like it,

the reason why they say it's addictive,
what they don't realize

is that because I do meditation,

if I do a video from a place of presence,
which some have that element

and some probably have that much less so,
like a lot less so, but the ones that have it

help people to become regrounded
in their own present energy.

So they think it's the video that's
addictive, but actually what it is

is that it's coming from
a place of presence,

which is conditioned from that 20-minute-
a-day meditation habit,

and then it's putting them in touch
with themselves,

so they're actually addicted to themselves,
which is funny to think about.

That's what they like.
They see -- it sounds very cheesy --

they see someone else's inner light
[laughs]

and it puts them in touch with
their own inner light --

and I know it sounds very cheesy --
and then they attribute that

to what they're seeing,
but it's actually them.

So if there's a musician who you
really like, for example,

someone whose music you really
get into, really connect with,

you're thinking it's the music that you
love, and you do love the music,

but what you also love is what it's
reconnecting you to in yourself.

And meditation every day is something
that can help you to do that.

It's amazing for pickup in the sense that
it teaches you self-amusement,

it teaches you not to rely on women
for good emotions at all,

so it totally takes their power away
from you, not to sound win/lose,

but it really does. When you do
meditation every day,

women have a lot less power over you
than when you don't,

because you've removed yourself from the
cycle of being addicted on their validation.

At least minimized it quite a bit.
It lets you go in a lot stronger,

you're funnier, you're sharper, your game
basically goes up, I don't know,

three to four times. But, yeah,
you just, basically ...

You basically get so good in game because
again you enjoy the process so much,

so you're just so sharp, so good with the
process, that it really just improves it.

It's really just awesome.

I guess what I would kind of emphasize
here, and I love that the sun's going down,

it's fucking gorgeous, is that what
I think you learn from meditation

is rather than feeling like you're a
person, y'know, like you're a person,

which is what most people think,
they think, I'm this separate entity --

and by the way, we gotta check out
this sunset, check this out --

you realize that actually
everyone's kind of connected,

so you look at this ocean here, and
you see the different waves on it,

you think that you are this unique person,
but in fact you're part of something

bigger than yourself, right?
You see the sun going down there.

So you think that you're this
really unique individual,

and this person who is on their own
in life, but in fact what's happening

is you're really just like this energy
that has congealed together temporarily,

will kind of express itself, much like how
one of these waves expresses itself,

and then will sink back into the whole,
OK? So that's what meditation teaches you.

I'll try to re-establish our shot,
make it look real nice.

That looks nice, I think. OK.

So ... um ... good enough.

I guess you can't really go wrong with
a shot in an environment like this.

You can't really fuck this up.

OK, so point being that in meditation,
because you become very present,

try to follow me here, you become
present to the moment,

what happens is that you come
to the realization that ...

it's almost like you have ...
the different wants,

that the biological entity of yourself has,
and then you have a higher consciousness,

which is that present energy. And what's
kinda crazy is that everybody has

that higher consciousness in them.
It's kinda nuts, right?

When you become present, they call that
a higher consciousness. Sounds very funny.

And you realize that everyone has that
in them, and that light is almost

pushing through you, and so you're like this
crystal that lets the light come through,

and some people, the crystal's very closed
off because they're caught in their head,

so they get trapped in different energetic
cycles that can be very negative,

like they get a negative thought kind of
jumps onto them and they go crazy.

But when you become present, that energy,
that higher consciousness,

can shine through you, and you're like
the crystal that it shines through

and makes different patterns.
And you realize that even when you die,

and you will die, that although the
biological entity, like the crystal's gone,

that light is still there. And essentially
through meditation what you're doing

is you are becoming more and more
identified as the "silent observer"

behind the thoughts, instead of as
this petty little individual

who has all these different problems and
isn't getting the results that you want.

So the more that you're identified
with that higher consciousness,

and the more you're grounded in that,
there is a less urgent fear of death,

which sounds funny, because you realize
that if you're that light,

that that light is everywhere. So the
form dies, but the light continues on,

and if you're very identified with the
form, then death is really scary,

but if you're identified with the light,
then it's not as scary. Still pretty scary.

[laughs]
Not gonna lie, right?

But a lot less scary, and in fact, what
tends to happen in frightening situations,

like say you're walking along
the side of the cliff,

that light starts to shine through
so much stronger

that you actually have no fear at all.
So in a situation that is scary to you,

the presence actually emanates
through so strongly that you

completely dissolve into presence,
and you actually feel fucking amazing.

So that's another reason why, when you do
things that scare you a little bit,

but you learn how to become present
to the moment through meditation,

it's really an amazing feeling.
It's an amazing, amazing feeling.

And as you go through life, you're
actually dissolving more and more,

your identification with your form
is dissolving more and more,

with all these thoughts that you're
having, which are generated through

thinking about the past
or going into the future,

you're more identified with that present
moment, "higher consciousness"

and as you get older and older that creates
more space for that higher consciousness,

and you become almost like
a young person again.

So you see some older people become
more and more identified with their form,

and because their form is breaking down,
they can be pretty miserable,

and then other people as they get older
can actually become more childlike,

but even in spite of being childlike,
they're more intelligent,

and that's what Eckhart Tolle called
flowering. So basically it's like

sometimes you have a ... he calls
that a flowering of consciousness,

so you have like a plant, and some plants
will get the nice flower and others won't,

depending on how much sun it gets,
so if it flowers, that's almost like

a human being who has gone back to that
childlike present-moment awareness

but through that sort of crystal that it's
shining through of all the life experiences

and knowledge and abilities and all that,
so it's a really nice combination,

because a childlike awareness is beautiful
but it is a child, right, it's limited,

whereas somebody who has gone back
to that childlike awareness

but is highly intelligent, resourceful,
competent, driven, those kinds of things,

what happens then is that just their
manifestation of their different intents

that they have becomes really amazing
to watch. It's really, really cool.

Awesome, right, and some of the top
people in the world have that.

But let's get back to practical stuff: so
we'll think about the game-related stuff,

just to kind of conclude with it. People
who are kind of into meditation

like for the chill reasons and stuff,
they wanna be very chill?

They're kind of already converted.
They already are doing this,

so I don't wanna really relate with
people that are in that mode,

but what I'd really like to do would be to
relate to somebody who wants to

make a lot of cash, fuck really hot women,
and be a gangster, all right.

Not a gangster like a real gangster,
although it could be a real gangster too,

but a gangster in life, OK, a dominator.

What I would tell you is that a lot of
the top business people do this,

because when you think about the
difference between, for example,

a boss who's effective vs. an ineffective
employee, what's the common difference?

The ineffective employee gets upset when
they don't get their petty little things

going in their direction, whereas the boss
can always look at the bigger picture

and solve the damned problem. Well, the
boss has to be very present to the moment.

The boss has to not get caught up in their
emotions, whereas the ineffective employee

has the luxury of whining and complaining
because it's not gonna tank the whole company,

right, they just get their little
problem fixed and they're happy.

So if you wanna be a boss in life, you
don't wanna be overly reactive

to your emotions.
Also, the highs and lows,

you don't wanna be so identified with the
high that when it goes low you're upset,

and you don't wanna be so identified
with the low that you stay there.

So you wanna be kind of even-keeled.
On top of that, if you wanna be effective,

you wanna be fully immersed
in whatever you do.

If you're gonna win an NBC championship,
you wanna be pretty immersed in that, right?

So this is the kind of thing that helps
you to think more clearly,

it makes you more effective,
it makes you funnier.

I can say for sure that my public speaking
is much, much sharper,

three to four times sharper, when
I do meditation every day.

I can say for sure that my game,
my results,

are wild when I do meditation every day,
and go down substantially,

and shockingly, when I don't. And I can
basically just tell you that a lot of

really smart individuals do this, OK?

So it's funny that as you start to
move up in the world,

your mind starts to take note of
different habits that people that are

making a lotta cash and getting a lot
of success have,

you're seeing different habits they have
that you wouldn't have noticed

when you weren't as successful, because
you just weren't thinking how they think,

and meditation is one of those habits,
it's one of those elite-level habits

that a lot of people have.
Now some people again would say,

why not just be motivated by results? If I
just wanna fuck hot women and make money,

what's the problem with that? Well again,
you're getting identified with stimulation,

and that's not the deepest level of
contentment that you can have,

and you're basically entrapping yourself
in a less mature paradigm of life.

So what you kind of realize, for example,
say you come out to a place like this,

say that I wanted to go climb up every
little peak, and hit up every beach,

and I'm rushing around trying to get to
each one, I get there and I go,

Oh, I'm at the beach now, yeah!
OK, the cliff! And then I go do that.

I might go do all that, but I could actually
be just as stressed as I am in the city.

So then let's say at the end of the day I
stop and do meditation for 20 minutes a day,

and then I become completely content.
I realize, oh shit,

it doesn't really matter if I go to every
peak, or hit up every beach.

I'll just go to some of them, and be
fully present while I'm there.

So it doesn't matter the individual
things that I'm doing,

what matters is my experience of it, and I
wanna maximize my experience of that.

You could go, say you slept with 50 girls.
You might notice that you can barely

remember the majority of those girls.

Well, if you're very present to the moment
usually the sex becomes a lot hotter,

and you have a better memory of it,
it has more meaning to you.

So you wanna be fully present for
whatever experience you're having, OK.

So it just basically boosts your results
up, all right, it's pretty gangsta shit,

does some amazing things.
I'm gonna wrap up, actually.

I was asking on the forum on RSD Nation
what questions people had about meditation,

so I'm just gonna go through them
to wrap up here.

OK, so first question was: style, length,
time, time of day, position, eyes,

posture, alarm. I think we went through
that. Style's just whatever you want,

length, I like to do 20 minutes,
you can do whatever you want.

Notice a big key here being
whatever you want.

Time of day, whatever you want, I do
night-time. Position, whatever you want.

Eyes, I like to do open. You should do ...
whatever you want.

What kind of thoughts you have? Again,
they're in there for a bit

and then they kind of clear out.
Posture, whatever you want.

You know, all these different meditation
people will tell you you have to

cross your legs and this and that
to get to the cosmic energy.

Whatever you want.

And then the alarm, I like to do
so I don't wonder about it,

but again, whatever you want.
How does it feel? Calm. Like this.

Nice and calm. Demonstration?
I just did it.

Some people were asking do I like
things like Holosync

or different meditation aids? I think for
some people it's probably great;

for me, I like to do meditation to train
myself to be present in day-to-day life,

so I don't like using it, but some
people get great results with it.

Me, I just do it the way I do it.

How does it help game? Immerses you in the
present moment, makes you funnier, sharper,

less needing validation, more self-amused,
more drawing state from within,

more of a fucking gangster, more
aggressive, more effective,

makes you enjoy sex more,
makes you more sexual ...

Uh, yeah. [laughs]
Dude, if you're into game,

you're spending three,
four hours a night going out,

add the 20 minutes of fucking meditation,
OK? It's obvious.

Another thing it's good for is creating
vacuums with girls, so you can talk to them

and just be like ...

and then they wanna talk back to you,
so we call that creating a vacuum.

Skipping a day vs. starting over? Yeah,
y'know, sometimes you miss a day

and that's not good, so this is actually
a really important lesson,

this is actually a great question right
there, really good question,

probably the most important part
of the back end of this video, actually.

I make a deal with myself that come
hell or high water, I'm gonna do it.

So when I say come hell or high water
I'm gonna do it, what I mean is that,

say I stay up until 5 or 6 in the morning,
and then I really need to go to bed.

I will still do it. And the reason why
is because you'll find that at first

when you do meditation, the biggest
challenge is that you're always finding

a reason not to do it. It's pretty intense,
OK? You're always finding a reason

not to do meditation, so you gotta
make yourself do it.

If you don't make yourself do it,
come hell or high water,

what you'll find is that you will never,
ever, ever do it.

You will literally go months without
doing it. It will shock you,

and the reason why is 'cause you're
addicted to that stimulation/

unconsciousness cycle, and you're
actually resisting doing it,

so you have to make that deal with
yourself that come hell or high water,

even if it's gonna make you sleepy,
you'll do it.

Look, even if you're down to only
getting 4 hours of sleep that night,

4 hours of sleep vs. 4 hours and 20
minutes of sleep is not that different.

So you have to do it. What you'll find
is that when you make yourself do it,

you'll become more responsible,
and you'll get it done every night.

I even do it after I pull, most of
the time, so put that in context.

My routine I talked about. Insights I
gained, I'd say the main one again

is that you start to express from the
inside out your real intent,

because there's a real, independent
willpower there;

as opposed to just being the
socially-conditioned entity

and then being driven by biological
impulses, you develop a much stronger

prefrontal cortex, independent willpower
type of situation, OK?

That's probably the main
thing I gain from it.

Why is freedom from outcome important?
Because it immerses you in the process,

so you're more effective. Could you expand
on the tree roots vs. height analogy?

Sure. One analogy I love is that
the higher you can grow as a tree,

or the higher that you do grow,
if you're a tree, if you were a tree,

the better developed the root system
has to be so it doesn't tip.

Meditation is the root system.
For example, take a celebrity

who just gets what they want and gets what
they want and gets what they want,

without that meditation-type activity
every day, it destabilizes them

when things don't go their way. Something
like meditation reminds you every day

that no matter how hectic things get,
you're gonna return to calmness,

so you're not completely desperate for an
outcome because you can feel happy either way.

That's very fucking key right there. You
might wanna rewind and listen to

what I said to you right there
if you didn't fully catch it.

Why is it not as good as going out?
We talked about that.

It's because a flow state activity is
phenomenal, but that 20 minutes

forces you to learn the channels
to become present.

If you really can't do this, then just go
with purely a flow state activity,

but I encourage you to try
to stick with this.

Depends on the person, though. Some
people I think just can't, and that's fine,

then just do a flow state activity,
you should be good.

Let's see. How long until you see changes?
The first 20 minutes of meditation

is like the longest 20 minutes of your
life. It's brutal.

You'll have little tiny gaps of being
present, and within around the first week

you might start to see some changes
of becoming more present,

and after about a month you'll find that
you become more actually present

for some nice little gaps. After a couple
years, the presence gets so grounded

and deep into you that you just
slip into it naturally,

and actually at that point, the biggest
challenge becomes even wanting to spend

the 20 minutes on it, 'cause you don't
notice that much of a shift.

That's a good thing, but funny enough,
then you fall off the habit,

and then you go back to a lot of your old
negative emotions, and then you wonder why,

and you realize it's 'cause you stopped.
So you'll find with meditation

you'll fall off and fall back into it
again and again.

It's like you need to fall off to learn why
you shouldn't fall off. It's pretty funny.

Initial hurdles? Again, I think it's
constantly finding an excuse not to do it.

It's shocking to see how many excuses
you'll find not to do meditation.

What else? Does it help you to get in
state when you're out? Oh yeah.

When you do meditation you tend to slip
into state much, much easier.

It's really shocking how quickly you slip
into state when you go out to meet girls

if you do meditation every day.
I mean it's really shocking.

If you're someone with approach anxiety,
you gotta be doing this.

Why do you pull hotter women? That's
because usually when you approach

a really hot girl you become outcome-
dependent, so it makes you act weird.

Meditation essentially simulates
abundance, so if you had 10 girls at home,

you'd be very calm and present with a hot
woman, or you could just kind of,

uh, simulate it with meditation. So it's
an amazing simulator of meditation --

you see it with guys that do meditation,
you can almost sense it in their eyes,

they have a steadier eye contact, similar
to guys that are in abundance with girls.

Pretty much identical, actually.

Do you need to do guided meditations?
I think no, but do whatever you want.

Notice a big theme of do whatever
you want. Try different stuff,

figure out what works for you.
Um, what else?

Do you have plateaus with it? Sure.
Yep. Just like game.

Meditation is freakishly similar to game.

Definitely, uh, definitely, uh ...
freakishly similar to game,

where you'll blast ahead and have, like,
the most amazing meditation sessions

of your life, it's just like the best part
of your day, and then other times

you'll struggle with it. You will have
plateaus, and that's expected.

If you're sleepy, should you still do it?
Yes. Train yourself to do it sleepy.

What I'll do, if I'm doing it sleepy,
is I'll be like [snoring sounds]

and back like that, back like that, and if I
completely pass out the alarm will wake me up.

But you have to do it no matter what,
because even if that's the most

waste-of-time, ineffective session, you
wanna do it to keep the habit,

so you don't keep missing and missing
and missing, OK?

What is the difference between guys like
Eckhart Tolle, who said to be present

all the time, vs. meditation? Be present
as much as you can, that's great,

but meditation is a no-bullshit, like,
let's condition your mind into this

type of behavior. All right, so, that's,
in my opinion, the difference.

Does nutrition help? Yes.
The more nutrition in your diet,

the more present you're gonna tend to be.
The more that you get addicted

to being present to the moment,
the more that you're gonna want

to put good food in your body. There's
actually entire subcultures in California

that link nutrition to being present.
It's pretty wild stuff on the west coast.

Um ... which successful people do it?
The really successful guy that promotes

the heck outta meditation is
Russell Simmons.

You can read the books Do You and
Super Rich where he explains how to do it.

Highly recommended. I've met
Russell Simmons in real life.

The dude is a pimp gangster who makes
tons of cash and fucks extremely hot women

and has incredible frame control.
So check out Russell Simmons' stuff.

In his book he just seems so positive,
you see him in real life,

he's a pretty big gangster, actually.
The vibe you get off him is pretty strong.

Does it help eye contact?

Yeah. Prefrontal cortex development?
Yes. It develops the prefrontal cortex,

gets you outta autopilot and into the
conscious willpower part of your brain.

Drugs or alcohol compared to meditation?
Meditation basically simulates

the benefits of drugs and alcohol, while
being extremely sharp and clear-thinking.

If you drink or use drugs, I'd recommend
that you do meditation,

and drop the alcohol and drugs.
You'll be happy you did,

and you can join such people as
Russell Brand, who did the same thing.

What if your mind just won't quiet?
My recommendation personally,

and you'd probably wanna do your
own research, is suffer it out.

Literally just suffer it out.

Seriously, just suffer it out, because
eventually you'll train yourself,

and keep reading books by people that are
into this, to learn more about what it means

to be present to the moment, not thinking
about the future or ruminating about the past

but just [whoosh]. Bang.

Um, let's see here.

I guess that's about it. [laughs]

Do you actively stop thought, I guess
was kind of the last question

that I was sort of answering. Again,
if you try to actively stop thought,

what's more prone to happen is it's
ineffective, because if you're like,

don't think, don't think, don't think,
that's not effective,

so the 20 minutes of meditation, what
they do is they actually train you to just

shift awareness into the
present moment, all right?

So again, meditation is just not thinking
for 20 minutes a day,

but if you say Don't think,
that doesn't work,

so simply train yourself to shift
your awareness to becoming present.

Meditation, I want you to think
of it as very selfish.

It's 20 minutes a day just to focus on you.
It's 20 minutes a day to relax.

It's 20 minutes a day to ground yourself.

It's 20 minutes a day to ground yourself
to the present moment.

Think of meditation like taking
creatine for lifting weights.

If you just take creatine,
that's not really gonna do a lot.

If you lift weights and take creatine,
it would do a lot, right?

Or you could compare it to, say,
high amounts of protein,

if you don't wanna take creatine.
Say you take a ton of protein,

is that effective if you don't lift
weights? No.

If you do meditation, and you don't
go out, is that effective?

No. It will do nothing, OK? It will
just make you more chill.

But if you take massive action, and then
you add the 20 minutes of meditation a day,

then it does a lot. Just like if you lift
weights and are hittin' it up hard in the gym,

if you do a lot of protein it'll help you
to grow, OK. So think of it like that.

It's not the end in itself, assuming that
you're like a young guy who's not just

like training yourself to be an anchor
to the present moment for other people,

but it's something that's just absolutely
amazing that when combined with

massive, massive action,
it's really good, OK,

and I kind of emphasized that because when
I see guys that just get into medi --

"Uh, I focus on the meditation,
not all this other stuff,"

I'm like, ugh! Ugh! Especially people
that don't ground that experience

of the present moment to reality,
I think that can get even more whack,

because actually you see a lot of people
in this stuff getting identity out of

being above the fray,
and on the mountain top.

They make this whole identity out of it,
and when things break down,

they're the most whiny little bitches
you'll ever see.

So I love the combination of keeping
one foot in each world:

the world of intent, like taking action,
and the world of freedom from outcome,

which is being present and bringing
presence into whatever you're doing.

I love that. So, yeah. Master the art of
both, OK? Manifestation of your intent,

and getting more and more in touch
with what your real intent is,

but also stripping away the layers of
attachment and becoming free of outcome.

So meditation helps you with one part,
massive action is the other part.

That's why you've seen these really
intense speeches from me, like,

Take fuckin' action! Gangster! Dominate!
Things like that, and then you see

these other speeches from me like,
Free from outcome!

There actually is no ultimate point!
Actually there's no point in this shit at all.

So be present, right, and that's kind of
what the human existence is like.

Meditation is a habit that a lot of successful
people use to achieve massive success.

You'll find it to be highly invaluable
to you. You'll love it.

Take the time to learn it.
Look into other sources than me.

Look for conflicting opinions. Look for
people who have different opinions than mine.

Don't go so far into it that you become
a woo-woo, weirdo person,

'cause that's just another form-based
identity to take on, it's another trend,

no different than being like a
hip hop-type guy or a punk,

or a, y'know, a preppie.
Being a spiritual woo-woo guy

is just another one of those things.
But look into it anyway,

and look for other people that can,
y'know, teach it to you.

And basically it's just something you do.

So, sit here, wrap up for a second,
show you how it's done,

'cause that was requested here. Again, I
was cross-legged for a second there,

now I'm just getting comfortable.

First minute, what do I do?
Little scratches, shift around,

get comfortable, give yourself
that permission.

Look around a bit.

[distant sound of waves]

In case you didn't figure it out, you were
supposed to keep going for 20 minutes.

Just because I stop, it doesn't matter.
Do the 20 minutes. You'll like it, aight?

I got you started. [snaps fingers]
Do it. I'll see you soon.