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I Don’t Want to Hear About Anyone’s Meditation Routine!

Photo: Burak Karademir/Getty Images

Here is a question: Is there anything, in the history of life on the planet, more irritating than hearing someone describe their meditation routine? Literally anything? I would say, conclusively, that there is nothing.

It’s like — meditation itself is wonderful, clearly. I’ve tried it, I’ve gone to classes, I got the app. I deleted the app. I tried some videos, I tried it without the videos. I get it. I felt better. I felt more peaceful.

But it’s so bad to hear people describe their own meditation practice. Why? Is it because they seem like they’re lying? Is it because it would be worse if they weren’t lying?

I enjoy hearing people talk about the things they do every day to feel better. I like hearing about what people ate, what they saw on Twitter, what they bought on sale. But when people mention their meditation practice, it feels like someone’s standing inside a beautiful house, waving peacefully back out at me like, “Wow, it’s so nice to have a beautiful, airy home, can you believe it? What, you don’t have one yourself? Oh, my goodness, well, you should! You should get one, of course, behold. Behold my home. Well anyway, bye!”

And I’m like, I don’t want your home, although I would stay there if it were an Airbnb.

Anyway, meditation is beautiful, I should probably be doing it. The only person who’s described his own meditation in a way that I like, well okay there are a few people, but the main one is Robert Wright, the science journalist and author of Why Buddhism Is True, who’s talked about how when he meditates he can sometimes hear the various multi-level hums of his own refrigerator, and that moved me in a way I did not anticipate. Like, yeah, this whole world is filled with sounds we don’t hear, and man if we just stopped to listen.

Ultimately, the idea that everyone else is working toward peace and centeredness fills me with a kind of dread. I don’t want anyone to be centered. I want us all to be off-center.

It’s sort of like people talking about their amazing sex lives — for the love of God, keep it to yourselves!

I Don’t Want to Hear About Anyone’s Meditation Routine!