Dungeon

Season 1 - Episode 18

If this is your first time seeing one of these, you’re welcome to hop in and give it a go, or you can start with the first one.

Image Credit: Cartoon Network/Phil Rynda, Paul Linsley, Nick Jennings. No copyright infringement intended.

This is the eighteenth episode in a series designed for absolute newbies to meditation or for those who really want to focus on the basics. This track includes ten minutes of meditation practice; if that feels like a lot to you, maybe start at the beginning! From here on out, we’ll keep going with sits that last approximately ten minutes.

Turn on the TV, get comfy, and play this track after you’ve watched: Dungeon (Season One, Episode Eighteen).

Mentioned in this episode is are the radical faeries, the Consciousness Explorer’s Club and their community practice activation kit, if you wanna check them out.

P.S. If you’re curious, here you can find out why I started this project.

Recording Transcript (Meditation Begins at 7:28)

Hello again, adventurer. I hope you’re ready to crawl through the dungeon of yourself mind today.

We’ll be continuing to build our skill of concentration, which is a good foundation for a meditation practice. It allows us to stay focused once we begin to probe the depths of our self. It’s also a good foundation for life in general. It allows us to devote our attention where we want to, to be less distracted by things we don’t care about. But this can be a difficult skill to build, perhaps the hardest learning curve of meditation. But if you’re sticking with it this long, I believe that you are a “radical boy,” (and “boy” in the gender neutral sense of course, you can be a radical girl or radical human or radical fairie or whatever you want to be). The point is that if you have persisted in plunging into the many frightening dangers that come up in early meditation, then you are radical. And I am grateful for your radicalness.

That being said, no matter how radical you are (which is unquantifiable, you are so radical) you are also stronger when you’ve got a buddy. “We learned that working together is better than not working together.”

In some sense, you’ve already got one, and that’s me! Having a guide for meditation, in my experience, makes a world of difference. I first tried to meditate some five years ago without really having a guide, at least, not a very active or consistent one. This made the practice really difficult, like so difficult that I only tried it two times and felt kinda regretful that I even tried it at all and all but swore off the whole thing. And even at the time I’m writing this, I still really enjoy and generally prefer guided meditations. I used to feel some hang up or guilt about how it wasn’t real meditation or I wasn’t strong enough to just be with my own mind totally on its own, but that’s bogus. Even with support, what we encounter in meditation is still 100% ourselves. And I am slowly coming to be able to more skillfully and enjoyably engage in unguided meditation only because I have allowed myself to form healthy habits and reap the benefits of guided meditation. And effectively, even when I am now meditating without a guide, what is more accurate is that I have simply internalized my guides, I am giving myself the reminders and affirmations that I might otherwise get from a recording and relying on the skills I have built over the last couple years.

So I’m your first friend. Hey there, friend. But unfortunately, I don’t have the capacity to be attentive to every person who listens to these files. And even if I could, I do not have much context for your life.

So today, I would like to encourage, but not force you, to find a buddy. Please note that nothing we do here is ever forced or coerced, you have total autonomy in this space. But I cannot overstate the benefits of having a friend to meditate with.

You don’t have to meditate alongside this person, in the same space at the same time, though you can and that is fun as well. But it is at least beneficial to be able to have someone just generally along for the ride with you. Someone you can share your questions and discoveries and experiences with. Someone who can have your back, and check in when things get difficult. Who can come rescue you if you get trapped in a cage, getting summed over a low flame.

Having a partner in meditation gives you the ability to reflect more deeply on your experiences, and deep reflection is kind of the whole mo here. They will see things that you cannot, will try things that work and that’s they can share, they will have strengths and insights that are inaccessible to you, not because you are lacking in your radicalness, but simply because this is the strength of friendship, of unique perspective.

I speak from experience when I recommend this. In fact, I was the friend who was invited to the practice in solidarity with my sibling. After I all but swore off meditation, guided meditation was a practice they took up for themself. And I was at a real low point in my life and mental health, and pretty desperately was like, “well, it can’t hurt.” I joined them for a couple of sits before I started doing it a bit on my own. And before I knew it, I had meditated for over 100 days and my mental health was significantly improved, in a shorter timespan than almost ever before for me, and I felt connected to every ounce of that growth. I feel indebted to my sibling for asking me to join, I can’t imagine where I would be without them, or without meditation. And we continue to meditate together and share insights to this day.

So I encourage you to think about who that person might be for you. Maybe it’s someone in your life already, that you already have meaningful relationship with. But maybe you don’t have a person like that or one you feel comfortable asking. And it can be scary to ask, because if they say no, it can be challenging. You may feel awkward or judged or even lose some of your own momentum.

But even if you don’t have someone you feel comfortable asking, or you do and they say no, don’t give up! You “just gotta stay pumped, pump it up, pump it up!” The internet is your oyster. Reddit is a fantastic resource to connect with people who already have a shared interest. Maybe they’re a fan of Adventure Time or they’re also a beginner meditator. You could also look around your local community for a mindfulness organization or meditation group and see what they’re up to. Or I’ll offer a plug for a community that has been incredibly meaningful to me, which is the Consciousness Explorer’s Club out of Toronto Canada, and they have virtual sits every Monday and retreats multiple times a year. They were actually born out of exactly this impulse, a small group of people looking to meditate together. And they’re community activation kit helped inspire me to create this series.

So there are people! Maybe not already in your life, but they are out there in the world, waiting to support you, looking for support themselves. I believe it.

But don’t stress; I am only planting a seed. In a couple of sits, we will have a meditation devoted to dropping in this question of support, of where we feel most comfortable looking for it. So if someone comes to mind already, that’s great, ask them to join when you’re ready. But if no one does, that’s okay too. Just let the idea sit with you for a bit and we’ll come back to it. But so much of this show is about friendship, and I believe that your experience will be richer if you’ve got a meditative Jake to your Finn. They don’t have to be your literal best friend, but they can be. Just someone who can have your back as you continue along this heroic journey.

For now, I’m the friend you’re stuck with. So let’s jump down this sketchy looking well.