A beggar had been sitting by the side of a road for over thirty years. One day a stranger walked by. “Spare some change?” mumbled the beggar, mechanically holding out his old baseball cap. “I have nothing to give you,” said the stranger. Then he asked: “What’s that you are sitting on?” “Nothing,” replied the beggar. “Just an old box. I have been sitting on it for as long as I can remember.” “Ever look inside?” asked the stranger. “No,” said the beggar. “What’s the point? There’s nothing in there.” “Have a look inside,” insisted the stranger. The beggar managed to pry open the lid. With astonishment, disbelief, and elation, he saw that the box was filled with gold.

I am the stranger who has nothing to give you and who is telling you to look inside. Not inside any box, as in the parable, but somewhere even closer: inside yourself.

- Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

A Song That’s Particular Moved Me This Month:

Hello!

Following up on last month’s letter, which I scheduled to send the last day of a ten-day Vipassana meditation course, I found myself taking part in yet another immersive, end of the month experience today: a four-day Neuro-linguistic Programming Practitioner Class. I promise I’m becoming neither retreat-addict nor seminar-junkie. I’ve simply been curious about NLP for a couple years now and this class coincidentally coincided with my return to Phoenix for Thanksgiving.

Today was the first day of the NLP class. And after eleven hours of lectures, mandatory group exercises, and conversations during breaks about the mild winter weather of Phoenix, I’m pretty drained as I begin this month’s letter tonight. However, the opportunity to share with you and over 2,400 others while it’s still November is one I will not pass up! Especially if it might convince a couple of you crazy, wonderful people to give Vipassana meditation a shot.

My experience this November could be simply and accurately summed up with the two word label, “Post-Vipassana.” I’d love to tell you all about it—from the peace I discovered in the dry bed of a previously endless thought stream, to mind-blowing inner explorations best described with tree analogies, to startling realizations drudged from my subconscious—but there’s much too much to fit in this short letter. However, when you have twenty minutes, do give the write-up of my inner experience of Vipassana a read and see if sitting in stillness with your eyes closed for one hundred hours sounds like something that tickles your fancy.

On another note, my days of dwelling in a Honda Element have come to an end. I’m not selling or disassembling my home on wheels, it’s just being downgraded from full-time abode to weekend warrior status (it’s still great for short trips and avoiding the cost of Uber rides often attached to a night of bar-based shenanigans). The plan is to move up to Flagstaff, AZ for a couple months and split rent with my brother. I’m excited to be in one place for for a bit, to tend to the plethora of potentials I’m working on at the moment, and perhaps re-live a bit of the glory days of college with him in his final semester.

Lastly, I’m going to mention something totally taboo, that I feel is too important to remain silent about any longer: climate change. I know a few who receive this letter still doubt its existence and are probably thinking, “What?!?! Why the hell is Ethan bringing this up?” Well, I had dinner with an even-keeled, old friend I hadn’t seen since high school three weeks ago. She’s now a scientist, who documents and studies our unfortunately rapidly changing environment. Over burritos, she casually told me that we’re very close to screwed. With little hope of colossally curbing our carbon emissions, she’s with Steven Hawking: if humans are to survive, our future is among the stars.

I like Earth. A lot. I’ve read up deeply this month, and we have to take massive measures, fast, if we want to preserve a semblance the world as we know it. On December 10th, I’ll be joining the Sunrise Movement in Washington D.C. demanding the only way I can envision our country cutting our emissions fast enough without tanking our economy: a Green New Deal.

I invite you to join us. And if you’re concerned about the fossil fuels you’d burn getting to Washington in an attempt to restructure the system: I encourage you to read Chapter 3 of this.

I don’t mean to get political here, but raise the alarm I must. Whether or not our planet will remain habitable is in question. Is it not yet time we try and do something about this?

As always:

With love & stoke,

Ethan

This Month’s Articles:

My Mind-Blowing Inner Experience of a 10-Day Vipassana Meditation Course

Ten hours a day for ten days straight, I sat meditating (or attempting to at least). Not to short-change past endeavors, like recovering from a brain-damaging stroke or pedaling a bicycle across the United States, but it might have been the most intense, challenging experience of my life to date. It was also one of the best.

What follows is part story, part review: why I signed up, my experience, and why I believe that—if one can handle it—a ten-day Vipassana meditation course is one of the best experiences a human can have.

Read On >