The Golden Gate Bridge from Marin County, California. I recently started experimenting with long-exposure photography.

How Five Months of Intense Meditation Changed Me

Duncan Riach
getHealthy
Published in
2 min readMar 26, 2016

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It’s been five months since I started consistently doing two hours of vipassana meditation per day. I have previously provided updates after one, two, three, and four months. Here is where I’m at now.

The way I feel is different. The way I relate to people, things, and situations is different. My whole life is different. I feel calm nearly all the time. I rarely get emotionally triggered or hi-jacked. I know what I want. I can advocate for my needs much better than before. I can hold others in their suffering and acting-out much more effectively than I used to. I create continuously and freely; I have made at least 60 new videos for my YouTube channel, made massive progress on my PhD research, and learned an enormous amount about the latest artificial intelligence technologies.

Everything is different for me, and it’s different because my relationship with myself is different. My attention is almost continuously directed to the sensations in my body; noticing them, validating them, and accepting them. I am living in a deeply rich experience of life, thoroughly embodied. What we’re all seeking in success, money, relationships, and substances, is already and always right here inside our bodies.

Meditation is not some esoteric, complex, or exclusive practice; nor is it new-age bullshit. Meditation, particularly this kind of vipassana meditation, is practicing being with what is happening inside ourselves. We sit with our eyes closed and pay attention to what is happening. It’s fucking hard! It’s also extremely simple. All this other bullshit in life is irrelevant until we can learn to continuously be aware of, and accept, these sensations.

Don’t be fooled into living a shitty life. Sit down and meditate. Do it now. Do it every day.

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Duncan Riach
getHealthy

Top Writer. Self-Revealing. Mental Health. Success. Fulfillment. Flow. MS Engineering/Technology. PhD Psychology. duncanriach.com