try to keep the essence of your gifts while you work on the curses furnished in their acquisition.

Mark says the reason you meditate is to take care of your ‘technical debt.’ This is something you have, you just don’t know it maybe. You should probably address it. Once you’ve taken care of your technical debt, it’ll be easier to have a good life, which is what we’re aiming for ultimately.

Mark’s conception of meditation is quite different than that of other teachers. Perhaps the main distinguishing feature is, I think, also the best part of his system: the Meta Protocol. The Meta Protocol is simple. As part of your meditative life, frequently ask yourself—in writing or in your head—what, concretely, is going on when you meditate,... See more

I think Mark’s book can probably get you to stop being narrow and dogmatic if you’re on a meditation path that’s sub-optimal, and it can help you think about contemplation in a new way. That’s what it did for me, which was invaluable.

Most meditation systems are depth-first : you plunge, deeply, into one area of your mind—by, say, learning how to concentrate on your breath with heroic clarity—and then you take the mental machinery thus developed and try to iron out your life with it. Mark’s is breadth-first : he wants you to mindfully do a whole bunch of different little... See more

Technical debt is whatever “bad” there is in your “good” strategies. It’s the coping mechanisms that are clumsy, the fear that was rational but no longer is, the habit that has outlived its use, etcetera.

According to Mark, nobody can tell you how you should meditate, fully. The way your mind is fucked up will be radically specific. You will thus have to throw out the rules and make your own at some point. Following instructions too rigidly will lead to useless mental play-acting.

Many people, me included, ask the question ‘what is it like to be me’ surprisingly infrequently. Asking yourself this, a lot, can stop you from falling into a bunch of varieties of self-destruction, and lead you towards a more self-authored and less self-inflicted life.

Technical debt is a concept taken from software development. Let’s say you’re working on a big complicated program. Robust accounting software, for example. And you need to build a new feature rapidly because customers are up your ass about it. So you build it, and it works, but the build isn’t perfect. There are bugs, it doesn’t fully enmesh with... See more