MF 25 – The Daily Zen Creator Charlie Ambler Talks about his Meditation Journey

MF 25 – Charlie Ambler from The Daily Zen Talks about his Meditation Journey

Note: This is a summary (not a full transcript) of the interview.

What brought you to a meditation practice?

Charlie describes himself growing up as a rather impulsive and anxious. His grandmother (a music historian) interviewed John Cage, the composer at one point. He gave her a copy of a book on Zen Buddhism. Charlie ran into the book, as a 13 year old kid, and was curious about it.

He got more and more interested in Buddhism, and started reading more about it online as well. He then started practicing it in his room, the various breathing meditation exercises. He settled on simple and direct method of Zazen Meditation breathing. He’s 22 at the time of this interview, so it’s been about 9 years since he first got interested in Buddhism and meditation.

Charlie finds that if he doesn’t meditate regularly, then he’s more prone to anxiety, destructive ways of thinking and harmful habits. He then feels generally less centered, and less creative.

And what specific practice are you using at this time?

Now he’s doing zazen meditation, or breath counting.

He remembers the old saying,

“Let your thoughts come and go,

but you don’t serve them tea.”

Have you noticed changes in your day to day life?

When he was younger, it was easier to meditate, there was less, a smaller bank of sensory information. Meditation was easier, despite the fact that he was a hyperactive kid. But now with all the reading he’s doing, and responsibilities and things and thoughts that come with adulthood, and the busy life in the big city (New York) he finds it more difficult to practice. But for that reason it is more challenging and rewarding as well. All the more reason why it is so important for him to do it each day.

He practices detaching himself from wanting to get anything out of it. Meditation becomes very difficult when you want to get something out of it.

You get into a chasing mind, which makes it all the harder.  

Yeah you get into thinking about thinking, a circular cycle. Once you allow yourself to step back from  your own thoughts, and get less stressed out. It helps, gives your problems less importance, let them come to pass.

Has your practice changed your outlook on life, you post on your web site how your thinking has changed?

When Charlie started he was reading about meditation he ran into more of a new age corporate way of viewing meditation practice. Like how a meditation practice would allow you to accomplish your goals, do your job really well, etc. But then as he dug deeper into the eastern writing behind meditation, he realized that the Zen school was more talking about divorcing yourself from attachment to expectations and outcomes.

He realized that this was part of this larger concept, well illustrated in Taoist writings, where you step back from something, you have this strange side-effect where you end up achieving it, by stepping back. He then quotes:

By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning.

Lao Tzu

Charlie finds that when you practice meditation for a while, you don’t find yourself planning ahead 10 years ahead. He finds himself less trying to achieve things, instead to just do things. The funny contradiction in that is that when you stop caring so much about the results of what you’re doing, you end up doing a ton more. 

Ever since Charlie has really implemented that philosophy, he finds himself far less anxious about starting things. Just throw yourself into things, just do them. The key is to just do things, not care about the results. Learn from them yes. Sometimes the results is just garbage, and sometimes it works out.