A Personal Journey Through Meditation | Jōza Genpō Seth Myers

I usually don’t talk much about myself, because the purpose of meditation is, in many ways, to slowly dissolve that version of ourselves, right? But today will be a little different. I’m going to talk about myself—not to highlight “me,” but to reflect on what meditation has done for me.

Genpō is a Zen Student of Sensei Sōen Michael Brunner who is being ordained as a Zen Buddhist Priest April 26, 2025.

I started meditating in the early 2000s. At the time, I was struggling a lot with ADHD and with finding my place in the world. Life felt confusing. You're born, given a name, and told who you are. As you grow up, people keep reinforcing that—telling you who you’re supposed to be. Over time, you lose track of who you actually are, even though it’s your own experience the whole way through.

By the time I hit my teenage years—that high school angst—I didn’t feel real. Life didn’t feel real. I was just going through the motions, living a life that had been laid out for me. Maybe it was the medication, maybe it was something else, but I had completely lost touch with reality. I felt very lost.

For some strange reason, I thought maybe a religion had the answer. So I started looking. I explored various traditions, but none of them seemed to help. Then I stumbled across a Zen book. It mentioned meditation, and I thought, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. There was no way anyone was going to catch me doing that.

But for some reason, I gave it a try.

So there I was—high school kid, sitting in my room. There are probably far worse things a high school boy could be doing alone in his room, but I was legitimately terrified my parents would walk in and find me… meditating.

I set a timer for ten minutes, sat down, and waited for something to happen. And what happened? Enlightenment? Transformation? No. It was the most boring ten minutes of my life. I kept thinking, What is this supposed to be doing?

But somehow, I showed up again the next day. Another ten minutes. Even more boring than the first. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was planting something.

Meditation is often called a goalless practice—but let’s be honest: we all show up with goals. We want less stress. We want to feel more real. We want peace, or clarity, or at least something. That’s okay. We’re human.

And yet, over time, something did shift. After maybe six months—or even sooner—I started to experience what I would call the most realistic moments of my life. It was as if I had finally touched something that felt true. I realized I’d been living in conditioned thoughts for so long that I had missed the wonder of what was right in front of me.

I remember waking up one morning, going outside, and just looking at a tree I’d seen thousands of times before. And suddenly, it was astonishing. Like I was seeing it for the first time. That’s when I thought, Maybe there’s something to this practice after all.

Over time, I fell in and out of regular practice. Sometimes I wouldn’t meditate for weeks. But something would always feel off. Life would feel less steady. And when I asked myself why, the answer would be simple: I haven’t been sitting.

So I’d return. And I came to understand that even during the times I thought I was off the path—I was never really off. That was part of the path too. The only real failure in practice is giving up entirely.

Years went on. I got married. I had a child. And when my son was born, I was so fully present. I don’t know if I would have had that experience without meditation. Maybe I would have. But I remember crying with joy in a way I hadn’t since I was a child. It was the most beautiful moment of my life.

Eventually, the marriage ended. And like anyone who’s gone through a divorce will tell you, it’s rough. Mine was no exception—if something could go wrong, it did. There was enormous stress, and I found myself trapped in painful, obsessive thinking again.

So I doubled down on meditation.

And slowly, I could breathe again. I could get through the day.

Then life threw another curveball.

I’ve been a firefighter and paramedic for fifteen years. Most of my career, I felt pretty resilient. I could compartmentalize what I saw. But early in my meditation practice, I noticed something strange. Meditation made the job feel more intense—not because of the practice, but because I was now more aware. I was clinging to thoughts and fears more tightly.

Eventually, I learned to observe those thoughts without getting caught in them. And that made a difference.

Then, during a particularly difficult period in my life, I had the worst call of my career. I won’t go into detail, but as they say—it only takes one. And for me, that was the one. It involved children. I have kids. It broke me open.

At the same time, I was going through another personal trauma. Together, it triggered anxiety, depression, and full-blown PTSD.

I spent a year and a half trying every possible modality to heal—nothing worked. So once again, I returned to what had carried me before: meditation. I sat for hours a day, trying to escape what I was feeling.

But of course, you can’t sit your way out of reality. There’s nowhere to go but here.

What was making it all unbearable wasn’t the trauma itself—it was the story I kept telling about it. Over and over.

Then one day, I woke up—same anxiety, same pit in my stomach—and I saw it. I saw the thoughts for what they were: just thoughts. Stories. Not reality.

And that changed everything.

From that day on, the PTSD never returned. The depression—mostly gone. The anxiety—dramatically reduced. All because I could finally see the story as a story.

We constantly do this—repeat the same story in our minds and mistake it for truth. But it’s just a story. Just like this talk.

If we can see past those illusions and just show up for life as it is, something opens. We start to appreciate what’s actually in front of us.

Meditation, for me, is about that curiosity. That wonder. We talk a lot here about cultivating wonder—and that’s what this practice brings us back to. When we were children, before we had names and thoughts and labels, we still existed. There was wonder. There was presence.

Thoughts are not who we are. They arise, and we attach. But we can also let go.

Meditation isn’t about always being in the present moment. It’s about returning—over and over. Becoming aware that we are aware. Watching the thoughts, instead of being dragged by them.

The world becomes clearer when we stop labeling everything as good or bad. Things happen. Whether we suffer depends on what we do with those moments.

So no—I don’t usually talk about myself. But in the end, even this is just a story.

And I thank you for listening.