Moby, self-described “Taoist, Buddhist, Atheist, Christian who loves Quantum Mechanics”, shares some brutally honest realizations in this Speakeasy from Wanderlust Squaw 2013, as he discusses “The Goldilocks Approach to Everything: The Middle Way”.
“Who here meditates? Who here thinks they could meditate more? Who here thinks they could meditate better? See, that’s the problem!” He goes one to explain how the need to conform was underlying his desire to belong to each of the various belief systems with which he has engaged in his life, but that he always had the thought that they were doing it right, and he was doing it wrong because it wasn’t working for him.
“I would look at those people in yoga class who can stand on their nostril and inhale through their left kidney and exhale through their spleen, and say ‘I’m going to try to do that’, but then I started hurting myself. And that’s antithetical to yoga. Same with meditation, I went through a bunch of different kinds of meditation, but they were all crap and I hated it. I still assumed something was wrong with me.”
Eventually, Moby comes to the realization — via soundbites from both the Buddha himself and an unlikely ‘teacher’ in the form of an ‘asshole’ at an AA meeting — that by doing a little more of what works and a little less of what doesn’t, he can carve out his own path of mindfulness that involves a methodology of things that he likes doing and that serve his well-bring.
Sounds easy enough, in theory, but in practice, it often takes us years to have the acuity (and the gumption) to ignore the various teachings that we’ve been told will do wonders for us, and to listen deeply to what our own selves are really calling out for.
In fact, that conclusion is revolutionary enough when Moby concludes, “My subjective truth needs to be informed by gentleness, and self-care and the middle way. And that means applying that to what all these teachers are teaching,” he realizes that “Maybe this is a dangerous place to be saying this… It would be funny if I was assassinated by a yoga teacher at Wanderlust.”
Uncover the rest of the hilarious pearls that Moby shares about his path to embracing fresh-squeezed orange juice and puppies in this refreshingly candid Speakeasy.