Meditating on Suffering

Meditating is supposed to help you live in the moment, but I never thought that was a problem for me. I lived so much in the moment that I tried to make adulthood into something unknowable. Concepts of aging and time were stagnant in my mind. It wasn’t until I began meditating on the Buddhist truth of suffering that I came to know and accept my own pain.

For much of my life, the thought of living past my twenties was imponderable. From ages 12 to 19, I suffered from severe depression and self-medicated with drugs and alcohol. Completing college and starting a career in the sciences were the false goals that I repeated to others when asked about my career path. I had no real intention of doing any of these things. I rejected contemplating about my future.

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