Cory Allen01 May 2018

Creating The Mindfulness Gap, The Fundamentals Of Meditation and How To Deepen Your Practise - Cory Allen - #012

1Frameworks

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Frameworks in this episode

Self-Mastery7 steps

Creating the Mindfulness Gap

Count your breaths daily to open a space between stimulus and reaction

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Insights & moments

The myth-busts, hot takes, explainers, and tools worth keeping.

Hot Take· 3

Hot Take53:00

Psychedelics vs meditation: cannon to the summit vs the stable climb

Allen frames both psychedelics and meditation as ways to manipulate consciousness, but with very different reliability. Psychedelics are like being fired from a cannon to the top of the mountain with no context — a wasted ticket, since you need experience, time and reflection to understand what you experienced. Meditation is the stable, agreeable route up the same mountain. Having a psychedelic experience first can give context to a later practice.

Both are methods to shift consciousness; meditation is the stable path
Psychedelics without context or reflection can add to delusion, not reduce it
Reaching the summit with no wisdom is a 'wasted ticket'
A prior psychedelic experience can frame and contextualize later meditation

“the stable secure route to the top of the mountain rather than strapping yourself into a cannon and getting fired directly to the top”
Chris Williamson · 55:00

#psychedelics#consciousness#meditation

Hot Take57:00

Why Allen stopped chasing altered states

After decades of experimentation, Allen lost interest in psychedelics and consciousness-state changes. He finds his natural resting state of awareness richer, deeper and more pleasurable than any altered state, which he now experiences as murky or boring by comparison. His interest is long-term permanent change, not the temporary up-and-back-down of intoxication — 'a bite is much more satisfying than a meal.'

Allen prefers his natural resting awareness to any altered state
Temporary state changes always end in coming back down — he questions the point
His goal is long-term permanent shift, not one step forward, one step back
'A bite is much more satisfying than a meal'

“my resting state of awareness is more interesting to me than one of those those other skewed states”
Cory Allen · 58:30

#consciousness#sobriety#meditation

Hot Take61:30

Flying across the world just to change the location of your hangover

Williamson observes that people travel to Thailand, Vegas or Marbella to put themselves in a chemically induced state indistinguishable from what they'd get at their local pub. All you're really doing is electing to have your hangover or comedown in a different location, then getting transported straight back to the same internal place. Allen jokes it's a business idea: faux exotic destinations in your local area.

The intoxicated state is the same whether at home or abroad
Travel just relocates the hangover, not the experience
You get transported right back to the same internal place
Chasing the state offers no discernible difference from the local pub

“all that you're doing is electing to have a hangover or a calm down in a slightly different location”
Chris Williamson · 62:30

#alcohol#consciousness#travel

Explainer· 4

Explainer04:30

Why meditation is so hard to teach: it's an experience, not a description

Allen argues meditation intimidates beginners because it is inherently experiential and can't be captured in words. You can describe someone walking to the kitchen for coffee and a reader fills in the gaps, but describing the first-person felt experience of that same act would take infinite information. A century of bad writers trying to describe an intangible mental state has produced mountains of confusing, off-putting material.

Meditation is an internal, experiential thing that resists description
Describing a felt experience fully would require near-infinite information
Most meditation writing is one person's relative experience, meaningless to others
The fix is to teach methods that lead to the experience, not describe the experience

“the solution you know to break that barrier of entry is to not write or necessarily talk as much about the experience but to talk…”
Cory Allen · 07:30

#meditation#teaching#experience

Explainer09:30

The secular turn: why meditation is going mainstream

Allen sees meditation becoming mainstream because badly translated Eastern wisdom from the 60s and 70s has finally aged out, replaced by a clean secular approach that needs no theology or ideology. Stripping away the spiritual framing makes it far more inclusive, because meditation is really just seeking your own mind rather than any external master.

Meditation works, which is why it keeps spreading
Older badly-translated Eastern wisdom has fallen away
A secular framing removes the religious barrier to entry
Meditation is 'just seeking your own mind' — no theology required

“there's a real nice reasonable secular approach to mindfulness and meditation because it doesn't need any religious context you don't need the theology or the…”
Cory Allen · 10:00

#meditation#secular#mainstream

Explainer40:00

State changes vs trait changes in meditation

State changes are what you feel during and immediately after a session — calm, a slight 'high,' an awareness of your own awareness. Trait changes are the lasting shifts you notice throughout ordinary life. Beginners wrongly expect trait changes first and quit; state changes come fast, while deeper trait changes typically appear around the two-week mark, possibly tied to neuroplasticity.

State changes = felt during/around a session; trait changes = persistent, in daily life
State changes arrive quickly; a calm mind after 10-15 minutes
Trait changes typically emerge around two weeks of consistent practice
Expecting trait changes first sets beginners up to give up

“typically the word on that is around two weeks it's what if you really begin to feel those those deeper changes and that could have…”
Cory Allen · 41:30

#meditation#neuroplasticity#results

Explainer76:30

The evolutionary hangover: jungle brains with iPhones

Allen's term for the tension between fast-evolving technology and slow-evolving humans. We're 'fresh out of the jungle,' still running hundred-thousand-year-old biological imperatives while carrying iPhones and the internet, creating friction between the lower and upper brain. His vivid illustration: hunter-gatherer tribes still exist in the Amazon while Amazon.com delivers groceries in two hours.

Technology evolves fast; human biology evolves slowly
We run ancient imperatives while using modern tools, straining lower vs upper brain
The internet acts as a 'mirror of collective consciousness' we weren't ready for
Amazon hunter-gatherers coexist with two-hour Amazon.com delivery

“I call that the evolutionary hangover is this like where technology evolves so fast and humans evolve so slowly that were fresh out of the…”
Cory Allen · 76:30

#evolution#technology#psychology

Story· 2

Story19:00

Turning poison into medicine: stopping the wheel of karma

Allen describes how a single reflexive negative reaction passes suffering to the next person like a hot potato — one nasty comment gets absorbed and passed onward, a shockwave of negativity moving through people. The high-minded move is to receive that negativity and not pass it on, snuffing out the emotional forest fire. He calls this turning poison into medicine, or stopping the wheel of karma.

A reflexive negative reaction passes suffering to the next person
Negativity travels like a hot potato or a shockwave through people
Being high-minded enough to not pass it on stops the chain
Framed as 'turning poison into medicine' / 'stopping the wheel of karma'

“turning poison into medicine or they also another term for it is stopping the wheel of karma”
Cory Allen · 20:00

#emotional-regulation#karma#reactivity

Story72:30

The evolutionary roots of loneliness and micro-awakenings

Williamson relays Johann Hari's account of why loneliness exists: 100,000 years ago the tribe was a human's protection, so being separated triggered physiological signals urging you back. One measurable trace is micro-awakenings during sleep — a lonely person, like someone sleeping alone in a cave, has more of them because the body won't let them sleep too deeply. Studies of surviving tribes found almost none, thanks to a strong sense of belonging.

The tribe, not strength or claws, was early humans' survival advantage
Isolation triggers physiological signals that make you yearn for contact
Loneliness shows up as more micro-awakenings during sleep
Tribes with strong belonging show almost no micro-awakenings

“if you're on your own sleeping in a cave without the protection of the tribe around you your body does not want to let you…”
Chris Williamson · 75:00

#loneliness#evolution#sleep

Tool· 1

Tool51:30

How to sit: foundation, spine, and the cherry on top

For a seated meditation, Allen gives a simple posture model. Treat legs and hips as the foundation of a building, let the spine grow upward and outward like a tree or flower, hang the body with shoulders back and chest forward — firm but not tight, 'proud but not arrogant' — and let the head float on top like a cherry on a sundae.

Legs and hips are the foundation, like a building's base
Spine grows up and out like a tree or flower
Shoulders back, chest forward: firm but not tight
Head floats on top — 'proud but not arrogant'

“your firm but but not tight it's it's like being proud but not being arrogant”
Cory Allen · 52:00

#meditation#posture#technique

Takeaway· 2

Takeaway37:00

Meditate as a multivitamin, not an antidote

Most people only reach for meditation when stressed or anxious, treating it as an emergency fix. Allen reframes it: meditating when you already feel fine — before a job interview, first date, or important conversation — compounds into being calmer, more focused and present. It's the multivitamin button, not the antidote button.

People typically only meditate in crisis, as a solution to a negative state
Meditating when you feel fine makes you even more calm and present
Use it proactively before high-stakes moments
Net-gain framing: it's a multivitamin, not an emergency antidote

“this shouldn't be hitting the antidote button it's the the multivitamin button”
Chris Williamson · 37:30

#meditation#habits#performance

Takeaway66:30

You are what you act out, not what you think

Allen reframes negative or intrusive thoughts: you are not your thoughts or even your emotions, which merely pass through you. Everyone has crazy and negative thoughts; what matters is whether you recognize and release them or act on them. Judgment is part of the biological expression of being human — the skill is knowing what to do with it, not taking it personally.

You are not your thoughts or emotions — they pass through you
You are what you act out, not what you think
Everyone has negative and crazy thoughts; that's normal
Recognize the thought, let it go, drop the guilt

“you weren't your thoughts your what thoughts you put into action you are not even your emotions emotions are things that pass through you”
Cory Allen · 67:00

#mindset#thoughts#self-acceptance