LILITH Official

One of the things I write about most often is the importance of dedicating yourself to something that allows you to refine yourself. For me, it’s martial arts and sword training. For someone else, it might be music, painting, or any number of other disciplines. Inevitably, someone will respond by saying there’s nothing we can do to become more than we already are. That there’s nothing to attain, nowhere to go, and no progress to be made. And I agree. At the deepest level of our being, there’s nothing missing. But recognizing that truth doesn’t automatically eliminate a lifetime of conditioning. You can experience the dissolution of the ego and still be impatient, undisciplined, selfish, or controlled by your fears and desires. Realization and integration are two very different things. This is why we need a discipline. We aren’t trying to become something greater than we already are - we’re trying to refine the habits and behaviors that prevent us from living in accordance with what we’ve realized. I can’t become patient simply by understanding patience. I have to practice it. I can’t think my way into becoming disciplined. I have to repeatedly do things that require discipline. The danger is allowing the ego to turn these accomplishments into another identity, another reason to feel superior to others. The purpose of the work isn’t to create a better ego, but to become less controlled by the one we already have. There’s nothing we need to become, but there may be a lifetime of things we need to unlearn. Enlightenment isn’t the end of the work. It’s the beginning of learning how to live.

Sometimes what we miss isn’t really a place, a person, or even a period of our lives. We miss who we were when we were there. We miss the freshness we possessed before everything became familiar. There are periods in life meant for exploration and play, when the world seems enormous and almost anything can become an adventure. But eventually those periods end. Novelty becomes familiarity, exploration becomes routine. So we try to go backward. We return to old places, old relationships, old habits, hoping to recover something that existed there. But what we’re actually trying to recover is a past version of ourselves. There is a time for play, and there is a time for work. Eventually we have to stop depending on novelty to make life feel alive and begin developing the depth to find something new in what we’ve done a thousand times. This is why real practice is built on repetition. The same cut. The same form. The same ordinary day. The goal isn’t to become the person we once were, or to recreate the circumstances in which we once felt alive. It’s to carry that openness into responsibility, discipline, familiarity, and ordinary life. A beginner experiences wonder because everything is new. The deeper practice is learning to experience wonder when nothing is new.

Musashi said, “Do nothing that is of no use.” Most people hear that and think he was talking about productivity. He wasn’t. He was talking about the ruthless honesty required to examine your own life. Look at the habits you repeat every day. Which ones make you stronger, calmer, clearer, or more present? Which ones leave you more distracted, more anxious, more bitter, or consume the hours of your life without giving anything back? Those are the places where the work begins. The path isn’t just about adding better habits. It’s equally about removing the ones that serve no purpose. Endless scrolling. Pointless arguments. Gossip. Complaining. Chasing distractions just because you’re uncomfortable sitting quietly with yourself. Every useless habit drains a little of your attention, and your attention is your life force. Eliminate what bears no fruit, and what remains naturally grows stronger. That is one of the simplest and most profound forms of discipline.

One of the strangest things about social media is the existence of people who follow someone they can’t stand. They wake up, open various apps, and voluntarily spend part of their day consuming the thoughts of a person they claim to despise. They might tell themselves they’re watching because they’re exposing someone, waiting for a mistake, or proving themselves right. But your attention is the most valuable thing you possess. Wherever you direct it, you give your life force or chi away. If someone occupies your mind every day, they’ve become part of your life, whether you intended it or not. I don’t understand it. Life is too short to build your days around resentment and hatred. If someone has nothing to offer you, unfollow them and move on. Fill your attention with people who make you wiser, kinder, stronger, or more present. Your mind becomes whatever you feed it. Hatred doesn’t punish the person you’re watching, but it does gradually reshape the one doing the watching.

One of the most important questions we can ever ask ourselves is: “What’s REALLY holding me back?” Most people immediately look outward. They blame demons, archons, bad luck, the government, the patriarchy, their parents, or the people around them. It’s comforting to believe the obstacle is somewhere outside ourselves, because then we don’t have to change. But if we’re honest, we often have to admit that the thing that has shaped our lives more than anything else is the accumulation of our own choices, habits, fears, and decisions. This isn’t about blaming yourself, but it is the first step to reclaiming your power. The moment you stop searching for the enemy “out there” and begin looking at the patterns within yourself, your life becomes something you can actually transform. The laboratory doesn’t lie. Your life is showing you exactly where the work is. Ask yourself, without excuses or self-deception: what’s holding me back? The answer may be uncomfortable, but it’s also the doorway to freedom.

Attachment to emptiness One of the final traps on the path is becoming attached to emptiness itself. After realizing that possessions, status, beliefs, and even identity are empty of inherent existence, many people quietly replace one attachment with another. They become attached to silence, detachment, non-duality, or the idea of “no self.” They mistake emptiness for the destination instead of recognizing it as a tool that frees them from clinging. The moment you begin identifying as someone who has “attained emptiness,” you’ve created another identity to defend. True freedom isn’t found in clinging to form or clinging to emptiness….it’s found in moving effortlessly between the two. This is why Zen says, “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” The point was never to escape the world, but to participate in it without being bound by it. Form is emptiness, and emptiness is form. When you stop grasping at either one, ordinary life reveals itself to have been the goal all along.

Just released a video to YouTube on the subject of Samsara. You can watch it here: youtube.com/live/nV8vK_o5AY8…