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Reverse Meditation
Oct 2025
Meditation is not a temporary escape from reality; instead, it’s a doorway into it. Reverse the way you perceive the world and your own emotions — it’s a perspective that comes from the view of emptiness.
Reverse Meditation begins by noticing the old mechanisms we still carry, the automatic ways we avoid, protect, or contract, and gradually updating the ones that no longer belong to the present.
Recently been into this book by Andrew Holecek, who also wrote Dream Yoga. Some thoughts to share:
“Nurture your meditation by destroying it.”
— Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche
This is an explicit way to help us visualize how things manifest in a relatively destined way when they become substantial in this dimension — a dimension built on duality, what we call “reality.” But the heart comes from a place of oneness, or emptiness, that can only manifest both at the same time — meaning good within the bad, bad within the good, are not separate — they arise together.
It’s a different way of seeing — one that shows how oneness/wholeness and completion arise through the merging of yin and yang. Yet we tend to focus on searching for what feels good and safe, which, consciously or unconsciously, pulls us away from reality.
Meditation, in turn, reverses our mind — turning it back onto reality with clarity.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
To stay with the mind FOR 90S without immediately reacting
Create a Gap
The first step is not to enter the deepest wound. It is to create a small gap between experience and reaction.
A feeling appears.
The body contracts.
The old response begins.
Even a brief pause can stop us from being swallowed by the emotion.
Instead of reacting from the emotion, we begin to relate to it.
To stretch the mind without overdefining
Make Space
Once there is a gap,
the mind can begin to soften.
Sound, body, thought, emotion, tension,
memory, silence, and space can all arise without needing to be fixed too quickly.
Difficult emotions often feel huge
when awareness is narrow. Open awareness does not remove the feeling but gives them more room.
It allows us to see it more clearly.
To turn toward pain, and make poison become medicine
Turn towards the Contraction
When the mind is stable and spacious enough, we can turn toward what we usually avoid.
This is the reversal.
Reverse Meditation does not move away from discomfort. It enters the contraction with awareness.
Not to force pain. Not to prove strength. But to see what the pain is revealing.
The contraction is not the failure of practice, it is where practice begins.
“Instead of “waking up,” it’s more about “waking down.”Instead of transcendence, it’s more about “subscendence.”Instead of trying to get out, it’s more about getting in.”
“The reverse meditations give us the opportunity to relate TO our mind instead of FROM it.”
"Death is just a forced openness."
Reverse Meditation is not forcing yourself into pain.
It is noticing the old mechanism
that still reacts from fear,
even when the present moment no longer needs it.
First, we create a gap.
Then, we make space.
Only then, we turn toward the contraction.
Not to suffer more,
but to let the old response finally be seen, released, and updated.
Suffering = Pain x Resistance
A classic law; the suffering equation mentioned in Holecek’s book “Reverse meditation”
Pain and suffering are not exactly the same. Pain may arise naturally.
Suffering becomes stronger when the mind contracts around the pain and starts resisting it.
A simple formula:
suffering = pain x resistance
Pain appears.
Then the mind adds:
this should not be happening
I cannot feel this
I need to fix this now
something is wrong with me
something is wrong with them
this must disappear before I can be okay
This resistance creates another layer.
The original pain is already difficult. But the relationship to the pain makes it heavier.
Reverse Meditation does not deny the pain. It changes the relationship to pain. It asks us to see the resistance, the contraction, and the old mechanism around it. When the mechanism becomes visible, the response can slowly become less automatic.
The idea of pain comes from the amount of contraction we’ve built up in the past as a way of defense. As we grow, the more ‘solid and rigid’ we become. A way to eliminate pain and suffering is to reverse our automatic, habitual response mechanism—in other words, to use the opportunity of pain to open instead of contracting more. Meaning opening into the authentic instead of contracting away from the authentic.
It only feels painful because of the contrast. If you weren’t so frozen, the defrosting wouldn’t hurt.”
Meditation is not an escape from pain or reality;
instead, it's a doorway into it.
How to find the balance between spiritual practices and daily life
“If we’re not careful, meditation easily slips into a form of escape, and the meditative path turns into just another version of our comfort plan… If we only associate the meditative mind with silence, stillness, and comfort, we’re missing the point of authentic spiritual practice.”
To comment on Holecek’s text above: anything has a neutral quality; meditation itself is not inherently a good or bad, peaceful or bustling experience. The experience of meditation is defined by the individual who’s experiencing it and is determined by how the tool (or meditation) is used. If the individual is open and aware, anything can eventually be turned into a tool of meditation. Nondual mind
“Follow your bliss,” by Joseph Campbell, is a partial truth — we’ll just get blissed out.
Conditional vs Unconditional
14/02/2025
"We can use conditional expressions to help us actualize the unconditional which allows us to discover heaven even when we hurt"
CONDITIONAL
= inherent limitations in being the human body experience. Duality
UNCONDITIONAL
= Emptiness, openness, non duality
Charcoal on paper | A4 x 6
Near Enemy
How to find the balance between spiritual practices and daily life
I’ve been in situations myself where the list could go on and on. In fact, our unique personalities can often be a combination of coping mechanisms when awareness is not present. Without awareness, things can swing to the extreme and lose balance, causing us to become out of touch with ourselves—disconnected from our current state by reacting in an automatic way.
The concept of a “near enemy” is like a wake-up call, making us realise just how many items we might be able to tick off the list. But it all comes down to the essential question: is this simply a habit, or is this truly how it is now?
It’s important to see that the “near enemy”can also be the “near friend.” In truth, the line between the two is created within us. The key to understanding is to see the full picture—to allow the duality to exist at the same time—until the mind and eyes become non-dual and open.
"The intensity of our compulsive thinking is in direct proportion to the extent that we're unwilling to experience our body in a full and direct way."
Compulsive thinking emphasizes speed, which prevents things from being fully expressed and experienced.
Reverse meditation is about reversing our habitual ways of thinking and doing, transforming and reconstructing the meaning of painful experiences. Note that it’s not an easy process — emotions will shift back and forth, so be patient, know it takes time, and don’t give up.
Relate with our mind instead from it
Relate from: INSIDER | Quick judgment and definition through reference to an external image.
Relate with: OUTSIDER | Slow observation and reflection through reference to an inner image.
"The reverse meditations give us the opportunity to relate to our mind instead of from it - and also to establish a relationship to our evasion tactics, which otherwise become obstacles that act like scar tissue to sequester the unwanted experience from consciousness. Relating from our mind, from our reactivity, is no relationship at all. In place of conscious relationship, we respond with knee-jerk reflexes to difficult experience, a reactivity that kicks us out of feeling body and into our thinking head, and into unnecessary suffering. Instead of dealing authentically with the challenging somatic sensation, we leap into inauthentic conceptual proliferation (confabulating and catastrophizing) to buffer ourselves from the discomfort of our feelings. We run from the honest pain and real news that come with being human, and into dishonest commentary and fake news. The truth is that many of the worst things in our life are things that never really "happened"!"
Condition-led & Source-led
“Material fulfilment” and “Inner fulfilment,” are already spiritually over-used. People hear them and feel they understand, but often they only understand the surface of the words. Maybe the distinction is more like "Condition-led and Source-led".
One moves through motivation FOR something; the other moves as a movement FROM something.
These two are two sides of one state of mind by choice, we often relate them in a way
Relate from: I become the wound, the fear, the judgement, the story.
Relate with: I turn toward the wound and stay with it as something to know.
"You really can feel good under any circumstance; you just need to enlarge your sense of goodness and refine your understanding of "bad". Your comfort plan can evolve to encompass even the most uncomfortable experience."
Closing: Updating the Mechanism
14/02/2025
Reverse Meditation is not about becoming someone new. It is about seeing the old mechanism clearly.
The automatic way we avoid, protect, contract, or react may have once helped us survive something.
But not every old response belongs to the present.
When we turn toward the contraction with awareness, the mechanism begins to reveal itself.
It does not need to be forced away. It does not need to become another identity.
It only needs to be seen clearly enough that it no longer has to repeat unconsciously.
Through awareness, the old response can soften. And slowly, a new way of meeting life becomes possible.
“Challenges are the special opportunity to de-auto the automatic response that comes from the depth.”
Sources:
Reverse Meditation: How to Use Your Pain and Most Difficult Emotions as the Doorway to Inner Freedom - by Andrew Holecek
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