Success Story with Scott D. Clary Lessons - What 6 Months of Silent Meditation Taught Me About Anxiety | Cory Muscara - Former Monk
Aug 16, 2025
Cory Muscara, a former monk and mindfulness teacher, reveals enlightening lessons from six months of silent meditation. He discusses how our anxiety often stems from a fear of the future and contrasts this with the calm of present-moment awareness. Cory emphasizes the importance of distinguishing ambitions rooted in fear from those inspired by joy, advocating for a life aligned with our deepest values. He also shares practical mindfulness techniques to cultivate presence and navigate life's distractions.
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We Are Future-Thinking By Design
- Humans are fundamentally future-oriented and uniquely capable of imagining and organizing toward futures that don't yet exist.
- Presence and future planning can coexist when future-directed action arises from a grounded, spacious inner place.
Thoughts Arise In The Present
- Thoughts about past and future arise in the present, so mindfulness doesn't mean eliminating them but relating differently to them.
- Judging yourself for having future thoughts creates layers of suffering and undermines meditation practice.
Pause Before Acting On Future Thoughts
- Make space for future and past thoughts instead of judging them during meditation and daily life.
- Track whether future-oriented decisions come from fear or from spaciousness before acting on them.
