About Kirk
Welcome. I'm Kirk and I'm slowly experiencing what I can only describe as a spiritual awakening.
If I try to trace its origins, I might begin around 2012 or 2013 when I meditated for the first time. For a few years I meditated infrequently -- maybe a couple times a week or maybe never for a few months. I never sat for more than 20 minutes.
When I spent six weeks hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in 2014, I became aware of my monkey mind. Being alone and walking day after day introduced me to the scattered, repetitive, and largely unhelpful river of thoughts flowing through my mind.
In an effort to better understand my self and my mind, I attended a 10-day vipassana silent meditation retreat while traveling in Argentina. There I felt my own chi, or life energy, for the first time.
Just a couple weeks later I attended a week-long ayahuasca retreat in the Amazon jungle outside of Iquitos, Peru. It was my first psychedelic experience and opened further the doors of perception.
I continue to explore. These are some of my thoughts.
Thoughts
Back-Lit Grasses
Back-Lit Grasses
Middle age is our chance to know better,
to un-learn some olden ways.
After a hike in the mountains
I sit in a foothill meadow
staring softly into the low, evening sun.
The back-lit grasses are a wonder,
glowing like angels in the gentle light.
With the light in front I see sparkles and faeries
But when I look behind me
the meadow slumps into a stale green mat.
I sit down in silence.
I sit still so serenity may unveil
truths behind fears.
I withhold judgment,
and notice the river of thoughts and doubts and worries as they flow,
ceaselessly circuitous,
depressing as a skipping Smiths record.
Nearby,
Pine Creek gathers up my worries,
flushing them out with the tide.
My doubts are sucked up by the soil
while the wind wrangles stray thoughts,
the pesky ones that won’t abide.
See those golden plains
beneath the
mountain passes?
Look into the light,
and shine
like back-lit grasses.
— Kirk Merlin
Teachers
Ram Dass is the legendary former Harvard professor Richard Alpert who was among the first westerners to use psychedelics and travel to India to learn from a true guru.
This podcast is a collection of many of the hundreds of dharma talks he's given since 1969 when he returned from his first trip to India.
Jack has taught meditation internationally since 1974 and is one of the key teachers to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practice to the West. The Jack Kornfield Heart Wisdom hour celebrates Jack’s ability to mash up his long established Buddhist practices with many other mystical traditions, revealing the poignancy of life’s predicaments and the path to finding freedom from self-interest, self-judgment and unhappiness.
"We must be the change we wish to see in the world."
- Mahatma Gandhi