Living a Contemplative Life in a Modern World

What does it mean to live a spiritual life in a modern world?

What does it mean to live a good life in a secular world?

What does wisdom look like in a rational, scientific culture shaped by speed, infinite choice, and constant stimulation?

How do we find freedom amidst the complexities of modern life?

None of these questions is easy. They show up quietly in our lives as restlessness, doubt, and a sense that something essential is missing, even when things are going well. The fact that clear answers are hard to find points to a deeper cultural confusion about how to live meaningfully.

Part of the challenge is that the models of what it looks like to live a good life are all broken. If you were a peasant farmer or merchant as recent as two hundred years ago, and going back hundreds of years, your options were either to continue laboring in your role in society or to live a religious life as a monk or nun. If you were lucky enough to be in the wealthy class, you probably engaged in the spiritual practice of your region with little awareness and even less possibility of practicing other spiritual traditions. Not only because they weren't physically evenly distributed throughout the world, but even the information of these traditions wasn't distributed as it would have been censored by local authorities and institutions.

Modern life has erased that boundary, but without replacing it with a clear picture for how to live with intention.

Today, we face an abundance of spiritual teachings, practices, and philosophies. Everything is available, instantly, at our fingertips. This should be liberating. In many ways, it is. But it also creates a new problem: endless comparison without commitment, curiosity without refuge, and skepticism without orientation.

We sense that the modern world is overwhelming, fragmented, and often unlivable at its current pace. At the same time, we no longer trust institutions or inherited traditions to tell us how to live. The result is a quiet contradiction: a longing for depth alongside an inability to have confidence in our path.

What we are really searching for is not another belief system or technique. We are searching for a way to live that makes sense, internally and externally. A way to meet life with clarity, steadiness, and care.

This is where contemplative traditions still matter.

In Tibetan Buddhism, particularly in the Mahamudra and Dzogchen traditions, wisdom is not defined as accumulating knowledge or being intelligent. Wisdom is the direct understanding of our natural condition and the nature of the world around us. It's experiential, not philosophical. It changes how we relate to our own condition, the circumstances of our lives, and our place within them.

From this perspective, a good life is not built through constant striving or self-optimization. It is discovered through recognizing what is already present and available to us: a sense of peace and presence that transcends our everyday struggles. This perspective encourages us to find contentment and freedom even in the midst of life's challenges.

Freedom, then, is not the freedom of endless choice or external achievements. It is freedom from the confines of our own minds, the habitual patterns that trap us in cycles of dissatisfaction. When thoughts no longer dominate awareness, when emotions no longer dictate our actions, life becomes workable, even when it is difficult.

This is where non-dual teachings are often misunderstood.

Non-duality is easy to grasp conceptually and hard to live. Many people can repeat the idea that samsara and nirvana are not separate, or that appearance and emptiness are inseparable. But without training, these remain ideas layered on top of the same patterns of reactivity and self-concern that play out day after day.

The real distinction is not philosophical. It is experiential and practical. There is how things appear to us—fragmented, fixed, challenging—and how they actually are: actively unfolding, interdependent, and without lasting nature. Practice is the slow work of learning to stay with experience long enough for that difference to become obvious.

While the idea of sudden enlightenment may seem appealing, these traditions often emphasize a gradual path of practice and realization. This path is not linear but involves deepening layers of understanding and experience. By engaging in a systematic and rigorous approach, we prepare ourselves for sudden moments of profound insight and lasting transformation.

A contemplative life, then, is not about retreating from the world. It is about engaging it without confusion. Work, relationships, conflict, responsibility–all become part of the path, rather than obstacles to it.

Living this way does not require adopting esoteric beliefs or abandoning modern life. It requires learning how to be present, working with what is happening, and responding from clarity rather than habit. Over time, this changes not only how we experience ourselves, but how we contribute to the world around us.

The invitation of these teachings is simple, but not easy:
to stop searching for something elsewhere,
to open the door to experience as it is,
and to learn how to live from that presence, here and now.

At the start of a new year, conversations about how to live well tend to surface naturally. If this piece speaks to you, feel free to share it with someone you care about who may be asking similar questions.

As always, I look forward to hearing from you. You can always just reply to this email and I'll be on the other side.