Reflecting on “what is this blog about”, or “what is my fundamental question”, I formulated it thus:

Over the last decade particularly, I have witnessed people (myself included) learning practices and inquiries that have brought about fundamental changes to their lives: the disappearance of a judgmental inner monologue, anxiety ceasing to be a problem, death ceasing being a thing to fear, a deep sense of spaciousness and peace, and similar substantial changes.

Working with these inquiries and practices is exciting: sometimes they can work incredibly fast. One friend, when he first came across them, saw a profound change in his life three days after starting. Another friend got the basic insight during my first conversation with him.

Yet, for others, they seem to be slow, hard work, to take a lot of effort. So far, I see guides and teachers seeing this as pot-luck – we don’t necessarily know beforehand whether someone will get it quickly or not.

The potential for sizeable, and seemingly lifelong change (eradication of anxiety or depression, anyone?) is here, yet we don’t yet understand why it works for some people, and not others. And here we have my fundamental question:

Why can some see these benefits, while others struggle, while yet others don’t even try because they don’t believe it is possible.

I am extremely keen to start conversations with neuroscientists – to start exploring what about the mind makes someone open to these approaches, and what can be done to speed it up.