Patrick Kearney’s presence returns to my mind precisely when the spiritual high of a retreat ends and I am left to navigate the messy reality of ordinary life. It’s 2:07 a.m. and the house feels like it’s holding its breath. The fridge hums. The clock ticks too loud. I’m barefoot on cold tile, which I forgot would be cold, and my shoulders are tight in that low-grade way that means I’ve been bracing all day without noticing. The memory of Patrick Kearney surfaces not because I am on the cushion, but because I am standing in the middle of an unmeditative moment. Because nothing is set up. No bell. No cushion perfectly placed. Just me standing here, half-aware, half-elsewhere.
The Unromantic Discipline of Real Life
Retreats used to feel like proof. Like I was doing the thing. You wake up, you sit, you walk, you eat quietly, repeat. Even the physical pain in those settings feels purposeful and structured. I would return home feeling luminous, certain that I had reached a new level of understanding. But then reality intervenes—the laundry, the digital noise, and the social pressure to react rather than listen. This is the moment where practice becomes clumsy and uninspiring, and that is precisely where I find Patrick Kearney’s influence.
There’s a mug in the sink with dried coffee at the bottom. I told myself earlier I’d rinse it later. Later turned into now. Now turned into standing here thinking about mindfulness instead of doing the obvious thing. I notice that. Then I notice how fast I want to narrate it, make it mean something. Fatigue has set in, a simple heaviness that makes me want to choose the easiest, least mindful path.
No Off Switch: Awareness Beyond the Cushion
I remember listening to Patrick Kearney talk once về thực hành bên ngoài các khóa thiền, and it didn’t land as some big insight. It landed like a mild discomfort. Like, oh right, there’s no off switch. No sacred space exists where the mind is suddenly exempt from the work of presence. This realization returns while I am mindlessly using my phone, despite my intentions to stay off it. I place the phone face down, only to pick it back up moments later. Discipline, it seems, is a jagged path.
My breath is shallow. I keep forgetting it’s there. Then I remember. Then I forget again. There is no serenity here, only clumsiness. My posture wants to collapse, and my mind craves stimulation. The person I am during a retreat seems like a distant stranger to the person I am right now, the one in old sweatpants, hair a mess, thinking about whether I left the light on in the other room.
The Unfinished Practice of the Everyday
Earlier this evening, I lost my temper over a minor issue. The memory returns now, driven here by the mind's tendency to dwell on regrets once the external noise stops. I feel a tightness in my chest when the memory loops. I don’t fix it. I don’t smooth it over. I just feel it sit there, awkward and unfinished. This moment of difficult awareness feels more significant than any "perfect" meditation I've done in a retreat.
Patrick Kearney, for me, isn’t about intensity. It’s about not outsourcing mindfulness to special conditions. In all honesty, that is difficult, because controlled environments are far easier to manage. Real life is indifferent. Reality continues regardless of your state—it demands your presence even when you are frustrated, bored, or absent-minded. The rigor required in this space is subtle, unheroic, and often frustrating.
At last, I wash the cup. The warm water creates a faint steam that clouds my vision. I use my shirt to clear my glasses, aware of the lingering coffee aroma. These mundane facts feel significant in this quiet hour. My spine makes a sharp sound as I move; I feel a flash of pain, then a moment of amusement at my own state. The mind wants to turn that into a moment. I don’t let it. Or maybe I do and just don’t chase it far.
I lack a sense of total clarity or peace, yet I am undeniably present. Torn between the need for a formal framework and the knowledge that I must find my own way. Patrick Kearney fades back into the background like a reminder I didn’t ask for but keep needing, {especially when nothing about this looks like practice at all and yet somehow still is, unfinished, ordinary, happening anyway.|especially when my current reality looks nothing like "meditation," yet is the only practice that matters—flawed, mundane, and ongoing.|particularly now, when none of this feels "spiritual," y