What a Monk Taught Me About Enlightenment

Weekly wisdom to level up your creative life in 3 minutes, for free.

A SHORT STORY

There’s a kind of austere perception, often shaped by the lens of culture, that when a person is truly enlightened, they become invulnerable to heartbreak, pain, and the everyday awkwardness of life. Enlightenment, some assume, is a kind of protective layer where mistakes and struggles fall away.

But one experience shattered this idea for me.

Many years ago, I was co-facilitating a classroom session alongside a friend of mine who is a monk. He was sharing stories with the students, and at one point, he spoke about the passing of his teacher and his mother. As he told the story, I noticed his voice tremble and saw tears well up in his eyes. I remember how he described it: “It still feels like thorns in my heart,” he said, allowing his grief to show, even years after her death.

It took me by surprise. Why had I assumed a monk wouldn’t feel grief? This was someone who had dedicated his life to wisdom and compassion, someone I thought had reached a state of serene detachment. Yet here he was, moved and still aching from his loss.

In that moment, I began to understand that true enlightenment doesn’t mean being insulated from the pains of life, nor does it imply some elevated place of flawless calm.

Instead, as I reflected on what enlightenment actually means, I realized it’s something much simpler—and more profound.

Enlightenment is being in real conversation with something beyond yourself, deeply engaged with life’s joys and sorrows, its highs and lows. It’s the willingness to stay open, even when it’s painful, and to meet life as it is.

And perhaps, by letting ourselves feel deeply, we are inviting others to do the same, building a space where healing becomes something we do together.

Because at the heart of enlightenment lies something remarkably human: a real conversation, a real connection.

And that, as I learned that day, makes all the difference.

How can you embrace what you’re feeling today? How can you invite others into that feeling?

A CREATIVE TOOL

Runway continues to change the game when it comes to Generative AI. Full stop.

A PIECE OF ART

“Insha’Allah” by Danusha Laméris

I don’t know when it slipped into my speech
that soft word meaning, “if God wills it.”
Insha’Allah I will see you next summer.
The baby will come in spring, insha’Allah.
Insha’Allah this year we will have enough rain.

So many plans I’ve laid have unraveled
easily as braids beneath my mother’s quick fingers.

Every language must have a word for this. A word
our grandmothers uttered under their breath
as they pinned the whites, soaked in lemon,
hung them to dry in the sun, or peeled potatoes,
dropping the discarded skins into a bowl.

Our sons will return next month, insha’Allah.
Insha’Allah this war will end, soon. Insha’Allah
the rice will be enough to last through winter.

How lightly we learn to hold hope,
as if it were an animal that could turn around
and bite your hand. And still we carry it
the way a mother would, carefully,
from one day to the next.

Grateful,

Michael