On the surface, meditation practice can seem uneventful—almost ordinary to the point of being dismissible.

As Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck always used to say, “It’s nothing special.”

On a recent day-long retreat that I ran, myself and the participants did a whole lot of nothing special. Sitting, walking, breathing, eating. Nothing particularly dramatic. It wasn’t necessarily peaceful, and it definitely wasn’t entirely pleasant. The mind wandered, discomfort arose, restlessness came and went. And yet, for some reason, myself and countless others continue to return to retreats, along with a disciplined daily practice—day after day, year after year—as if drawn by something we can’t quite explain.

What is it that brings someone back to the cushion?

I know for me personally, that meditation does not make life suddenly become free of all problems. My stress hasn’t vanished yet. Challenges remain. But over the years, something subtle began to shift. There’s a growing sense that, even in the middle of difficulty, there is a part of experience that isn’t caught in the struggle. A part that can simply observe, without resistance. It’s what author and Buddhist teacher, Jack Kornfield calls, “spacious loving awareness.” Over time, that shift becomes more noticeable—not as a dramatic transformation, but as a quiet reorientation.

This is part of what makes the practice so difficult for me to describe to others.

From the outside, it looks like very little is happening. But internally, something is being cultivated. Not forced, not manufactured—just…allowed.

A useful way to understand this is through the image of an acorn.

Within every acorn is the potential to become a massive oak tree. That potential is already there. But whether or not it becomes a tree depends entirely on conditions. If it falls onto concrete, it won’t grow. If it’s deprived of water or sunlight, it won’t survive. But if the conditions are right—if the soil is supportive, if it’s nourished and given time—then growth happens naturally. The acorn doesn’t strain or struggle to become the oak tree. It simply unfolds into what it already is.

Our own human potential may not be so different.

Beneath the surface of habits, stress, and confusion, there seems to be an innate capacity for clarity, compassion, and wisdom. Not something that needs to be imported or created from scratch, but something that emerges when the conditions are right. Practice, then, is less about becoming something new and more about cultivating the environment where that potential can reveal itself. As Chan Master Sheng Yen used to say, “Pick up the method and let the Universe do the rest.”

This is where effort and effortlessness meet. There is a need to show up—to sit, to pay attention, to return again and again. In that sense, effort matters. But what that effort is doing is not forcing an outcome; it’s preparing the ground. Like tending a garden, the work is in creating the right conditions. The growth itself happens on its own.

That perspective stands in contrast to more familiar cultural narratives that suggest something is fundamentally wrong and needs to be fixed. Instead, it points toward the possibility that nothing essential is broken—that what’s needed is care, attention, and the willingness to stay present long enough for something deeper to take root.

In many ways, this reflects a broader human experience. People find themselves in a world they didn’t choose, navigating systems and expectations that often feel confusing or impersonal. There can be a sense of being dropped into something already in motion, trying to make sense of it while dealing with the weight of personal history and uncertainty about the future.

It’s not unlike the premise of the show my 10-year-old son introduced me to called “The Amazing Digital Circus,” where characters suddenly find themselves in an unfamiliar, constructed virtual reality without clear answers about how they got there or how to leave. Beneath its colorful and chaotic surface, the story touches on something deeply relatable: the tension between confusion, adaptation, and the search for meaning.

Practice offers a different way of relating to that tension. Rather than trying to solve the entire mystery of existence, it invites a simpler approach: meet what’s here. Work with the conditions of this moment. Tend to the soil you’re actually standing in.

Over time, this includes a shift in how one relates to themselves. Instead of constantly striving to become a better, more perfected version, there’s a growing ability to sit with things as they are. Not as resignation, but as honesty. Frustration, impatience, and even ignorance are no longer treated as obstacles to be eliminated, but as part of the human experience—part of the ground that can be worked with.

This is where compassion begins to deepen. Not as an abstract ideal, but as a natural response that emerges when resistance softens. When there is less judgment about one’s own experience, there is often less judgment toward others as well.

A poem by John Welwood captures this orientation in a simple but direct way:

Forget About Enlightenment

Forget about enlightenment.

Sit down wherever you are

And listen to the wind singing in your veins.

Feel the love, the longing, the fear in your bones.

Open your heart to who you are, right now,

Not who you would like to be,

Not the saint you are striving to become,

But the being right here before you, inside you, around you.

All of you is holy.

You are already more and less

Than whatever you can know.

Breathe out,

Touch in,

Let go.

Rather than focusing on distant goals like enlightenment or perfection, this poem points us back to our immediate experience: sitting down, listening, feeling what’s already present. Opening to who and what is here now—not an imagined future version, but the reality of this moment.

There’s a paradox in that instruction. Let go of the idea of becoming something, and at the same time, continue to show up for the practice that allows transformation to occur. It’s not about abandoning growth, but about shifting the focus away from chasing results and toward engaging fully with the present.

From that place, something begins to unfold naturally.

There’s also a growing recognition of how little is actually understood about life itself. The human body functions with an extraordinary level of intelligence—cells repairing, systems regulating, processes unfolding without conscious control. Perception is limited to a narrow band of experience, while countless other dimensions of reality exist beyond what can be seen or heard.

In that sense, a person is both more and less than they can know. More, because there is an immeasurable depth to existence. Less, because any identity or label is only a small fragment of the whole.

Practice doesn’t resolve that mystery. It doesn’t provide final answers about what life is or why it’s happening. But it does change the relationship to the unknown. Instead of needing certainty, there’s a greater willingness to rest in not knowing. As one Zen master used to always tell his students: don’t-know mind!

And perhaps that’s part of what keeps drawing people back.

Not a promise of perfection. Not an escape from difficulty. But a quiet, steady sense that something meaningful is being nurtured—something that doesn’t need to be forced, only supported. Maybe we keep showing up because our deepest potential is calling and just wants to be expressed.

Like the acorn, the oak tree is already there.

The work is simply to keep tending the conditions.

~

If you enjoyed this perspective, you may like to read Mark’s previous Elephant Journal article, here: