any people read what I share about my experiences at the Zen monastery and ask for my advice. They want to know what I suggest they do about their relationships, their weight loss journey, their struggle with their boss, their children, and themselves. They want to know how to stop the crazy negative thoughts and how to find self-love despite their faults.

I read posts on social media forums filled with advice. Tips, tricks, articles, case studies, and personal stories. From my experience, I know how tempting it is to read, listen to and watch inspirational content. It can be very uplifting and illuminating. In fact, when I first found Zen, I obsessively bought every other book about Zen I could get my hands on. Because I was addicted to this feeling they produced.

However, I noticed I was doing something rather odd. I was skipping all the exercises in the books, and I was avoiding doing the one thing all of them said to do. Meditate. After my 9th book, I realized how crazy it was to be reading all these books about meditation and not meditate. So I broke down and bought myself a cushion.

And I began to meditate.

That’s when things started to change. Things began to slow down. I became more patient, kind, and loving. My girlfriend noticed that I was acting differently, and so did all of my friends. I changed.

Had I not stopped to meditate, I’m convinced that all those inspirational books would have integrated into my vast library and nothing different would have happened with my life. I would not have sold all of my belongings and traveled cross-country toward the Zen monastery. I would not have visited, train or practice Zen for nearly 14 years. No transformation would have happened.

So now that I’m out of the monastery, coaching my clients, helping my students, and interacting with people who want to develop personally, professionally, and spiritually, I see them struggling with what I did all those years ago. They’re reading books, watching videos, liking inspirational quotes, listening to talks and consuming lots of content. They’re fascinated by their mental understandings but struggling to wrap their lives around what they’re learning.

Within myself, I see the temptation to want to offer “my answers” to help them. To add to the noise coming at them.

But I know that wouldn’t be of true service.

The Korean Zen Master, Seung Sahn, said it best:

“Zen means that if you want to understand what a watermelon is, you take a watermelon, get a knife, and cut the watermelon. Then you put a slice into your mouth—boom! Your experience! Words and speech and books and learning cannot deliver this point. Even if you read one hundred books about watermelons, and hear one hundred lectures, they cannot teach as well as one single bite.”

So if you want to know what my real advice is, it will not be about whether you leave your partner or stay with him. I won’t argue about the benefits of working harder versus being more kind. I won’t answer your questions about which books to read about spirituality.

I will suggest that you go find out.

I will suggest that you sit down on your meditation cushion and sit through the resistance. I will suggest that you take that course on self-compassion and experience what a deep, powerful relationship with yourself can be like. I will suggest that you get up, shut the book or the computer or the phone off and talk to someone. Listen to them. Sit in silence. Look inside. Ask yourself interested questions.

Don’t be like that person Saint Augustine mentions in this quote attributed to him:

“Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.”

Stay with yourself and go as far inward as you can go. Don’t play the shell game of “find the right answer” on the surface of life. Stop rearranging the deck chairs on your Titanic.

Go deeper still and get to the foundation.

Digging tiny potholes all over your yard will not produce water. Staying in one spot and going deep is where your treasure lies. It’s where the water will spring forth.