The Garden Within

Moral, Mind and Mealth. Health! Nevermind... Forget the Happiness, we're full on striving for fulfilment. Let's recover from what the phone and the social complex has done to us, regain consciousness through mindfulness and meditation, approach our roots and nature once again - let's give ourselves what we actually need. Experience peace in all its aspects, living and sharing it as the flame of the world. This is about us. How can we feel good to do good. How can we change things, by seeing them clearly? What makes a good Life and what part can we play in its creation?

Well, big words for someone a little over 20, but let's hear what this crooked Mind has come up with to justify this kind of introduction...

For this, we have to take a deep breath and deep dive into our imagination where we will find ourselves in darkness. This is what it looks like behind closed lids... try it out! -
This void of nothingness, a bit scary at first, will serve with time as our inner temple, our realm of thoughts, images of our inner eye and memories. Here we can create almost anything from fictional worlds, over conversations that have never or will never have happened, to remembering how we sat on a tree as a child and watched something of unimportance. It's all still there but it's buried beneath all the things that nonstop occupy our head. If it's stress through work, through children or your personal interests, we all have excuses to say that we wouldn't have 10 or 30 minutes spare a day to sit still and do nothing to escape the cluster of what Life throws in our ways. Until we don't have excuses anymore. That moment will then open up a world, a world inside our heads, where we can think and discuss what currently makes us go mad. A place where we can find solutions and more questions by looking into this little world of ours, our headspace. Often thinking about something for a while, can make an apparently big problem turn into something rather small or uninteresting. Often we create a relation to things by thinking and grasping them deeper. Often we find the answers we've been looking for through all our lives and all over the world just sitting there in our head, waiting for us to look for them and ask the questions of essence. Those answers have placed themselves on a little cosy wooden bench, just right there in the middle of our inner temple, our Garden Within!

We all kinda of know, that this is the key to many things. We know that we would need those moments of Silence and Peace and that we would gain a great benefit from it. So far fear and uncertainty and apparent failure has driven us away from it, but we are here to change that, right? Every new encounter with a topic is a new chance, a new start to try out, explore and grow on a new challenge. This will pay off, and you know so...

This place of Harmony, Peace and natural beauty isn't even that different from a normal Garden. It has the same needs. Visit it from time to time - your Garden and yourself will thank you for it. It's this most essential giving and taking, and exchange inside your own being's realm. Take care and water your plants and look after them until your work pays off and you get the fruits of your labor. Worship it because this is the unique place that only belongs to you. You're therefore the only person who can actually improve it and as a matter of fact, not many besides you could ruin this garden. There is some sort of control and mastery you can achieve, to be in greater Harmony and Life itself. To make things flow your way. But as we will later experience ourselves, it doesn't come through taking control of your Mind through force of willpower or such thing, but through Letting Go. You've heard of it and there is more to it!
So, all of this process is totally up to you and how much effort you are willing to spend. If you're striving for inner peace, if you're trying to learn how to develop a headspace that helps you being creative and imagine worlds of scenarios, that lets you remember all the things for university, a head that knows such calmness that a thing like stress can be worked with much more easy or a mindset which thinks healthy and that helps you make healthy lifestyle decisions, or even the perception of being in possession of a greater Spirit when in a conversation, when your emotions don't take overhand and you're more aware and more able to direct your flow of Thoughts, to be more patient, more or less rationed, sound wiser, breathe deeper, walk straighter or rest better. If any of those things represent major interests of you, then you're onto something. Because Health starts up there, in your head, and any effort to improve your Mental Health will pay off in a way, that no amount of money could ever compete with. Some other benefits will also join in through time and meditation practice, but there is no need to think of them yet. Just be aware of the steps you are about to take and that they could bring you to a place for beyond the one you are standing on right now. You are knocking on a giant door and it will open for you. To take the next actions is what changes your Life already. If you feel something inside you, pushing for this enriching Change, you've come to the right place. But...

Hold on! Meditation?? I've heard of that! I can't do that! Isn't that this blank mind thing with zero thoughts and all and super hard to do and I don't want to be a monk and maybe this isn't for me. Maybe...

Yeah, people say that all the time. Ask a random person on the street what they think what meditation is and they will tell you something like that. By the way, better don't ask a random person on a street - this world is weird enough! Let the poor people get through their day without a distraction like that. They might just end up thinking and reflecting about it and then their day is ruined... but you know what they did with that? When they were sitting in their car driving home, wondering what dinner will look like. Or after that in the shower when they got a little annoyed about something at work but then warm water flushed this anger away. Or what was it that they did, laying in bed closing and opening their eyes in the dark, watching the dark corners of the room and asking themselves: 'What did that weird person on the street mean? What do I think meditation is? Well, probably nothing. Good night!' What just happened there? Did this person speak out loud? Maybe, maybe not. Let's consider that this was an inner voice producing a monologue wondering about things, planning stuff, commenting and imagining. Now this consciousness went to bed and made a few last moves before giving over the power of the mind to what we call sleep. So what does this individual know about meditation? What was it that this person performed in the moments of silence? Do we know more about Meditation than we would assume? What do we think to know?
Are you ready for a short opinion of my own? Make your own beforehand and compare!

Meditation blossoms in silence. Whether this silence is around you or in your head. It can bring your head to some sort of peace, maybe slowing it down, maybe redirecting the slow of thoughts. This is what happened to our stranger of the street before falling asleep but still this isn't what meditation is.
The intention is missing or at least the intention when going to bed isn't supporting what we call intentional mindfulness. This is what we need. Intention. We place ourselves on the ground, maybe cross legged if we're very much into it, and then we close our eyes, this will make things easier. The intention is not falling asleep but laying the focus, that our brain possesses, from the world that surrounds and distracts us, onto the inner realm, our own head, it's thoughts and feelings, memories and left over perceptions. That's it! You're already meditating! Are you wondering what this annoying voice is about and why in God's name there isn't much of that silence you were longing for and everybody talks off, when explaining Meditation to you? Well, first off, this voice is You! Listen to it. It's yours, your thoughts, your inner monologue. You're directly confronted with what you consider to be yourself and what yourself is all about in the Mind. Want to try something? Ask yourself a question and see if you get an answer. Or think of a Moment of the Past, a so called Memory and see how you perceive it, how it comes to your Mind. Or take the inactive part and do what I love most: watch your head neutrally as if you're sitting in a cinema and looking at the giant white screen, being excited for what is about to come next. This is the content of your Life! Anything that is about you will appear here on this inner surface. Just be there for a while as the spectator from afar and listen with mild interest what this person that you think to be, is thinking about. What occupies your Mind? What are your worries, what are your Hopes?
You most certainly will get an idea at some point, something super important, like 'Oh darn it, I wanted to do the laundry.', and then your automatic response will tell you to get up, leave the nothingness and do something. If this happens you haven't failed. Just realise that you could've done it later, too. The next time you take a pen and paper and if it's really important, you just note it down and do it after the 12 minutes of practice. That's the time I most usually take in mornings, to get myself sorted for the day. Over time your impulse control will improve but you might wonder how and in what aspects. Well, I would spoil you most of the fun if I'm telling it all now, so for now you can decide whether you want to explore and find out for yourself, something I've enjoyed doing for the last two years, 02.2026, or you keep reading this Page of mine and learn a few methods, get some inspiration what to strive for and reload on motivation by having a clear goal in front of your inner eye. I will introduce you to a guideline on which I think, we can make a first step into Meditation happen together.
But I can promise you, that by practicing enough you will encounter the Art of 'Letting Go' at some point, either you found it by yourself or you had a Spiritual Guide, like I had a few. You will also settle at a point of relaxation beyond anything you've felt before and when you practice long enough, we'll be back at the beginning and then we can talk about silence in your head. People I honour refer to this silence between thoughts as 'Jinkan'! Until you get there enjoy the content of your brain, it's free and it tells you all you need to know about yourself. Also, it wants you to listen first. You ignored your Mind long enough, so no wonder that everything starts shooting at once, when you once in a Lifetime sat down and listened to your head for once actively... there is a world it wants to tell you about and we barely stop by for a visit. So don't get scared off from the noise that creeps up at first, behind closed lids. This is a part of it and I'm tempted to say it might be one of the greatest importance. Everything after that is simply control and power over our own minds. To not let it wander, but to direct its way by literally letting go of your will and your Self. There is possible mastery in this and something big to strive for. But this shouldn't scare you off, but the other way around, because that path towards a great new goal is the beautiful journey of Life itself, inside your own Mind. To get to know yourself and to understand the world and Life's existence through your own experience is a great gift which we are allowed to receive, if we choose to engage in the countless practices there are.

I will meet you at some point in the future as the wise being you will certainly be, sitting there in the setting sun, cross legged and with a straight but relaxed back. And as I place myself next to you and return to my home, my inner home, my Garden and its bench, I will see you there, just waiting on that bench of yours, in total peace with yourself and the world. I will enjoy the conversation as we share all the wisdom we have gained through this magical place of ours and as we tell stories of the world and where She has taken us on our magical journey.

NOW - The Power of Moments

I’m sure you experienced it. You read something and you are really into the topic. You might even love the idea of making this a new part of your coming Life. In those brief moments you see the potential of this Change clearly. You can imagine the input it will have and the support and growth you could gain from it. There are quite a few thoughts running through your head as you finished one of those articles and then those thoughts return to unwanted silence. They don’t tell you what’s next. They don’t light the way of how to take the first step and how to begin this journey that you wish to be on and motivation washes out into the feeling of being lost, grasping all the efforts that might come, feeling overwhelmed, unsure of what to do exactly. Roughly, we are missing a clear perspective here, true?... but worry not!
This article is not supposed to be one of those. I’m not gonna leave you hanging in this one because Meditation feels to me literally like the key to most of those things, you really wish for. There is no way that I can let this opportunity slip, since we don’t know when you are gifted the next chance to have insights into this. Without wanting to scare you, but this is a rare chance to start something big in your Life. Meditation has saved and changed and enhanced all Lives that I met in the world and there is no fairness in it, if you were to miss out on it now! It's a free gift available to each and every single one of us. It takes a little bravery, that for sure... I hope not to lose you on this thing, and don’t give up on me, either. Don’t get disturbed by the way I write or how I explain things, because you would damage only yourself if you let yourself be drawn away from it. Just because the guy behind the words sucks at proper explanations. I will try my very best, but keep in mind that this isn’t my mother tongue either. And that there are easier things to produce words about, than spiritual context. We’ll see how it goes.
For this time there is only one guideline I can give to you, in order to follow through and make what might be your first encounter and experience with Meditation. I will tell you step by step on how to take those things, but this requires you to be an active reader, in mind and physically, too. You will need to interact and follow the instructions. Are you in a position where you can do this? Like sitting and not doing anything, really... either alone or with people who are willing to join? You shouldn't be driving a car, you shouldn’t be floating in water, you shouldn’t be trying to bake and laying in bed with the intention of finding sleep is also not the straightest path towards Enlightenment. What you need is a floor. And if you have one in a silent area, then this is what comes to your advantage most. Since you are likely reading this on a screen and since you might benefit from the timer of a clock, you can take your little block of technology with you. The smartphone for educational purpose only. I hope we are together on this one... if your smart devices are still stealing life time of you instead of enriching you and being of good use, then major secrets to unlock this life benefit are also hidden in here.
Oh, and by the way! My name is Lennart and I am the author behind the concept of Life, Values and the Movement based on Gen.ZM. This community represented in the online medium of a Blog. I currently lay in a tent in Tanzania, but I have also lived in Canada, walked through all of Europe by foot, lived a long while on travels without money and I always try to master the natural approach on living. When having traveled this way in Norway, I stumbled over Buddhist Monks on the top of a mountain and they invited me to their home for a couple of days. My meditation foundation are two years of self explored practice plus the input of those monks. My absolute dream is to become a Monk of a Tibetan Monastery. When I ask myself who I am or what I ultimately want to be, there are a few things I noted down, after those meditational thoughts. I feel like sharing...

I WANT TO LIVE IN THE SPIRIT OF UNITY
BE A SOLDIER OF HEAVENLY PEACE
OBEYING LOVINGLY TO NATURE'S LAW
WHILE DEMANDING PERSPECTIVE'S FREEDOM
NOT MAN OF BAD THREADS
NOR LEADER OF THE MASSES
PURELY I STRIVE TO BE PROPHET AND BROTHER

A statement of 02.02.2026. Maybe this changes again, but for now I am much in inner comfort with those statements.

So, how can this be of any help to you and how do we bring those words into actual reforming action? Well, let’s see.
First off, I really don’t want you to read what is coming, if you are not in the position to act at the time being. I have to doubt, that you will read this entry twice, and therefore this time of reading, this moment we are in, is the one and only important one. Are you in your place and are you ready for something unusual? are you there to act, or do your eyes consume inactively, as we are used and taught to consume? Wake up!
Awesome... Sit on the floor!
Move!
You changed your position, right? We are together? Cool. Since I am unsure how you are sitting on the floor, let’s stay together on this one and put our feet together, in a way that our soles are touching each other in front of us. Some sort of diamond shape is what your legs are into now. Why do we do this? We are trying to see, how good our knees have come through the last couple of years and if you are still a child, physically. Rock your knees slightly up and down and ask yourself if this is the flexibility you expected. I myself don’t reach the floor with my knees and that wasn’t the goal either. But staying in this position will make the position of being cross-legged easier later on. Stay like this for a while, rest your arms on the upper side of your knee and take a deep breath. Not just a normal deep breath but one that explores the volume of the wings of your lung. It’s a common thing that most of us don’t use our lung potential, and I barely know anyone who inhales and exhales deeply consciously often. But for us it would be a great start, to inhale and exhale at least once a day as deeply as we can and exhale with the same approach. This can take half a minute easily. But we have time, so try yourself!
It didn't take half a minute I assume, but to do it later thinking of it by yourself, will bring you in the position where half a minute is very easy.
Be aware of how much oxygen is needed and how shallow you usually breathe. Your dear and strong heart is handling it well by beating more often, but this is a waste of life energy, if you could simply do a better job of breathing. Yes, the breathing happens automatically, and we are lucky that it does, but who says that we couldn't be of control over those things, too? Meditation is a lot about those aspects, which seem unchangeable, because we don’t pay enough mind to them. Meditation is the key to change a few of those fundamentals, that are otherwise locked in.
When you were breathing in like this, did you only use your chest to take in the volume of the air? What about your belly? Do you think you can manage to take the first half of a big breath into your belly and the second half into your chest room? Go ahead, it does work. Start small and try out how to use your belly and chest together, moving like a wave from the stomach into the rib cage.
Ok, so that’s the breathing part and I’m sure you’ve heard of the impact breathing can have on many things. Stress or pain management or concentration for example. Life quality depends on many of these apparently smaller aspects which we don't pay enough attention to, but which are so horribly important... let's say staying hydrated or eating only products, which your grandmother could've identified as food - or breathing properly. Yeah, you are right. Distraction has done a lot of bad things to those important pillars of Life, but this isn't about giving up on stuff, but to rediscover them and make them part of the new chapter which is about to enter our paths.
There is this guy called Wim Hof and he preaches some ancient Indian wisdoms of breath on YouTube. Cool guy, in the literal sense, and through him I got a little glimpse of what breathing makes possible. I recall the time in Canada, January, when our pond next to the house I lived in was frozen completely. Knowing Wim Hof’s approach to coldness and breath I attempted ice baths up to 11 minutes full body. I wouldn’t say miracle too quick but the impact those practices had, definitely left me impressed. For now I kept parts of it as aspects of my Life. I’m walking barefoot since I’m in Tanzania and did so in Canada throughout six months, too, including that beginning of the year in January. Cold showers have been an aspect of my Life as well ever since and for both practices I need the breathing in order to cope with the perception of Pain. A giant shift of the Mind has taken place in me and by now I was able to walk four weeks over Tanzanian soil barefoot with a travelers backpack on top, living without any money and more important, mostly without any comfort. About the comfort philosophy I will share more details at a right point in time.
Back to our breath, which we probably completely forgot... how are our feet and legs looking? Are you still sitting and are you leaning on the floor with an arm or did you change into cross legged position and found yourself comfortable? If you are not sitting cross legged often, you will certainly not be comfortable, that’s for sure, but if you are already, even better.

The cross legged position is our next destination. This is also referred to as the tailor position and most people connect it to the act that we are about to attempt, called meditation. The position of sitting cross legged turned out to be the only one for me, that I can hold for an infinite amount of time after some months of practice. No other way of sitting on the floor is this endurable in the long run as sitting cross legged. But also this comes to a price and your knees will tell you which. No matter if old or young knees or damaged ones by ski accidents like mine; this position will cause you pain especially when leaving the position of the tailor stretching them out again. Goodness gracious... During the sitting itself, there will also be some pain occurring but it’s harmless discomfort. Nothing could break in your body, you would realise if there is an actual problem. But sitting like this will feel like your enemy for quite a while. Without much stops, your mind will mention to you, that there is a slight problem in your legs and that you are the one who is supposed to initiate the movement of your body. This is a trap and you grow and grow as you learn to keep going through this discomfort. A thing that one of the Buddhist Monks in my Norway Experience mentioned was, that Pain is one of the greatest teachers. And yes, he is. But we will learn more about it later.

Let’s move our right foot under the left thigh and the left foot under the right calve. This is the position I find myself in now. My back is slightly rounded and I’m looking into my lap because I’m typing on my phone and I’m definitely not paying much mind to my posture, but in this moment I will start to strengthen my back muscles and to slowly move upwards more and more, growing until I reach my maximum height. You might automatically feel how your pelvis adapts to this and if you're far enough, you might end up sitting straight which feels like an effort, you could hardly keep up for long. I’m sorry for that, but that’s the practice we’re looking into. Your back will become stronger and you will become straighter and straighter in your posture until you represent the most perfect form of that godly gifted body of yours and you can honor its beauty through your activity in the mind. Sitting straight, walking tall, lifting out your chest and showing self confidence and self love in some aspects. The moment your chest moves forward while sitting you have an idea of what this could be about. For that experiment imagine a thin red thread connected to this breastbone of yours. This little one in front of your lung I guess, where a few of your ribs come together. There is a little imaginary thread hanging and it pulls gently but firm on the center of your breastbone. One end is connected right there and the other one is on the lower side of a cloud high above, very straight above. This cloud pulls on that thread and your chest follows the direction until your chest of beneath the cloud without your head being in the way, blocking the connection. Also, your shoulders pull a bit back and make more place for your chest to expand towards the sky.
If you tried and liked this step, try to integrate good posture into your daily Life. If you manage to do that, tell me how, because I’m trying it for months now but the consciousness of the posture is a very very slow process as it seems. Never give up because after a while the first few people will realize what you don’t see, since it’s your daily small progression to which you don’t pay a lot of mind yourself.
We are sitting! For a toddler that would be great step but since we’re trying to act as adults in the middle of life’s waves and challenges, this might seem small and insignificant. It isn’t. But it’s challenging. Any challenge is good and not feeling comfortable is a way of growing very fast. So... does your left foot also feel like it's dying? Are your knees in agony and would you love to change?
Well, how long can we hold this position, tho? Depending on the grade of pain that we are experiencing, it might not be much more than a few minutes before the desire of changing position threatens to eat us as a whole. But technically we are ready to attempt the following step. We can now start to meditate.
But first I will stretch out the suffering of reading in this position a little more by asking, what is meditation? This isn’t a question that I am here to answer, but instead I’ll give you the guide to head out onto your own journey of exploring and asking that question yourself. What is this thing called meditation for yourself? What do you experience when sitting there not doing much? Why should this be of any help and where does not doing anything lead to? I think we are coming closer to find that out.

I let you go now. I advice you to freely meditate, but if it's of help to you, it might be useful to have an alarm on your phone, stopping through time for twelve minutes. The sweet spot for starters in which it drives you sometimes mad how long twelve minutes can possibly be, but which also releases you at the given point without humiliating your patience too badly. This is it of me! Go ahead and start those 12 minutes, experiencing it with all of your being.
If there is one last thing I might allow myself to add: Whatever is about to come - Let go!
-03.02.2026