Sai,

I’m sorry for the difficulties you’re wrestling with, and at such a young age! Your courage to dive deeper and deeper into the nature of reality is inspiring. That being said, you’re very young to be trying to look at some of these ideas, and your brain is still developing the capacity to see the interweaving. As you grow, the frontal lobe develops, and makes a lot of what you’re exploring easier. A few things came to heart as I read your words.

Perhaps what you’re experiencing is sometimes called “emptiness sickness” or looking at reality and harvesting a sense of meaninglessness. This is often troubling when an unprepared mind begins to try to understand some of the ideas you’re talking about. It is easy to think “yes, it is all illusion, therefore nothing matters” but this is inherently false. One of my teachers said “it might be illusion, but if you step in front of a bus you will still experience pain.” There is still cause and effect, even if what we experience is empty of inherent meaning or lasting qualities.

For instance, look at hunger. Our body needs food to survive, and when it doesn’t have food it feels a desire to eat. If we start thinking “oh god, I am so hungry, I am miserable, there is no food I want in the refrigerator, this is endless” then it is good to look at the emptiness of the hunger and see it is just impermanent, here because the body needs food. However, it is not good to apply it to the food and say “that is empty and meaningless, it can’t help my hunger because it is illusion”. The food is not empty… its empty of additional qualities, such as “pizza is good food” and “lima beans are bad food” but it is genuinely, truly food.

The path away from your maze is to drop the maze. Let go of the philosophical words you’ve been reading, for now, and begin to self nurture. Be kind and gentle with yourself. It matters, you matter. Go for a walk in nature, take a bath with soft music, go find a game you enjoy and play it. If we spend too much time in the mind, cycling around difficult unknowns, we burn out the warmth inside us and become sad, depressed, sloven, uncomfortable, and nihilistic.

One of the most nurturing things I’ve personally found is metta meditation. Ajahn Brahm has a great guided meditation on YouTube that helps develop the warmth inside. Metta is wonderful, because it does two things simultaneously. First is it revitalizes the warm spirit that is inside each of us, the divine spark, which is deeply nourishing to our body. Second, it dramatically reduces the mental agitation we have. It is important for our mind to become settled enough that we can concentrate on what is important. For instance, in algebra class it is much more important to focus on algebra than maya. Sure, you might not use algebra long term, but it provides you what you need in the moment. Similar to the way that after we eat food, it becomes poop, but still provides us needed nourishment, helps our body prepare for the journey ahead.

Finally, please be patient with yourself. Our curiosity naturally moves us to want to “know what it all means”, but that is something that grows slowly over time. There’s no rush, you are really young. Take time to play, to connect with others, to see the beauty in the world around you. Your body has genuine desires and needs, and it is through honoring them, not denying them, that we find the truth we seek. Namaste.

With warmth,
Matt