Yuki from Tokyo writes about three years of seemingly fruitless meditation practice, and the single experience that made every minute worth it.
Yuki’s Letter
Dear Bird’s Way,
I want to write about the thing nobody tells you about meditation: how long you might have to wait before something “happens.” And why the waiting itself might be the point.
I started meditating in 2023, after a period of burnout that left me unable to work for two months. In Japan, we don’t talk about burnout easily. There’s still a strong expectation that you endure, that you push through. So when my body simply refused to continue, I felt ashamed as much as I felt exhausted.
A friend gave me Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi. I read it during those two months of forced rest, and something about it spoke to a part of me I’d been ignoring for my entire adult life. The idea that there was a science of inner exploration, as rigorous as any outer science, that this wasn’t superstition but experiential knowledge, that resonated deeply.
I began meditating daily. Twenty minutes in the morning, twenty in the evening. I followed the Hong-Sau technique as closely as I could from the written instructions. I sat with my spine straight, focused on the breath, and watched my thoughts drift by like clouds.
For three years.
The Honest Middle
I need to tell you what those three years were actually like, because the spiritual books tend to skip this part.
Year one was mostly boredom. I sat. My mind wandered. I brought it back. It wandered again. Twenty minutes felt like an hour. I questioned constantly whether I was doing it right. There were no lights, no bliss, no cosmic experiences. Just me, my breath, and a very busy mind.
Year two was harder because the novelty had worn off but the results hadn’t appeared. I’d read about other people’s meditation experiences, people seeing inner light, feeling overwhelming peace, having insights that transformed their lives, and feel like I was failing at the one thing that’s supposed to be effortless. A few times I nearly quit. What kept me going was stubbornness more than faith.
Year three brought a subtle shift I almost missed. My daily life started to feel slightly different. I was more patient with my colleagues. Small annoyances that used to ruin my morning rolled off more easily. I slept better. My focus at work improved. Nothing dramatic. Nothing I could point to and say, “See? This is what meditation did.” Just a gradual softening of the rough edges.
And then, one ordinary Tuesday morning in my fourth year, it happened.
The Morning Everything Changed
I sat down for my regular morning session. Nothing different about the setup. Same cushion. Same corner of my apartment. Same technique. I closed my eyes, began watching my breath, and within a few minutes, the breath became very fine. Almost like it was breathing itself, without my participation.
Then the thoughts stopped.
Not gradually quieted. Stopped. Like someone turned off a radio that had been playing static my entire life. And in the silence, there was a presence. I don’t have better words for it. An awareness that was me and simultaneously much larger than me. Warm. Infinite. Absolutely still.
I don’t know how long it lasted. It might have been thirty seconds or ten minutes. Time didn’t apply. When I “came back,” I was crying. Not from sadness. From recognition. It felt like meeting someone I’d known forever and somehow forgotten.
“In the deep silence of meditation, the eternal, ever-joyous Spirit is found.”
Paramahansa Yogananda
When I read that quote later that day, I felt it in my bones. Not as a nice idea. As a description of something I’d directly experienced.
What I Understand Now
That experience hasn’t repeated with the same intensity. Some mornings my meditation is shallow and distracted. Some mornings there’s a whisper of that depth. But it doesn’t matter anymore, because now I know. Not believe. Know. The silence is there. It’s always been there. My three years of “nothing happening” were actually three years of removing the layers between me and it.
I think this is what Yogananda meant when he talked about meditation as a science. In science, you conduct the experiment faithfully, even when the results aren’t immediately visible. You trust the process. You don’t abandon the experiment on day 200 because the breakthrough might come on day 201.
To anyone who’s meditating consistently and feeling like nothing is happening: something is happening. The very fact that you keep sitting, day after day, despite seeing no “results,” is building something inside you that you can’t perceive yet. The soil is being prepared. The seed is germinating in darkness. And when it breaks the surface, you’ll understand that none of those quiet, seemingly empty sessions were wasted.
Not one.
With deep respect,
Yuki
A Note from Us
Yuki’s letter is one of the most important we’ve shared, because it addresses the reality that most spiritual practitioners face: the long, quiet middle where nothing seems to be working. If you’re in that middle right now, let Yuki’s three years of patient practice give you courage. The practice is working on you, even when you can’t feel it. Keep sitting.
