My name is Aaron Baker and I began dabbling in meditation practice to combat a decades-long battle with depression sometime in 2018 and developed a deeper, more consistent practice in the early part of 2019. I used the book The Mind Illuminated as my sole practice for the next two-and-a-half years, and, when I reached the end of the book, I felt the need to seek out practices geared toward deeper insights leading to awakening. Over the next eight months I took an online meditation course that relied heavily on Shinzen Young’s See, Hear, Feel practices, attended my first and only (so far) silent meditation retreat, and then found myself gravitating to the non-dual teachings of Michael Taft. Not only had my chronic depression almost completely disappeared, but in August of 2022, I experienced the cognitive/neurological event commonly referred to as stream entry or awakening and found that my perception of the world around me had subtly but fundamentally shifted. The most prominent difference was the ongoing, real-time experience that “I” was not my thoughts. Steady, gradual change interspersed with a few more significant perceptual shifts since then have brought more freedom as well as new challenges.
When I’m not meditating on my couch next to my cats, you might find me enjoying outdoors activities, watching movies, spending time with my wife, or talking to friends.