What Meditation Is Really For

Susan Piver on breath, awareness, and rebuilding human connection

Dec 23, 2025

Dear friends,

Meditation is often presented as a way to calm down, improve yourself, or fix what feels broken.

In this week’s episode, we explored something deeper.

I sat down with Susan Piver, meditation teacher and author of The Wisdom of a Broken Heart and several other books on meditation and inner life. Susan has spent years teaching Buddhist meditation to people who may never set foot in a meditation center — many of them practicing together online as part of a large, ongoing community.

What she describes is not meditation as escape, but meditation as relationship — a way of learning how to stay present with your breath, your thoughts, and your emotions without being overtaken by them.

We talked about why the mind should be understood as a tool rather than the boss, how attention can be trained gently instead of through force, and why meditation doesn’t eliminate pain but changes how we meet it.

Susan also shared something that deeply moved me:

“I cannot defeat my enemies. But I can strengthen my friends.”

In a time marked by isolation, noise, and constant mental intrusion, her work reminds us that awareness itself is stabilizing — and that real community can form wherever people show up regularly with honesty and care.

If you’ve ever wondered whether meditation is actually helping, or felt discouraged because your mind won’t “quiet down,” I think this conversation will meet you where you are.

Golden light,
Dr. Richard L. Miller

Links & Resources:

Susan Piver’s Website
Susan Piver’s Books

A Year-End Invitation

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1-minute mind control (my latest book)

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My own version of mindfulness—what I sometimes refer to as “mind control”—can be mastered in much less time if you commit to regular 60-90 second practice throughout the day.

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Breathing. Witnessing. Changing the channel on negative thoughts.

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