Getting Sober
April Newsletter 2026
Next Mindfulness Evening | Monday 11th May
Awakening the Heart - 4-Week Online Course for Gratitude, Acceptance & Emotional Resilience
Free Online Event | An Invitation to Stillness: Guided Meditation Evening
Getting Sober
You don’t need drugs.
You are already hallucinating.
- Lama Thubten Yeshe
What’s it like to experience Enlightenment?
I’ve been fascinated by this question ever since I was a boy and read famous accounts of self-realisation and awakening, watched movies in which the protagonists became enlightened sitting on a mountain top or at the feet of a bearded Guru. It was always fireworks and ecstasy and I wanted this experience more than anything else in the world. But as my meditation practice matured and my self-inquiry deepened, I discovered that I’d been barking up the wrong tree: enlightenment has nothing to do with bliss, it comes from seeing all experiences with discernment.
Even now as neuroscience backed mindfulness practices sweep the globe, we don’t often hear much about the value of discernment. Mindfulness is often associated with calm and relaxation rather than awakening from the delusions of our unexamined minds.
The world of spirituality offers a plethora of experiences; deep states of inner-stillness, kundalini and astral travel, healing and synchronicity. We can explore quantum healing, tarot cards, past lives and breath-work, in the hope of raising our vibration, shifting into 5D consciousness or awakening from the Matrix.
I’ve never been interested in this world. It always seemed so busy. There was so much to do to finally achieve freedom. Perhaps it was divine laziness but my intuition was always that enlightenment wasn’t something you did, it’s something you are.
My own being was the gateway, not more doing. To explore myself no props were required. I didn’t need to join a religion, change my name or wear robes. I felt that I simply needed to understand something, not believe in something. “Be a lamp unto yourself” says the Buddha in the Kalama Sutta and I took this on as a personal motto.
Psychedelics are also a popular route to cosmic oneness, but I wasn’t drawn to explore them either. I’d learnt to value lasting insight over fleeting experiences and felt that although certain drugs seemed to offer profound visions, they bypassed the slow growth required to sustain the wisdom they revealed. Drugs give you a hit, not a path. The acorn can have a vision of being an Oak (that’s the hit) but it still takes decades of dedicated growth to actually become one (that’s the path).
Just because I didn’t use drugs on my journey to the divine doesn’t mean I haven’t been intoxicated countless times. I’ve been high on anger, stoned on depression and paranoid that my practice wasn’t going anywhere. Thoughts are psychoactive. Mental and emotional states are addictive. Who needs drugs when you’re already drunk?
The wisdom traditions offer a different path to freedom, one in which we learn to see the nature of each moment with clarity and distinguish what we truly are, from what we mistake ourselves to be. The Hindu’s called it Viveka, the Buddhists named it Sati, the Sufi’s referred to it as Furquan.
Without this mental clarity it can be difficult to separate fact from fiction. We can imagine that we’re wide awake when we’re actually still asleep, taking our dream-world to be the ultimate destination. This is hard enough to do when stone cold sober, let alone when we’re actively intoxicating ourselves.
Discernment is a path of recognition, realisation and remembrance: we practice recognising the transience of all experience, we realise that they cannot hold our true identity, and then we remember this realisation, cultivating it daily until it soaks into every cell of our being, every aspect of our lives.
The crucial insight to arrive at is that everything is an experience.
This moment is an experience. Life is an experience. All we are ever dealing with is a constant procession of experiences, and all experiences are transient, fleeting and empty of substance.
Just reflect:
Where is the experience you had at 9am last Tuesday morning? Gone. Where are all the experiences you had last year? Gone. Where is every single experience you’ve ever had? Gone.
Why did they pass? Why are sights and sounds and feelings and emotions ephemeral? Because experiences lack substance just as a desert mirage lacks water. We’ve been labouring under an illusion: experiences are not concrete realities, but appearances and it is the nature of everything that appears to disappear.
Whether we’re washing the dishes, sitting in an ashram drenched in bliss, or high on MDMA, all we can ever experience are appearances. From the moment we are born we’ve been encouraged to chase, organise, fix and maintain something which is dream-like and insubstantial.
Understanding this you might believe you’re actually getting somewhere.
“Ah!” you say. “I finally get it! The world is just a transient appearance. I see this now, I understand. I’m enlightened!”
You’re not. You’re still drunk.
Because you are an appearance too. It’s not that everything else is an illusion and you are real, but that everything which appears – including yourself – is a magical appearance. Your body and mind, memories and life-story, epiphanies, and tragedies are also transient appearances, with no core existence.
But what’s aware of these appearances? What registers the thought, the chattering of Magpies or the drifting piano music? What knows the taste of coffee? Who receives the experience?
“Me!” shouts the mind, but “Me” is also an appearance - a fleeting thought which is also received by a deeper awareness.
This deeper awareness is our essence. It is the ever-present knowing in which all experiences come and go. You cannot experience it directly because of one simple reason: it does not appear. This understanding is key because without it we’ll waste more time chasing after empty highs, believing that reality lies outside of us somewhere, waiting to be found and held onto. It isn’t. It’s your own awareness – the space in which these words appear.
You are the knowing, the awareness, the silent source of all appearances. It’s precisely because it’s your essence that you can’t experience it as an external thing. You know that you are aware, but you cannot know what that awareness is. “The eye cannot see the eye” say the Zen Masters.
The paradox is that our essence lacks anything essential. Just explore the fact of your own awareness for a few moments. Does it have a shape, texture or size? Is it red, black or blue? Is it old or new? It’s the very ground on which “you” exist and yet it’s nothing at all. It’s the silent space in which everything else exists. It’s prior to the senses, not created by them.
The Kena Upanishad puts it like this:
“It is the ear of the ear, the mind of the mind, the speech of speech, the breath of breath, and the eye of the eye. When freed (from the senses) the wise, on departing from this world, become immortal.”
Here, immortality does not mean living forever, but understanding that we are the timeless essence of all apparent births and deaths.
Zen Master Bankei (1622 – 1693) called this timeless essence the Unborn.
”When you are unborn, you’re at the source of all things. The unborn Buddha-mind is where the Buddha’s of the past all attained their realization and where future Buddhas will all attain theirs.”
What is born are appearances, empty of substance, like bubbles in a stream or rainbows in the sky. You and me, night and day, world and cosmos are all the energetic expressions of the unborn; the children of emptiness, a never-ceasing torrent of experiences, hallucinations and marvellous mirages.
How many perceptions have you had today? How many different experiences are happening at this moment in time? There are 8.3 billion people alive now, all seeing, hearing and feeling. There are 8.7 billion species all having their own unique forms of experience. This gives you a taste of the generative capacity of the unborn.
Isn’t this already the ultimate psychedelic trip?
And yet without discernment we can’t help but mistake these luminous fancies for solid ground, a reification which causes confusion and attachment, seeking and suffering. In our drunkenness we’ve taken ourselves to be the weather rather than the vast boundless sky.
We sober up when we understand that what we are does not appear. All appearances are temporal, limited and conditioned by every other appearance. Our unborn nature has no nature, no time, no space, no limit. It remains eternally still yet it gives life to each new moment. It is indestructible yet all its wondrous creations wither and fade.
The ego likes the idea of holding ultimate reality in its hands like a Formula 1 Trophy. It looks forward to the adoring crowds and champagne, the fireworks and applause. Of course it does; it views enlightenment as the ultimate achievement.
But if you really want to know what you are then forget about that Trophy. Not because Enlightenment is unavailable to you, but because it’s already what you are. It’s where you are seeing, hearing and feeling from and this is precisely why we miss it. It’s not an experience, but the mysterious sky-like awareness through which all experiences appear and disappear.
Whether you are practicing breath-work in the Himalayas, looking for bizarre synchronicities to confirm your deepest desires, or talking with the Serpent God on an Ayahuasca retreat, you will see many wonderful things in this adventure we call life, magical things, miraculous things – but I promise, you will never see the Seer.
May Mindfulness Evening | Monday 11th May
Join me on Monday 11th May for my next evening of meditation and conversation at Vibe Cafe, in the heart of Douglas.
These gatherings are designed for anyone interested in developing greater calm, clarity, and emotional balance through the practice of mindfulness and meditation.
Whether you are completely new to mindfulness and meditation, or already have an established practice, this welcoming community space offers a chance to step out of the busyness of everyday life and reconnect with stillness, awareness, and presence.
Date: Monday 11th May
Time: 7:00 – 9:00 pm
Location: Vibe Plant-Based Café, 9 Ridgeway Street, Douglas
Contribution: £10 standard | £5 concessions
Places are limited.
Awakening the Heart | 4-Week Online Course for Gratitude, Acceptance & Emotional Resilience
What if greater peace, connection and emotional balance weren’t things you had to chase, but qualities you could cultivate?
Join me for a powerful four-week journey into one of the most transformative areas of human development: the heart.
Rooted in the timeless teachings of Buddhist psychology and the wisdom traditions, this course explores the Brahma Viharas, four profound qualities that cultivate deep wellbeing, emotional balance, and meaningful connection in everyday life.
Learn how to develop:
Loving Kindness (Metta) – cultivating warmth, friendliness and goodwill towards ourselves and others
Compassion (Karuna) – meeting difficulty and suffering with wisdom and care
Empathetic Joy (Mudita) – celebrating the happiness and success of others without comparison
Equanimity (Upekkha) – finding stability, clarity and peace amidst life’s ups and downs
These powerful, heart-centred practices are more than meditations, they are practical tools for transforming how we relate to ourselves, others, and the world. As they deepen, they naturally soften stress, reduce reactivity, and open a profound sense of connection, ease and fulfilment.
This programme is ideal if you:
Want to develop greater emotional resilience and balance
Are looking for practical ways to work with difficult emotions
Feel stuck, disconnected, or flat in your current meditation practice
Wish to bring more kindness, joy and meaning into your daily life
Are new to mindfulness or looking to deepen your experience
This programme explores the heart dimension of mindfulness and how we can consciously cultivate the emotional qualities that support wellbeing. Loving Kindness has been a powerful medicine in my own practice, revealing ever deeper levels of interconnectivity between the world and the self.
Each weekly session includes:
• Guided meditation practices
• Practical teachings from Buddhist psychology and the wisdom traditions
• Reflection exercises for daily life
• Opportunity for questions and discussion
You’ll receive:
✔ 4 live online sessions (90 minutes each)
✔ Guided meditation recordings
✔ Weekly course handouts and resources
✔ Access to the private course community
✔ Recordings of each session if you miss a class
This course is ideal for:
• Graduates of Mike’s 6-Week Mindfulness Course wishing to deepen their practice
• Anyone interested in cultivating compassion, kindness and emotional intelligence
• Meditation practitioners who want to refresh or deepen their practice
Beginners are also very welcome.
What Participants Say:
“I have always found the Loving Kindness practice helpful, but with this course and the depth of explanation and knowledge that Mike has given, it feels I can take it to another level.”
— Alan
“Thank YOU very much for all the jewels of wisdom each week and to be guided in such a life-changing practice.”
— Anneke
Course Dates:
Tuesday 28th April
Tuesday 5th May
Tuesday 12th May
Tuesday 19th May
Time
8:00 – 9:30 PM (UK) | 9:00–10:30 (CET) | 4:00–5:30 PM (EDT) | 1:00–2:30 PM (PDT)
Location
Online via Zoom
Early Bird: £65
(Includes all sessions, recordings, guided practices and course materials.)
Free Online Event: An Invitation to Stillness - Guided Meditation Evening.
Are you struggling with overthinking, anxiety, or a constantly busy mind? Have you tried meditation but found it difficult or wondered if there’s an easier, more natural way to calm the mind?
Join me for my free online guided meditation evening and discover how meditation can be simple, effortless, and deeply calming. In this live session, you’ll learn how to quiet the mind, reduce stress, and experience a deeper sense of inner stillness and clarity, even if you’re completely new to meditation.
This is an opportunity to step away from mental busyness, reset your nervous system and discover the peace within.
What to Expect:
A short talk on calming the mind and understanding overthinking
A guided 45-minute meditation for deep relaxation and inner stillness
Practical tools to help enhance our relationship to the mind and emotions
Time for questions, reflection, and discussion
This session is perfect if you:
Experience overthinking, stress, or anxiety
Want to learn mindfulness or meditation for beginners
Are looking for calm, clarity, and emotional balance
Already meditate and want to deepen your practice
What People Say:
“Mike’s guided meditation is an amazing experience that leads to incredible insights and a feeling of peace and stillness that is beyond words.”
— Mahendran, Australia
“That is the most relaxed I think I’ve ever been in my life.”
— Kerry, Isle of Man
Event Details:
Date: Wednesday 6th May 2026
Time: 8pm – 9pm (GMT)
Location: Online (Zoom)
Spaces are limited to keep the session personal and supportive.
Early booking is recommended.
Work with me | 1:1 Programmes Available
I offer personalised 1:1 mindfulness sessions, both in person and online, designed to help you find clarity, calm, and inner transformation.
Through our work together, you’ll learn how to quieten the mind, navigate stress more easily, and build a sense of presence that carries into your daily life. Many people notice real changes quickly, from feeling calmer under pressure to approaching life with a completely new perspective.
Whether you’re new to mindfulness or looking to go deeper, these sessions are designed to help you navigate the mind with wisdom, develop self-mastery and awaken to your true nature.
If you’re ready to experience a meaningful and lasting shift, then explore my 1:1 programmes at www.mikekewley.com or book a free clarity call to find out how I can support you.
I’m not sure if this is non duality that you’re describing but it is the best description that I have read in trying to understand what non duality may be. Very helpful description of my situation as I am starting to understand. Thanks.
Thank you