Tony Gebhard

I’m not a monk. I’m a totally blind musician and assistive technology professional who spends his days teaching screen readers, recording podcasts, and figuring out life one imperfect step at a time. But over the past year, I’ve been digging into Buddhist psychology — studying it, making videos about it, sitting with it — and I keep coming back to one realization: most of what stresses us out isn’t the work, the change, or the circumstances. It’s our relationship to them.

One of the teachers who’s shaped my understanding is Jack Kornfield, especially his program The Roots of Buddhist Psychology. Kornfield trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma, and India, holds a PhD in clinical psychology, and helped bring mindfulness practice to the West. What I love about his approach is that it isn’t about religion or metaphysics — it’s a psychology built on the human predicament. On us. On the messy, beautiful, complicated experience of being alive.

And as someone heading back to school to study mental health, this stuff isn’t abstract for me. It’s the bridge between where I’ve been and where I’m going.

Suffering Comes from Clinging, Not Circumstances

Here’s the core of it, as Kornfield teaches: unhappiness comes from our unskillful responses to the world. We grasp at what feels good, push away what feels bad, and zone out when things feel neutral. Grasping, aversion, confusion — that’s the whole cycle, and most of us run it on repeat all day long without ever noticing.

I know this cycle personally. I’ve lived it. When I was losing my vision as a kid, the suffering wasn’t only the vision loss — it was the clinging to what was disappearing. In recovery, the suffering wasn’t only the circumstances — it was the resistance, the fighting against what already was. Every hard chapter of my life taught me the same lesson from a different angle: the pain of change is real, but the pain of gripping the past is optional.

The workplace teaches this lesson too, whether we want it or not. Reorgs. New tools. New roles. Plans that fall apart. The question isn’t how to stop change — good luck with that. The question is how to meet it.

Breaks Aren’t a Reward. They’re Part of the Work.

We’ve built a culture that treats rest like something you earn after you’ve suffered enough. Buddhist psychology flips that completely. Awareness needs space. You cannot notice what’s happening — in your work, your relationships, your own mind — if you never stop moving.

A break isn’t checking out. It’s checking in.

For me, that looks like stepping away from the desk, taking Norris out for a walk, putting on some music, or just sitting with my coffee and breathing. Some of my best ideas — for songs, for episodes, for the projects I care about most — didn’t happen while I was grinding. They happened in the space between. The pause is where clarity lives.

If you take nothing else from this post, take this: rest is not a weakness. It’s a practice. And the people who love you would rather have you rested and present than burned out and “productive.”

Embrace Change When It Arrives

One line from Kornfield’s course has stuck with me ever since I heard it: “The universe is not made up of atoms. It’s made up of stories.”

Every change in your life is a story still being written. Opportunities rarely show up looking polished — they show up looking like disruption. A project nobody wants. A door you didn’t expect. A conversation that scares you a little. When change arrives, the question isn’t “How do I get back to how things were?” It’s “What is this moment actually offering me?”

Some of the most meaningful things in my life started as things I never planned. Moving across the country. Starting a podcast. Building software I had no business building. Falling in love. Saying yes with both hands is a practice, and it gets easier every time you do it.

And Know When to Stop Waiting

Here’s the part people miss when they talk about acceptance and going with the flow: Buddhist psychology is not passive. Kornfield describes the dharma as having one taste — the taste of freedom. And freedom isn’t sitting around hoping the universe drops something in your lap.

Awareness cuts both ways. Sometimes you become aware that an opportunity is arriving. And sometimes you become aware that nothing is coming — that the door you’re waiting for doesn’t exist yet. That’s your cue to build it.

Nobody handed me a platform. I built one. Nobody handed me the tools I needed as a blind musician and creator. I learned to make them. Knowing the difference between patient waiting and hiding — that’s the skill. It takes honesty. It takes sitting with discomfort long enough to see clearly instead of reacting. Am I waiting for the right moment, or am I waiting for permission?

Some opportunities you receive. Others you create. The clarity to know which season you’re in — that’s what the practice gives you.

Affirmations for Meeting the Moment

I’m a big believer in saying things out loud until they become true. Here are some affirmations I’ve been sitting with lately. Take whichever ones you need, leave the rest, or write your own.

• I release what was so I can receive what is.
• Rest is part of my work, not a reward for it.
• I meet change with curiosity instead of fear.
• I am allowed to pause. I am allowed to breathe.
• When no door opens, I am capable of building one.
• My worth is not measured by my productivity.
• I trust myself to know when to wait and when to move.
• I fail forward. Every stumble is still a step.
• This moment is enough. I am enough.

The Takeaway

You don’t need a meditation cushion or a retreat in the mountains to bring this into your life. Start small. Take real breaks without guilt. Notice when you’re gripping the past, and ask what the present moment is actually offering. Say yes to the opportunities that arrive — and when none arrive, go make one.

Change is coming whether we welcome it or not. The only choice we get is how we meet it.

Your voice matters. Your story is powerful. And your journey — including the messy, uncertain, in-between parts — is worth showing up for.

Stay groovy.
Tony

Referenced in this post: Jack Kornfield, PhD, “The Roots of Buddhist Psychology” (Sounds True). If this topic speaks to you, it’s a beautiful place to start — twelve lectures on the heart of Buddhist teachings about the mind, taught with warmth and zero gatekeeping.