Michael Persimmon
Michael is a teacher of consciousness, a former computer programmer, and former monk.
His specialty is helping people meditate who have “tried it before” and failed because they have too many thoughts. Or think it’s all flaky.
A “post-monk punk”, he teaches meditation minus the spiritual theater, with a disdain for the way that meditation and spirituality is commonly framed.
His perspective after 29 years is that most meditation practices are too shallow, too confusing, or too limiting.
Meaning they focus on the breath, or energy, or some other finite thing, which is unsatisfying when the goal is the infinite, and therefore become unsustainable, falling back into spiritual theater as a result.
His mission is to revolutionize the way meditation is taught and practiced, making it simple, light, clean, empowering, practical, and deep, deep, deep.
He feels that meditation should evolve to go beyond mere “calm”—it should absolutely transform you from bottom to top. Which is a natural consequence of resting back into the stillness of your soul. Any lesser goal is utterly missing the reality of who you are.
His story, in pictures
His story, in prose
Michael Persimmon was a computer programmer in the games industry who gave up 99% of everything he owned to pursue spiritual growth at any cost.
Why would anyone leave a high-paying career and do that?
At the age of 27, after meditation saved his life from a heart attack, plus isolating self-doubt, crippling anxiety, and lingering memories of an unhappy childhood, he dove into the practice with gusto.
The monks he found were talking about experiencing consciousness itself(!), which had piqued his curiosity. Was that even possible?
He felt tangible, lasting relief for the first time in ages. It must be.
Every corner of his life changed: relationships, work, health, purpose. He was living life from gratitude, love and appreciation. Time was slowing down. More joy was present. Depression evaporated. And it was zero effort. Everything was different, yet nothing had changed outside of him.
He later began having mystical experiences. Growing up, he had heard about such things from religion—but that was other, special people, he thought. The computer engineer in him vowed to get to the bottom of it all. “What was this? Is this enlightenment? What is enlightenment? And what is after that?”
The monk years
Michael never intended to but eventually took vows as a monk of an obscure, non-religious order focused on refinement of consciousness.
This commitment was not an easy process, as many assume—it was wholehearted and intense. It stripped him of every scrap of identity that he had built up: “smart, clever, perfectionist, capable, unlovable, wounded”. They all had to go. None were real.
What was real was dawning larger and clearer in his awareness: the presence of the Infinite, the stillness of his soul. This was the entire point of his monk training, to unblock and identify with this forgotten aspect. For that he was grateful to have had the opportunity of a lifetime.
For over 5 years, he was a full-time, morning-till-night, fully devoted monk, teaching in three countries and two languages. The experience utterly transformed him. He attained all he wanted and more, yet felt something was missing.
Split between worlds
After leaving the monkhood and winding up on his deathbed, he vowed to get to the bottom of what was absent from his intense spiritual training.
His frail body was forcing him to live as an outlaw in a different country. He had to put into practice everything he learned for survival, determining what actually worked, what didn’t, and why. This became his new quest.
What did that look like? For example, he had to reconcile his spiritual training with the unrelenting realities he wasn’t forced to confront as a protected monk. Like, how do you come up with $4,000 when your mechanic doesn’t accept hugs? You lean into the one mind we all share, and that brings the money in the most unexpected way.
As well, he began an experiment to prove that teaching without the mystique of a monk could actually work. But for this, he had to shatter to pieces everything he was taught and build it back up, one shard at a time. “Why am I saying this? Is this healthy? What does this do?" became his north star.
He knew he was onto something when he would run into his meditation students on the street and could barely recognize them because of how much they had changed.
A revolution
For the man who once didn’t want to be a monk and didn’t want to teach, he gradually became passionate to share all he had learned in a clean, uncomplicated way.
He had to admit that leading others to the presence of the Infinite was more challenging than any engineering project. Taking a page from his computer engineering background: simpler was better, put everything to the test, and never accept hand-waving rationales at face value.
Now his mission is to transform the way meditation is taught and practiced... so that everyone can witness their own toes-to-nose transformation, becoming the person they always knew they could be.
