Episode #280: Mindfulness from the Ashes
“I started using drugs and alcohol… when I was 14 years old or so. And at that point, I had already been blacking out from drinking on a regular basis, and I was smoking one or two packs of cigarettes a day. And quite heavily into drugs.”
One would scarcely expect that the person speaking these words, Matthew Schojan, would develop into a serious meditation and yoga practitioner one day. In an interview recorded before the pandemic and the military coup, Matthew goes into detail about his spiritual journey, and how it ultimately led him to Myanmar.
Matthew’s parents divorced at an early age. One of his mother’s partners sexually abused him, and his father was an alcoholic. In that terrible environment, he began to be a substance abuser as well, when he was just 11.
He eventually got his life on track when he was 20, and made the commitment to become sober while living in New York. “I didn't know how to be a human. I didn't know how to engage in a way that didn't involve alcohol and drugs and smoking.” Being sober was a terrifying experience, as he was confronted with anxiety and other emotions that the intoxicants had long suppressed. He was uncomfortable with 12-step programs due to their religious component; he eventually took up yoga, later finding refuge at the local Zen center in Brooklyn.
Soon after, he got a job at Wall Street as a runner, earning just $5 an hour. But then, an entirely unexpected event disrupted his life anew: September 11th. “I was on the Brooklyn Bridge when the towers fell down, and I watched this puff of smoke just overtake the city. It was quite surreal. We were also the first people back into that area,” he recalls. The following days he compared to living in a war zone, and the overall scale of destruction haunted him. With phone lines down, he was unable to reach out to friends or family for support. So Matthew went to the roof of his building and lit a cigarette, his first in three years.
That was a mistake.
“That cigarette evolved over the weeks and months into beers, and then drinking, and then drugs, and the next two and a half years was a very intense time of partying and just really being lost in that space. And then there was a moment that I looked around and I just realized that everything around me was it was empty. There was no fun anymore. There were different faces, but the same experience, and the same cycle. These ups and downs just became so dissatisfying. I just couldn't bear to go on in that way.”
This time, he found salvation in the form of Dharma Punx, led by Noah Levine. “It was a group of people sitting around meditating with tattoos like me, and talking about life in a very open and genuine way. It was just really authentic.” He began joining weekly meditation sittings in the Bowery, becoming sober once again, and joining a more mindful community, where he eventually met the woman who would become his wife.
From there, he decided to take a full spiritual plunge. Matthew studied under such teachers as Ajahn Tong Sirimangalo, Sayadaw U Tejaniya, Bhikkhuni Ani Zamba, Vinny Ferraro, Jack Kornfield, Martine Batchelor, S.N. Goenka, and Tara Brach. He studied techniques from Zen, Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana. “There was definitely a lot to learn,” he says. “Each time you go down one path, other things open up, and you start to learn more, and you want to kind of check that out, investigate it more. And then from there, things just things just unfolded.”
Matthew clarifies his state of mind around exploring diverse practices. “It's not that I was just dabbling in different things. These are tools that have come in and work better in different situations.” He points out that different styles of technique and methodology are better suited to various types of individuals. To Matthew, the key point is that the teachings have a clear, practical application, and the meditation is not lost in custom or ritual. “So in that way, I would say that they can complement each other.”
Not only was Matthew moving between diverse practice traditions, he was also moving between cultures, and started to become aware of the problems that many Western meditators face when heading east. Yet, he didn’t see anything being done to address this. “I haven't seen much space for dialogue between cultures in that way… There are there are dialogues happening at higher levels globally, with some teachers and heads of traditions, but not at the level of at centers.” This led to Matthew hosting a meditation sitting and discussion weekly at the Institut Français in Yangon, to discuss these challenges openly with other expats, as well as younger Burmese who might join.
Matthew’s own journey to the Golden Land took shape over many years. He and his wife first wanted to live there back in 2008. But as the Saffron Revolution had just taken place, they feared the instability, settling instead in nearby Thailand, where they lived for eight years. Teaching at a Buddhist university in Chiang Mai, they had ample time for studying various Thai traditions while learning the language in the process. When they finally moved to Myanmar, Matthew was surprised: as close as Thailand is geographically, Matthew didn’t expect such a big difference, especially around Buddhist culture and practice. “I've seen and had so many conversations with [Burmese] people that go on retreat because they're working on their mind, they're working on their karma, they're working on building and developing their practice, and have an understanding of that much more than what I've seen [in Thailand].”
At the end of the talk, Matthew discusses the connection between mental health and meditation. He had previously taught mindfulness and meditation in refugee camps on the Thai border, where he encountered some strong resistance from non-Buddhist populations who saw the practice as hiding in a religious shell. “People see meditation as a fix to mental health issues in a place like Burma that has a strong meditative community and is primarily Buddhist. But it's not all Buddhist and it doesn't fit for everyone,” he recalls.
Ironically, in the case of Myanmar, Matthew’s comments are even more relevant today than in 2020 when the talk was recorded. At that time, Matthew noted the challenges for mental health sector in wider Myanmar, referencing government data that 95% of people needing treatment couldn’t find any support. “One, because there's limited services, and two, because there's a lot of stigma and disgrace around that,” he explains. Yet, he acknowledges that “there's a lot of interest in mental health here. There is a lot of people and a lot of organizations working on mental health… We've seen a lot of a lot of strides in that, though, obviously, a lot more needs to be done.” Yet now, so many Burmese are facing traumatic circumstances with the fallout from the military coup that mental health issues are being discussed openly in Myanmar more than ever before.