© 2025 Marc Bubel

Welcome back to Meta Zen. The mental martial art. The philosophy of life.

This episode is the first of three for the Black Belt.

I am your host and mentor, Marc Bubel.

We’ve come a long way. We’ve passed through something like basic training for the military and then had a tour of the Meta Zen community through the Yellow to Purple belts. 

Now that we’re at the Black Belt, we’ve arrived at something like a temple deep in a mountain valley only accessible by a multi-day hike from the nearest road. When we make our way around the final mountain on our hike and arrive at a vantage point, we see the temple in the distance. We see its modesty and beauty. We become washed over with calmness.

The moment we arrive, we are welcome guests and Black Belt training begins immediately.

1d enjoy liberation 

Remember from the previous episode, when we enable many successors to enable many successors, we are a Visionary 3.0. When we have this confidence, we transfer our remaining protégés  to our successors so that we shift our attention on appreciating the world untainted by narratives.

This is an incredible moment in our progression through the Meta Zen belts. We are enabling ourselves to enjoy life the way it is meant to be. And we have great company as we are with other Black Belts who have enabled either Visionary 3.0s or 4.0s and those untainted by narratives, like children.

This becomes our time to appreciate the natural objectivity present in the world 24/7. At first, we need to remind ourselves to appreciate the beauty though in time, it becomes unforced. It feels so good. It’s so good that we begin thinking of sharing it with our dear old successors who will soon be liberated themselves. 

This is when we start thinking of ways to share this experience with our successors and their protégés, which would expand the world of nirvana. When we start thinking this way, we complete our First-Degree Black Belt training.

2d The embodiment of thoughtfulness 

We return to our successors as the only way to expand the world of nirvana is by increasing its members. In other words, we collaborate with our successors by enabling their protégés to become successors who are Visionary 3.os. 

Simple.

It’s very important we preserve this rite of passage. If our successors' protégés only become Visionary 2.0s or less, the world of nirvana will become lost like a needle in a haystack.

Here is how we enable our successors’ protégés to complete their rite of passage:

Ask the protégés to write the following four questions in their journal:

Do you know the third harmonic for a patron?

How do you routinely place yourself in the fifth mechanism of higher consciousness?

Do you regularly concentrate on the levels of Flow-State Ambition so that you know which level you are in at any given time?

Do you know what a Visionary 3.o does?

Before you continue, do your homework on a new page of your journal and answer these four questions.

Pause now.

Just so you know, the first time you complete this exercise, it might feel like nirvana will never expand. Yet, that’s just a narrative. 

As you persevere, you’ll notice you can answer these four questions without referencing your journal. Then, at some point, your protégés will answer these four questions without referencing their journals.

As you can see, this is a straightforward exercise.

Answering these four questions is important to a practitioner’s progression, yet that’s the easy part. To genuinely progress  from the Purple to Black Belt, we must routinely see our objectivity patiently shine in the face of our own judgement. 

To help you understand this concept, here are four applications that exist near this transition point:

Metanarrative number 1

When we return to our successors, naturally, they are interested in understanding what life is like in nirvana. 

Thus, as we know this metanarrative beforehand, we know we can’t fake the First-Degree Black Belt before we make it. We need to genuinely convey what nirvana is like. If not, nirvana will ebb more than it flows.

Metanarrative number 2

One way we enable our successors is by enabling their protégés. 

It’s important for us to remember our successors have launched beyond us. Therefore, we only mentor their protégés as defined by our successors. If anything seems unconventional, we speak with our successors to understand new approaches. 

For example, they might have changed the four questions mentioned above.

If our successors are unable to transparently explain their new approaches, we have rushed our own development and have become a thorn in the side of civilization. 

Keep in mind, no one is perfect. If you and your successor are able to have a conversation and maybe revise or undo the new approaches, harmony is restored.

Thus, as we know this metanarrative beforehand, we collaborate with our successors to enable protégés to complete their rite of passage.

Metanarrative number 3

We’re now at a big moment of thoughtfulness. This one is so big that it spills into the fourth metanarrative.

This third moment of thoughtfulness is difficult to see firsthand. It most often reveals itself generations later, which is when it’s too late. 

We are returning to the topic of favoritism which was first discussed in episode 9.

Favoritism, after many generations, makes an emergence decline. This is because favoritism breeds entitlement and entitlement encourages arguing. 

That’s very straightforward.

Here is an example of favoritism that leads to decay.

Imagine a Black Belt interacting with her successor’s protégés. Most likely, one protégé will stand out amongst her peers.

The protégé’s potential could be justified or it could be the Black Belt seeing a reflection of herself, which lacks objectivity. 

Imagine the protégé’s potential is justified. Well, the most objective thing to do is for the Black Belt to let her successor remain the guiding mentor. The Black Belt doesn’t step in with old-school wisdom and steal a protégé from her successor. 

Thus, as we know of this metanarrative beforehand, we continue concentrating on expanding nirvana. 

Here's a question to develop your thoughtfulness:

If your successor passes a protégé to you, what do you do?

Exercise objectivity with your journal and talk amongst yourselves.

Here's a hint: you're developing a mentorship program, which I'll discuss in the next episode. In simple terms, you're finding harmonics.

Here is a small dynamic to guide our understanding:

When we mentor our children, this is not favoritism as mentoring our children is our role.

When we mentor a team of people that includes our children, we treat our children and the team members by their merits.

When we are with our children outside of the time dedicated to the team, like at dinner, we can return to mentoring our children, which other parents are likely doing as well.

Thus, as we know this metanarrative beforehand, we collaborate with our successors to enable protégés to complete their rite of passage.

Metanarrative number 4

When a novice recognizes the potential for metanarrative number 3, some think making the protégé-with-potential work harder is an expression of objectivity. This however, is a self-fulfilling prophecy that breeds entitlement.

I’ll explain:

As perseverance builds character, giving protégés-with-potential more work enables the protégés with additional perseverance. Thus, this additional perseverance enables them to excel over their peers. Plus, this additional attention tempts the protégé with being deserving of entitlement, which corrupts the protégé and leads to the downward spiral of nirvana.

Thus, as we know this metanarrative beforehand, we collaborate with our successors to enable protégés to complete their rite of passage.

—

Notice, novices that overlook the four metanarratives are favoring their own judgement over using objectivity. It’s very subtle. They even see the false positive a self-fulfilling prophecy creates, which falsely validates their judgement. 

Favoring one’s own judgement over objectivity is how a novice rushes forward. They achieve short-term acclaim and become forgotten by the annals of history or become examples for future generations of what not to do. 

Here are three examples of people favoring their own judgement over objectivity:

Watch the Ted Talk by Jack Horner titled Where are the baby dinosaurs? Those that rushed to fill museums with dinosaur bones, invented many like the brontosaurus for their own self gain.

Watch Simon Sinek’s talk called How Great Leaders Inspire Action. In all due respect for Langley and his family. Unfortunately, Langley’s approach was encumbered possibly by conventional ambition.

The third example is pseudoscience. It exists because people rush their efforts for their own self-gain and they rarely see the consequences of their own action. 

In conclusion, when we see our own objectivity patiently shine in the face of our own judgement, we have completed the Second-Degree Black Belt.

Closure

This is the end of the first episode for the Black Belt. 

As you are enjoying Meta Zen, enable people to stumble upon it. Buy some Meta Zen stickers from moxiefrontier.com and put them where you and others will see them.

The Meta Zen sticker is our invitation to turn our life into an artform.

It's a great time to be alive.