In more recent years, our friend and mentor Lorin Roche guided what I am here to share with you. If you have not had the pleasure of finding his work, Lorin led a style of meditation that he called instinctive meditation for over 50 years. He passed in April, at his home in California.
Along the way, he and his wife Camille Maurine wrote the Radiance Sutras, which is a poetic interpretation of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra. That ancient text details 112 gateways, doorways to access the state of meditation which is beyond words. The Radiance Sutras has been a book that has changed my life, and Daniela's life, completely.
I did not arrive at Lorin first. My path ran through a Zen center I walked out of, through silent retreats with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and the Sahaj Samadhi meditation he teaches, through the Vipassana tradition of S.N. Goenka. Every one of those was a real gift. But it was Lorin's work that named something I had felt for years and never had language for, that meditation could be an approach to life, rather than an escape from it. He offered a life-affirming approach to meditation, rather than a denial approach that has been handed to us through some of the yoga meditation traditions.
That word, denial, is worth sitting with. So much of what people are taught about meditation asks them to deny the body, deny the restlessness, deny the very fact of being a full human being with a full human life. Lorin taught the opposite. He taught that the very things you were told to suppress, the sensations, the images, the wandering, the aliveness, are the doorways themselves.
Here is the reframe that set me free, and it comes straight out of that lineage. It is said that the Buddha taught that there are over 80,000 different doorways to meditation. So when Daniela and I share Effortless Meditation, it is not a better than, or a different than, or this way is better than that way. It is a recognition that whether there are 112 pathways or 80,000, what is commonly taught in yoga studios might only be one, or two, or three of them. And there are many, many more.
From Lorin we also learned what we call micro-skills. It is often thought that meditation should be easy, because you are not doing anything. And yet every significant skill in our life takes years of practice. So when Lorin taught, he would support newcomers by establishing a few small skills first, before ever saying, now sit for 20 minutes and repeat the mantra. A gentle taste, before the deep end. That is exactly how Daniela and I teach now. It is his fingerprint on everything we do.
If you want to meet his work directly, I always point people to Meditation Made Easy, to the Radiance Sutras, his interpretation of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, and to Meditation Secrets for Women. Any one of them will show you the spirit of the man.
Daniela and I had the honor of spending some time with Lorin in his final weeks. A couple of days before he passed, he offered a message to those who were with him, and asked that it be shared with his loved ones. I have carried it with me since. Whether you knew him, or perhaps there is someone else in your life who has passed on, you can receive this. These are his words, not mine:
All you need to know is that I am dissolving into golden light. I am in ecstasy and music. When you think of me, I am body surfing in the sunlight. If you can figure out a way to fly into the flame of your being, you can join me there.
That is a meditation teaching. It may be his finest one. A man who spent his whole life revealing that this practice is life-affirming, meeting the end of his life the same way he met a morning of practice, dissolving into the light, in ecstasy and music, still pointing us toward the flame of our own being.
This is the lineage behind Effortless Meditation. It runs through the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra and its 112 gateways, through the Radiance Sutras that Lorin and Camille gave the world, through a teacher who insisted that your aliveness is not in the way of the practice but is the practice. When you sit down with the small skills we teach, you are standing in that long line. You are knocking on one of the many, many doors, the way Lorin taught us to. And the door opens the way it always did for him, not by force, but by welcome.
Common questions
Who was Lorin Roche?
Lorin Roche was Christopher and Daniela's friend and mentor, who taught a style he called instinctive meditation for over 50 years. He and his wife Camille Maurine wrote the Radiance Sutras. He passed in April 2026 at his home in California.
What is the Radiance Sutras?
A poetic interpretation, by Lorin Roche and Camille Maurine, of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra and its 112 gateways into meditation. Christopher calls it a book that changed his life and Daniela's.
What is instinctive meditation?
The life-affirming approach Lorin Roche taught, in which the sensations, images, and wandering you were told to suppress become the doorways into meditation, rather than a denial approach.
How many kinds of meditation are there?
It is said the Buddha taught over 80,000 doorways to meditation. What is commonly taught in yoga studios might be only one or two of them, and there are many more.
Sources (Christopher, verbatim): Healing Our Earth panel, International Day of Yoga, June 21, 2026 (instinctive meditation, the Radiance Sutras and the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, 112 gateways, the 80,000 doorways, micro-skills, Lorin's final message); Sunday Morning Qigong, May 17, 2026 (life-affirming rather than a denial approach, book recommendations). Lorin Roche's final message is quoted as his own words, credited to him. Assembled from Christopher's spoken lines with light connective phrasing in his voice.
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