Mindfulness, Meditation & Performance: Manoj Dias Live At The Rivian Performance House

Manoj Dias, a Sri Lankan-born meditation teacher and founder of the Open app, didn’t grow up practicing mindfulness despite his Buddhist heritage. In Sri Lanka, mindfulness and Buddhism were religion; in the West, they became philosophy. His entry point was suffering. Working in marketing and advertising, he had an anxiety attack, tried psychologists, therapists, and medication, but nothing helped until a friend invited him to a yoga class. There, a 70-year-old ex-Buddhist monk kept repeating: “You are not your thoughts.” For the first time, Dias heard his thoughts rather than being consumed by them. That moment changed everything.

What Mindfulness Actually Means

Mindfulness doesn’t mean being calm or slow. It means being “really available to the present moment.” The problem, especially in metropolitan cultures, is that slowness feels antithetical to productivity and optimization. People wake up to produce, perform, and optimize, then repeat. But mindfulness isn’t another optimization tool—it’s a way to be present with what’s actually here, rather than living in anxiety about the future or rumination about the past.