THE FOUNDER · A JOURNEY IN FIVE CHAPTERS
The Monk Who Walked Into the Boardroom
From ancient wisdom and a life of spiritual discipline to the boardrooms of corporate Canada — the remarkable journey behind Mindfitness International.
An artistic metaphor for Moris Zarco’s journey from contemplative practice to modern leadership.
Chapter One
The Earthquake Survival
In 1985, Mexico City shook. Moris Zarco was a young child inside his grandmother’s twelfth-floor apartment when the earthquake struck. He remembers the building moving so violently that he could not stand, and the fear of descending a stairwell whose missing wall exposed the open space beyond it.
The event became part of his biography, but not a story he consciously connected to his later meditation experiences. His early life was also marked by movement: Mexico City, Cancún, La Paz, Villahermosa, and Querétaro. He describes that childhood as happy and fortunate, a foundation for seeing the world as accessible and change as a natural possibility.
On September 19, 1985, Moris was visiting his grandmother in Mexico City when the earthquake began. The building shook so violently that he could not remain standing. When the movement stopped, he evacuated by the stairs. Part of the stairwell wall was missing, and each turn around that side revealed the open space where the wall should have been. He remembers being frightened.
The earthquake did not become a conscious explanation for Moris’s later spiritual life. He rarely thought about it afterward. Its place in this story is more precise: it is one verified event in a childhood shaped by movement, discovery, and the knowledge that the world can change without warning.
“Life taught me very early that everything we consider permanent can change in an instant. We cannot always control what happens around us, but we can learn to cultivate something within us that remains steady, even when the world is shaking.”
Draft reflection — pending Moris’s final approval.
02
Chapter Two
Contemplative Training
By the time Moris entered formal contemplative training, he had already experienced conventional success. After graduating from university in Puebla in 2003, he moved to Villahermosa, Tabasco, and established a construction company. His housing and urbanization development, El Campanario, received recognition from the state governor, who attended its ceremonial first stone.
He had a successful business, a romantic partner, a BMW, professional recognition, and material comfort. Yet the more his life seemed to confirm society’s definition of happiness, the more persistent became the sense that something was missing. In November 2004, an acquaintance, Xenia—then known as the Ishaya monk Devi—invited him to a weekend meditation retreat at the beach. Moris did not consider himself spiritual. He describes what happened during his first experience with the techniques as an extraordinary subjective awakening and profound realization.
At a second retreat over New Year 2004–2005 in Taxco, he experienced an even deeper sense of clarity and interconnectedness. Within weeks, he began selling possessions and reorganizing his life. In 2005, he moved to Salmon Arm, British Columbia, for six months of Ishaya training, receiving the spiritual name Maharishi Kamadeva Isham. He studied meditation, contemplative practice, spiritual philosophy, and ancient teachings, then returned to Mexico to teach meditation while continuing professional activities in construction. He later completed Sivananda Yoga Teacher training, receiving the Yoga Siromani qualification in 2007.
“I had everything I was told would make me happy. A successful business, recognition, a beautiful car, a relationship, and financial freedom. Yet something was missing. Then, during my first meditation retreat, I experienced something that no material achievement had ever given me. For the first time, I felt truly awake. Within months, I had sold everything and left to become a monk. I wasn't running away from life. I had discovered a completely different way of experiencing it.”
Draft reflection — pending Moris’s final approval.
For Moris, monkhood was a period of disciplined training rather than a permanent rejection of professional life. He taught hundreds of people, traveled extensively, and participated in radio and television appearances. The period expanded his understanding of consciousness and wisdom while leaving open the question of how contemplative practice might be carried into ordinary life.
The discipline was learned in stillness. Its next test would come in movement: immigration, professional reinvention, and the creation of an independent method for modern life.
Chapter Three
The Freedom to Begin Again
By 2007, Moris Zarco had already lived several lives. He had been a successful entrepreneur, a world traveler, and a Vedic monk. He had experienced material success and profound spiritual transformation. Yet one question remained unresolved: where did he truly belong?
Ever since returning from England, where he had discovered a world of extraordinary cultural diversity, Moris had struggled with a feeling that he did not quite fit into the society around him. He loved Mexico. His childhood had been happy, his entrepreneurial achievements meaningful, and his experiences rich with friendships, discoveries, and opportunities. But loving one’s country and feeling free to be oneself within it are not always the same thing.
There was also a more urgent consideration. Circumstances involving his father and concerns for his personal safety contributed to his decision to leave Mexico. This was not a rejection of his country, his heritage, or the life he had built. It was a decision to pursue a future in which he could experience greater security, independence, and personal freedom.
“Leaving my country meant leaving behind everything familiar, but it also gave me the freedom to discover who I could become. I had already learned to let go of possessions when I became a monk. Moving to Canada taught me something equally important: how to build a new life without losing myself. I discovered that home is not only a place. It is also the peace and freedom we cultivate within ourselves.”
Reflection — Beginning again does not mean beginning from nothing. Moris carried forward the discipline, experience, and perspective he had gathered across several lives, while choosing greater security, independence, and personal freedom.
In 2007, Moris moved to Toronto, Canada. He did not arrive as someone who had failed elsewhere. He arrived with the experience of building a business, traveling internationally, studying ancient philosophy, and teaching meditation. He was beginning again, but he was not beginning from nothing.
In 2008, he made another defining decision: he left the Ishaya organization and formally created the Mindfitness Method. The teachings that had transformed his own life would now become the foundation of an independent approach to meditation and mental development. Mindfitness would not ask people to abandon their careers, relationships, identities, or ambitions. It would invite them to cultivate greater awareness and freedom within the lives they already had.
CHAPTER FOUR
Corporate Career Insights
After returning from monastic training and immigrating to Canada, Moris built a substantial career in Human Resources, HR technology, compensation, total rewards, and organizational operations. His professional background includes Scotiabank, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Ontario public-sector organizations, Sun Life Financial, and Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, as well as eHealth Ontario, OLG, AGCO, the Law Society of Ontario, Extendicare, and ADP.
In 2020, he began teaching at George Brown College in Toronto, covering Human Resources, Employment Law, Occupational Health and Safety, Compensation, and HR Information Systems. From May 2022 to January 2026, he worked at Sun Life Financial as an HR Systems & Operations Consultant. From January to October 2026, he worked at Fasken as a Total Rewards & AI/Automation Specialist.
These organizations are part of Moris’s professional experience, not presented as Mindfitness clients, partners, or endorsers. Their importance to this story is the perspective they represent: the practical reality of modern work, where performance, deadlines, ambition, systems, and relationships shape daily experience.
What happens when someone trained in inner stillness enters a world driven by constant change? The answer is not separation. Contemplative training becomes relevant precisely because professional life requires attention, self-awareness, compassion, and intentional leadership under pressure.
“People sometimes ask me what a former monk is doing in the corporate world. My answer is simple: this is exactly where these teachings are needed. It's relatively easy to feel peaceful in a quiet monastery. The real practice begins when you're facing deadlines, difficult conversations, competing priorities, and the pressures of everyday life. Meditation was never meant to separate us from the world. It prepares us to participate in it more consciously.”
Reflection — Contemplative training becomes most relevant when life is full of performance, deadlines, competing priorities, and constant change. In that setting, attention, self-awareness, compassion, and intention become practical forms of leadership.
Chapter Five
The Mindfitness Method
In 2008, after leaving the Ishaya organization, Moris formally developed the Mindfitness Method as an independent system for developing the mind. It is not a religion or a belief system, and it does not require people to follow a spiritual teacher. It is a practical approach to mental training, inspired by ancient contemplative wisdom and adapted for contemporary life.
The method treats mental development as a form of consistent exercise, much as physical fitness develops the body. Its four capabilities are Focus—the ability to return to what matters; Awareness—the ability to recognize thoughts, emotions, and internal experiences; Attention—the ability to direct mental energy consciously; and Intention—the ability to choose how to approach life and action.
“I don't believe we need to abandon our ambitions, relationships, or responsibilities to find peace. We need to develop the mind that experiences them. Just as we train our bodies to become stronger, we can train our minds to become more focused, aware, attentive, and intentional. Mindfitness is about bringing ancient wisdom into ordinary life, so that success is no longer measured only by what we achieve, but also by how consciously and fully we live.”
The method draws on the contemplative training that defined Moris’s earlier life, translated into a form intended for professional settings.
Mindfitness also develops three constructive qualities: Praise, recognizing value and what is good; Gratitude, appreciating what is already present; and Love, cultivating compassion, kindness, and connection. Its foundational values are Compassion, Kindness, and Friendship. These principles support meditation education, personal development, mindful leadership, corporate workshops, and wellness experiences.
The method does not promise guaranteed transformation or ask people to abandon ambition, relationships, or responsibility. Its purpose is more grounded: to help people develop the mind that experiences those parts of life, so professional achievement can be held alongside conscious fulfillment.
“We spend years training our bodies and developing our careers. Imagine what becomes possible when we give the same dedication to developing our minds.”
Reflection — We spend years training the body and developing a career. Mindfitness invites us to give the same steady dedication to developing the mind, so achievement can be joined with conscious, connected living.
THE JOURNEY IN MILESTONES
From the Temple to the Boardroom
The milestones below distinguish Moris’s personal history, contemplative training, independent creation of Mindfitness, and later professional work.
1985
1985 — Mexico City earthquake
Roots in Ancient Wisdom
Mexico City, Cancún, La Paz, Villahermosa, and Querétaro shaped a childhood Moris describes as happy and fortunate.
1988
1988 — Hurricane Gilbert in Cancún
A Life of Spiritual Discipline
During this period, Moris experienced contemplative training in the Ishaya tradition while continuing professional activities and teaching meditation.
Teenage years
Teenage years — England, Thailand, and a seventy-day international backpacking journey
The Turn Toward the World
After moving between countries and cultures, Moris turned toward a new life in Canada and the independent development of Mindfitness.
2003
2003 — University graduate and entrepreneur in Tabasco
Into the Boardrooms of Corporate Canada
Professional work in HR, HR technology, compensation, total rewards, and organizational operations brought contemplative questions into modern institutions.
2004–2005
2004–2005 — First transformative meditation retreats
Founding Mindfitness International
In 2008, Moris formally developed Mindfitness as an independent approach to practical mental training.
In His Own Words
Reflections Along the Path
Only quotes confirmed directly by Moris will appear here. Placeholders remain until each statement has been verified.
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“Success gave me everything I thought I wanted. Meditation introduced me to something I didn't even know I was looking for.”
On a life of spiritual discipline
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“The boardroom and the monastery may look like different worlds, but they share one essential truth: the quality of our experience depends profoundly on the quality of our attention.”
On entering the boardroom
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“The purpose of meditation is not to escape the world. It is to become fully present within it.”
On the purpose of Mindfitness International