The Present

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." 
Shakespeare, 16th century, England

"The mind is its own place, and can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n." 

John Milton, 17th century, England

"The whole universe is change and life itself is but what you deem it." 

Marcus Aurelius, 2nd century, Rome

"Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead, want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well." 

Epictetus, 1st century, Greece

"Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear. if you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against." 

Sen-ts'an, 7th century, China

"Our life is the creation of our minds." 

Buddha, 6th century BCE, India

2,500 years ago, Siddhartha Gautama, from India, made one of the most important psychological discoveries of recorded human history while engaging in the practice of meditation.  The discovery was so significant that it spawned an entire religion, philosophy, and way of life. Siddhartha was later named the Buddha, or "the Awakened one," by his followers. I spent nearly 3 weeks learning and practicing this same form of meditation - vipassana - in northern Thailand. Vipassana means "seeing clearly," and is also known as "Insight" or "Mindfulness" meditation.

It's difficult to summarize what I experienced. It is incomparable to anything I am familiar with, and from what I've been witnessing, anything most of us are familiar with. So of what good use are words if they cannot convey anything of value, or anything understandable, to the listener? The only true question of value in this case is, "Do I think it was worthwhile?" The answer is yes, and in fact, more worthwhile than I could have possibly imagined. It was also the most difficult thing I've ever done. But does that even matter? I can explain the experience detail by detail, but will that change you, the reader? Will that provide any lasting value other than temporarily quenching your curiosity? Surely not. So what is important to know about the meditation experience? 

Meditation makes a profound statement about happiness.

Consider the following scenario:

Over the last 50 years or so, individual income levels in most developed nations have steadily increased. We have access to an astronomically larger set of options to satisfy ourselves than we did 50 years ago. We can watch movies on demand, we can play the most advanced video games, we can shop for almost anything we can imagine, we have access to an endless source of explicit information via the internet, we can purchase nicer homes sooner than ever before, we can eat practically anything we want at almost anytime (I bet our primitive neanderthal ancestors would have been jealous), and we can travel easily and frequently. We, residents of developed nations, have access to everything we could reasonably desire. Sounds like a reason to rejoice.

But according to recent psychological studies over the last 50 years, our levels of happiness have not increased. Has anything increased? Yes: rates of depression, anxiety, ADHD, and consumption of Prozac, Lexapro, Paxil, etc. Please think about the significance of this phenomenon. I did not come up with this. These are recorded statistics. So what is going on?

Our traditional measuring stick for happiness is generally tied to life successes. The more we achieve, the more we acquire, the more we know, the happier we should be. But we´re not. The happiness hypothesis we share in the western world is mostly wrong. It is a grave error of common sense to think that once our basic necessities for survival are met (food and water), happiness can only be increased or maintained by striving for it. Striving to increase happiness causes tension. And even when you do reach a goal, the happiness that success produces is fleeting, temporary, because our minds are programmed (evolved) to adapt to increases or decreases in happiness and return to a common set point. A set point that seems to be, for the most part, predetermined genetically. That's why the levels of happiness reported by new lottery winners and new paraplegics is not significantly different from the other's after a year's time. Therefore:

The purpose of meditation is to help you realize that happiness doesn't lie in the past nor in the future. Lasting happiness doesn't lie in successes or positive states nor does lasting unhappiness lie in failures or negative states. Happiness lies in the present moment. In fact, it is always there.

Right now, exactly where you are, reading this post, or whatever it is you are doing in the present moment. Even if it's just sitting on the floor with your eyes closed. Even if you are simply breathing. Wherever you are, whatever your income level is, whoever you're with, happiness is there. It's present in every single moment of our lives. We have just never learned how to look. Instead we embark on a lifelong search for lasting happiness in external things and events... and never find it. So then the looming question becomes, "what the hell are we searching for?" We have everything we need right now. We all do. 

It's not out there. It's in here.

I know this is fancifully abstract, I know this sounds like new age, cotton candy, feel-good bullshit talk, I know it goes against everything we have ever known about happiness and enjoying our lives. But realize that some of the greatest thinkers in history from different parts of the world (quoted above), east and west, have all reached similar conclusions.

But even now after reading this, you can't *feel* what I'm saying. You can read and repeat these words but you can't intuitively know and feel that fear, insecurity, sadness, depression, anger, impatience, anxiety, worry, doubt, boredom, loneliness, jealousy, and even physical pain are nothing but illusions. You can´t simply decide for them not to affect you by reading or listening. It is such a foreign concept that you have to experience it for it to make any sense. It's the only way.

I'll end this post with a simple, encompassing, statement by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, professor at the University of Virginia: "Events in the world affect us only through our interpretations of them, so if we can control our interpretations, we can control our world." Think of Neo stopping those bullets in the first Matrix.

Meditation is the path not only to observe these interpretations, but to change them. Thanks Buddha. If you had been an advocate of reciprocity, we'd all owe you one.