Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation

When we can’t let the moment in front of us be what it is (because we’re afraid that if it’s good, it will end too soon; if it’s bad, it’ll go on forever; and if it’s neutral, it’ll bore us to tears), we’re out of balance. Mindfulness restores that balance; we catch our habitual reactions of clinging, condemning, and zoning out, and let them go.

What we have to understand is that there’s a big difference between pain and suffering. We can have a painful physical experience, but we don’t need to add the suffering of fear or projection into the future or other mental anguish to it. Mindfulness can play a big role in transforming our experience with pain and other difficulties; it allows us to recognize the authenticity of the distress and yet not be overwhelmed by it.

indfulness allows us to enjoy pleasant experiences without that extra thing we do, which is to grasp at the pleasure in an attempt to keep it from changing. In fact, we’re often so preoccupied with trying to make a pleasurable experience stay that we’re unable to enjoy it while it lasts.

“You mean you felt tension in your jaw,” said Joseph. I watched the man continue barreling down this path for some time, all because of a sore jaw, until finally Joseph said to him, “You’re having a painful experience. Why are you adding a horrible self-image to it?”
I’m sure you know how the man with the sore jaw felt. We’ve all had times when we’ve declared ourselves total losers or envisioned a bad end based on a fleeting sensation or thought. A typical trip down that path goes like this: I bend down to tie my shoe, and somehow I pull a muscle in my back. This is the beginning of the end, I

Investigating physical sensations is one of the best ways for us to learn to be present with whatever is happening in the moment, and to recognize the difference between direct experience and the add-ons we bring to it.

Mindfulness, also called wise attention, helps us see what we’re adding to our experiences, not only during meditation sessions but also elsewhere.

Learning to deepen our concentration allows us to look at the world with quiet eyes. We don’t need to reach out and grab ever more exotic or forbidden fruit. We develop calm and tranquility—and the calmer we get, the more at home we feel with our body and mind, with life as it is.

may begin to think, If only I could have a banana, then I’d be happy! You find a banana, but you eat it in the same distracted or inattentive way, so again you end up feeling unsatisfied. But instead of realizing that you weren’t paying attention to the experience of eating the banana, you start to think, My life is just too prosaic; how could anybody be happy with apples and bananas? What I need is something exotic. I need a mango. Then I’ll be happy.

paying attention keeps us in an endless cycle of wanting. We move on to the next thing because we aren’t really taking in what we already have; inattention creates an escalating need for stimulation. When we’re keenly aware of what’s happening, we don’t need to grasp for the next great moment of sensation or taste or sound (all the while missing what’s actually here, right in front of us).

When our lives feel like an interminable chain of longing—when nothing satisfies us the way we thought it might—often the first link in the chain is not being fully present.