Why meditate?

Meditation is getting to know oneself, beyond any version that the mind may project. What we perceive with the five senses is one version of reality. Microscopes and telescopes increase our reach into physical reality, showing us another flavor of material existence, but the inner realm is beyond the reach of the senses or any physical instrument. We perceive the mind, thoughts, feelings, and experiences, not through our eyes but directly through the subtle tool of awareness. Meditation enhances our understanding of ourselves through the expansion of awareness.

Meditation helps quiet the mind, which is the most superficial layer of our inner subjectivity; the talkative mind is a significant source of our restlessness and miseries. The deeper we go within ourselves, the more bliss we uncover. Like a natural spring that continually brings fresh water from deep under the earth, meditation brings up from within ourselves what we are searching for in the external world, lasting happiness. According to Om Swami, a monk who lives in the Himalayas, the greatest reward of right meditation is a state of no provocation. He says, “People, their responses, your thoughts, reactions, emotions, and desires — none of it will be able to provoke you.” …

“I spent twenty years searching for this book…careful with it, the only known copy,” said Hamid Shah. He placed a gloved hand on the limp binding made of cloth and plucked his beard with the other. There was no title on the cover, which had dark stains that covered much of the faded gilding that perhaps had their own story to tell. I did not open the book, afraid that the loosely bound pages may come apart. I reached for a pair of gloves as if ready to perform delicate surgery. He shook his head and said, “Your hands are clean. No need. Where I come from, we don’t judge a doctor’s hands. Pick it up. …

The Letter

It was the first time I had seen Rose without a wig or makeup. “They scheduled my autopsy. When everyone is celebrating, eating barbeque, watching fireworks” she said, wide-eyed and nervously clutching a crumpled envelope with the letter containing the lethal news.

Her oversized tortoise frame glasses slid down her nose as her head tremor increased in cadence. Sweat beads formed on her wrinkled forehead. Each time she tried to sit up taller, she sunk further back into her wheelchair. It had a customized cushion that helped her reclaim some of the height lost to age. …

There are three critical elements for success in any endeavor.

• Mind
• Energy
• Devotion

Luck is the wildcard. It is the icing on the cake. Unless we work on the three elements, chance cannot do much for us.

The mind is like the branches of a tree, our energies are like sunlight, and our devotion to the task is like a tree’s root system.

Success is the fruit we all seek for our efforts. It does drop out of the sky. It is not an isolated event.

Just as a fruit cannot grow in isolation, it needs nourishment from the roots of a tree, support from its branches, and energy from the sun; to succeed, we need the mind, energies, and devotion to the task. All three have to be in alignment. …

Desire and fear are like the two sides of the same coin. Whichever way you flip a coin, it carries the same monetary value, but the engraving may be different on each side.

Desire and fear have equal value, in that they keep us bound to the mind. A lot of what we do every day involves the pursuit of desire and avoidance of fear.

The mind keeps our attention on desire and fear by linking the former with pleasure and the latter with pain. Pleasure and pain are deeply ingrained. They are fundamental to the existence of the mind.

If we look closely, wherever there is desire, there is also fear and vice versa. When we pursue a desire, without knowing, we are pursuing pain. When we try to push away our fears, we are unconsciously pursuing a desire for the opposite. If we work on getting rid of desire, we automatically reduce our fears. …

Everything in existence emerges from a seed form. The Big Bang is the seed of the physical universe. Every tree was once a seed, and this is also true of the human body. With the body comes the mind in a seed form.

The growth of the human body occurs autonomously. It is nature’s gift to us. We are not conscious of the changes happening within, and as the body grows, so does the mind. The unconscious intake of a multitude of sensory impressions fuels the mind’s exponential growth.

As the mind expands, it begins to manifest a busy stream of thoughts. It is not easy to stop the mind from accumulating and displaying thoughts. That is the nature of the mind. Lost in that growth is our peace of mind and happiness. As we begin to seek happiness from the world, unwittingly, we get more enmeshed in the mind. …

The attention we pay to a task depends on our perception of what is at stake. If our life and future depend on our performance, it is natural to be fully engaged. No one needs to tell us to be mindful and not distracted. But, in our perception, if the stakes are not high, it becomes easy to postpone and procrastinate. Keeping a level of attentiveness that would meet the bar for mindfulness during every activity is difficult.

We can, however, train the mind to make it dedicate its energies to any activity, even those that some may consider as insignificant. …