I have further questions than reasons given in my previous post on meditation. Questions like:
- Why is having a meditative state of mind better than a non-meditative one?
- Why does meditation or spirituality interest people my age?
Information and good reasons from the book
I found good arguments (that resonated well) while reading Sam Harris’s 2014 book: Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion. Sam is a Stanford graduate, and has a PhD in Nueroscience from UCLA.
In only the first chapter, Sam’s brief discussion and treatment of religious dogma is illuminating for atheists like me. Sam’s arguments comparing emperical progress in medicine and spiritual fields are quite compelling. Sam is looking to expand and modernize spiritual advances described in teachings of Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta.
The reason a medititative trained brain is better is because it imparts wisdom to our innate wants and selfishness. This is critical for humanity to thrive, as it gives us the collaborative togetherness required to combat illness, inequality, despot ambitions, AND impetus to work towards understanding our vast cosmos, use technologies to advance a better and safer future.
My personal take
While growing up, developing my sense of self “I” accumulated a lot of personality debt (a term I am borrowing from my profession, similar in vein to Technical debt). As I grow older and have more diverse life experiences, more of this personality debt is learned through less than optimal outcomes.
For example, I took for granted that my achievements in life are due to my hard work and ability (which in part they are), but did not understand the role of chance, nor acknowledge other people. It took getting laid off from a troubled startup to realize this innate achievement and ability arrogance personality debt.
My fledgling meditation practice has already inculcated intellectual humility in me, as I now am able to “see” how hard it is to be attentive, even for small periods of time. I also realized that many of my previous motivations and desires are fueled in part by fear, envy, and pride.
Fear is a powerful motivator, and in a good sense, led me to be very meticulous in my work. Even News networks use fear to grab our attention. However, I realized that I became very conservative in all aspects of my decision making, and many times failed to take advantage of opportunities that lady luck presented. In hindsight, I think I lost more than I gained by deciding through and motivated by fear.
Envy is more insidious, as it made me crave for things that provided fleeting pleasure or none at all. I fell into the trap of keeping up with Joneses, and paid heavily for rushing into making costly FOMO investments.
Pride is a compensating factor for either countering envy or covering insecurities. Luckily, my fears helped keep my pride in check.
Meditation interests middle age people like me because we have been exercising non-stop on the treadmill of fears, wants, and desires for a long time, without any signs of relief or even an end.
Meditation helps us “see” beyond barriers of “I” we put in place to become fully functioning autonomous adults (albeit a little flawed).
Meditation helps us be calm with what we already have, and guides our wants ethically towards common good for both us and people we care about.