The Science of Enlightenment: How Meditation Works

Most people don’t maintain a continuous mindful relationship with their subjective thoughts and feelings, so most people do not have the ability to experience anger, fear, sadness, shame, and confusion without suffering.

If we develop an ability to discern the components of the experience, we can begin to keep track of what part is thought and what part is feeling.

you can dramatically extend life—not by multiplying the number of your years, but by expanding the fullness of your moments.

I’ve taken to heart the words of the Roman playwright Terence: homo sum humani a me nihil alienum puto. I am human, so nothing human should be alien to me.

While concentrating and calming down is certainly a part of meditation, it is only half of the story. The other half of the process is clarifying, that is, observing, analyzing, and deconstructing sensory experience. Clarifying leads to insight. This clarifying aspect of meditation is known technically as vipassana. One way to think about meditatio

But there is a third kind of spirituality, which is the one that I find most interesting. The technical term for it is mysticism.

it, mindful awareness is “concentration, clarity, and equanimity working together.”

In the beginning, meditation is something that happens within your day. Eventually, the day becomes something that happens within your meditation. At advanced levels of practice, the dimensions of depth and breadth come together. Profoundly deep experiences occur continuously throughout your daily activities.

interesting toward the end of my sit. My breath would slow down spontaneously, my body would relax despite the pain, and—miracle of miracles—the voice in my head would stop frantically screaming. It was still there, but more like an undercurrent, a whisper.