Why Meditate?

Everyone wants something. It might be a good job or material wealth. Then again, it might be love or sex, recognition or power, physical beauty or mental certainty. It could even be as simple as the quick hit of dopamine you get from endlessly scrolling.

Eventually, though, the happiness we (often unknowingly) pursue in this way, once obtained, slips through our fingers as quickly and easily as sand. We’re left only wanting more, and, so, the process begins again, as though maybe this time we will finally be satisfied. 

Underpinning all this is confusion about who and what we are, and about how things really work. If you suspect that what you’re really after, deep down, is a happiness that lasts, then the challenge is not to get what you think you want but to break the cycle of endless craving and chasing itself.

So, why not stop for a moment—stop running, stop chasing, and simply be? If nothing else, things may become a bit clearer. After all, only still water reflects things truthfully. Or, as Bodhidharma, the founder of the Chan school of Buddhism, put it: “To seek is to suffer; to seek nothing is bliss.”

And what is Chan? As the modern master Shen-yen put it, “Chan is not something you understand—it is something you experience.” Why not come experience with us?