Meditation for Thursday 6 July 2023

Meditation stops us looking for happiness in the wrong places.

Real, lasting happiness isn’t the result of getting our wishes met provisionally. Temporary satisfaction leads to a cycle of disappointments and mounting desires.

We rely on something that proves to be insufficient, so we look for something else, and something else and something else.

Meditation stops us looking for happiness in the wrong places.

Regular happiness i.e., momentary distraction is fleeting and fragile and prevents us from seeking the joy to be found in compassion. When we fail to acknowledge compassion toward ourselves and others, we undermine our tenuous happiness.

Meditation stops us looking for happiness in the wrong places.

In meditation we connect with ourselves, with our authentic experience and we connect with others. We become real.

We discover the joy of simplicity, of connection, of presence.

As the great meditation teacher Thich Nhat Hanh once said to a group of people who were interested in learning about meditation, “Happiness is available, please help yourself.”

Meditation stops us looking for happiness in the wrong places.

Meditation helps us find joy.

 

Meditation