Why I Meditate

Vipassana Meditation

When I tell people that I meditate 2 hours/day and go on 10 day silent retreats at least once/year, the most common question is :Why? What do I get out of it? How do I feel?

Simple questions but no easy answers.

I’d like to say meditating is always pleasurable and I look forward to the one-hour sessions in the morning and evening; that the 10 days are pure bliss. But most of the time it takes all my will power and discipline.

So why have I been keeping up this daily practice for over 10 years?

As an extremist and cynic, I gravitated to the most difficult form of meditation that has no affiliation with any sect or religion and actually does not cost anything. The teachers are unpaid and take no credit for the technique which dates back over 2500 years. The 10 day retreats are free including room and board. My cynicism dissipated and my need for the extreme was met.

Like exercising the body, Vipassana meditation, which is the technique rediscovered by the Buddha, but is not Buddhist per se, is a means to retrain my mind after life long habits. Actually as a result of tens of thousands of year of human evolution. I was not in crisis when I started practicing Vipassana meditation. I had been with my wife, Diane, for 25 years. We have 2 wonderful daughters. My business was successful. I was healthy.

But intuitively I felt something was missing. I wasn’t even sure what it was. I’d been studying spiritual practices for 25 years but I realized that there had to be something more. A practice along with theory.

The goal of Vipassana meditation is to be happy, peaceful and liberated – ultimately to become enlightened. The technique is designed to retrain the mind - to quiet the mind and become present and then to stop craving what brings pleasure and running from what is unpleasant. Lasting happiness does not come from getting everything I want or avoiding what I don’t want because that is impossible - no matter how rich or powerful I become. There’s always something more and there’s always loss.

Happiness comes from being aware (in other words not being in denial or ignorant) while remaining equanimous, regardless of what thoughts or sensations arise. Because ultimately all things in this material world are fleeting – arising and passing – and it is my attachment to what is impermanent that causes suffering or at least dissatisfaction.

The meditation, day and night, 10 days at a time and sometimes longer, involves the process of retraining my mind to stop reacting. To use my breath and bodily sensations to remain present. It is a process of purifying my mind which can take a lifetime – maybe longer. Only infinite patience produces immediate results.

I’ve been reluctant to write about meditation within the business environment because I am not sure how people will react and how it could affect my business and my employees. I find that many business associates I speak with are very interested in meditation but don’t know where or how to start. I encourage people to investigate on their own at the vipassana website which teaches the technique uncovered by the Buddha as taught by SN Goenka, a teacher in a long line who was a business person in India. Or any form of meditation that can calm the fleeting and wandering mind.

Because the simple answer of why I meditate is to be happier, more compassionate, more thoughtful, less reactive, less egotistical and more aware. To be awake. To see reality as it is, not as I hope or fear it to be. But how it makes me feel is harder to explain nor would I want to rob anyone of the opportunity to experience their own reality which is different for everyone.

Until it is not. Until our subjective realities become objective truths.