Meditation is for Everyone Serenity. Tranquility. Peacefulness.
Meditation is for everyone. It works from the inside out.
It supports the person on all levels. It produces precious peace of mind.
Serenity. Tranquility. Peacefulness.
It shouldn't be confused with religion. It is a spiritual or breathing practice. It is neither religious nor anti-religious; it's nonreligious.
If you are not already engaging in a daily spiritual practice, we encourage you to investigate the benefits of doing so.
Try meditation and discover for yourself how it enables you to be.
In this section of our website we have pages on:
Zen Meditation: a free e-course
Meditation Techniques
Breathing Exercise: an aid to health and well-being
Meditation for Well-Being
Please note that our free e-course is suitable for all beginners who are interested in Zen meditation (zazen). It is not only for those seeking an aid to natural weight loss.
You will find the request box for the free e-course at the bottom of this page. The links to the other pages in the this section are also given at the bottom of this page.
Meditation and Health
Many people have discovered that merely improving dietary and physical exercise habits are, by themselves, insufficient for health and wellness. It's like an enforced change imposed from without.
Meditation works from the inside out to support the person on all levels. Everyone wants to be happy, but how? Might meditation help us be happier?
An initial objection that may already arise is that our way of being happy might be fundamentally different from your way of being happy. This is not true. As Aristotle emphasizes, we are all of the same kind: we are all human beings.
How could it be that what is fundamentally good for one human being is different from what is good for another human being? What is good for, say, a tree or a star may differ from what is good for a human being, but, since humans are all of the same sort, what is good for us is of the same sort as what is good for you.
What is good for us all is happiness.
If your conception of your own happiness includes being healthy and meditation for weight loss is a new subject for you, please continue.
Attachment and Nonattachment
Though there are many ways of living, ultimately, there are only two ways (paths, directions) that promise happiness: the way of attachment and the way of nonattachment.
Meditation belongs to the way of nonattachment.
The way of attachment (accumulation, gain) is the way of the many.
Most people seek happiness by only trying to accumulate goods.
(i) They may try to accumulate goods by various processes of self-development designed to achieve “internal” goods (such as more conceptual understanding or virtue or fitness).
(ii) They may try to accumulate goods from “external” sources such as other people (such as friendships or love affairs or families or esteem), material goods (such as food or money or possessions [like real estate or art]), or experiences (such as traveling or union with God).
(iii) They may seek both internal and external goods.
This path is based on the judgment that I will become happy if only I am able to attach myself to (accumulate, achieve, gain) things that will benefit me. The more and better goods I accumulate, the happier I shall be.
This path presupposes that I am separate from what is good for me. Since this is false, this method cannot work. Please be honest with yourself: haven't you noticed that it really doesn't work? Try to name just one thing you have ever gained that yielded lasting happiness.
Not only doesn’t this path work, it perpetuates dissatisfaction. “What will a man gain by winning the whole world, at the cost of his true self?” [Luke 9:25, The New English Bible] Nothing! There is nothing to gain! The implicit spiritual distinction here is the distinction between one’s false self and one’s true self: one’s false self is thought to be separate from everything else, whereas one’s true self is not.
Since dissatisfaction is caused by separation, as long as we cling tightly to the concept of ourselves as separate, we are perpetuating separation between ourselves and everything else.
How could such separation be overcome by somehow attaching ourselves to goods that are separate from ourselves? It makes no sense. The truth is that, from an absolute point of view, there are no (separate) selves to do any attaching. We are only relatively separate from everything else.
Furthermore, since the goods we desire (such as food or another lover or a better child or more money) are themselves transitory, even obtaining them cannot yield lasting happiness. This explains why attaching ourselves to food, pleasure, understanding, friends, status, wealth, or to any other goods doesn't work well. Anything that can be gained can be lost.
The way of attachment is the way of desiring (wanting, craving), which is a dead end. Why? As we point out in the series of free emails on emotional eating, the good with respect to any desire is its annihilation, which is nothing.
(To request that series, simply click on the Emotional Eating button on the menu bar.)
This explains why the way of gaining satisfactions doesn’t work. Desire simply breeds more desire.
The way of attachment is the way that children live. They think “If only I had X, I’d be happy”, and then they try to gain X. Even if successful in gaining X, the satisfaction, like X itself, is temporary; almost immediately they want Y and then Z and so on.
Immature adults simply continue this process of life as an endless quest to get whatever it is they want—and then they die without ever being happy.
Attachments are like poisons.
One who is a slave to them is like one who is content to dream one’s way through life, like one who prefers fantasy to reality; such a one usually misses the present moment, which is the only moment when life may be lived.
By way of contrast, mature adults learn from experience that the way of attachment doesn’t work. If they are natural philosophers, instead of settling for lives of fleeting satisfactions, nearly incessant distractions and almost perpetual dissatisfaction, they search for a better way.
The way of nonattachment (letting go) is the way of the few.
Some people seek happiness by detachment. This is the spiritual path.
They deliberately stop practicing the way of desiring; they begin practicing letting go of the idea that happiness is the result of accumulating goods. When successful they no longer suffer from the someday syndrome (“if only I had X, I’d be happy”).
In fact, those who are wholly successful no longer desire anything! They don’t want to be or do or have anything—including happiness! In other words, they are not attached to anything. Such people are fully enlightened sages.
sidebar quotation from Roshi Shunryu Suzuki: "That everything is included within your mind is the essence of mind . . . our practice should be without gaining ideas, without any expectations . . . accept everything as it is, giving to each thing the same respect given to a Buddha."
This path presupposes that, from an absolute point of view, it is false that I am separate from what is good for me. I am not something ultimately separate from reality: I am part of reality. Ultimately, there is no separation.
In other words, the world is my true self, which is what mystics have always said. This is why lasting happiness is possible.
There’s no separate self to do any attaching—and nothing separate to be attached to! Everything necessary for me to live well is available right here, right now. The only requirement for happiness is that I realize it. Mastering meditation, which requires daily practice, is the way to realize it.
The way of nonattachment can work, whereas the way of attachment, which is the only other option, cannot work. Attaching to the idea of my false self assumes the reality of a fundamental bifurcation between me and everything else. Such separation guarantees almost perpetual dissatisfaction.
Why?
Even when we temporarily attach to a good, we live in fear of losing it. Letting go of the separation is letting go of all dissatisfactions such as greed, fear, anger, and loneliness.
The more letting go we do, the less dissatisfaction we experience and, so, the happier we are.
Less greed means more happiness!
If you haven't already, why not investigate the way of nonattachment for yourself?
As long as you remain attached to the way of attachment, Thich Nhat Hanh’s message to you is: “If you are not satisfied with what is available in the present moment, you will never be satisfied by attaining what you think will bring you happiness in the future” [from BREATHE! YOU ARE ALIVE].
Meditation for weight loss is a good but limited idea. If you were happy, would you overeat? Of course not. Attaching to food doesn't work. No attachments work.
To meditate for weight loss is a good idea, but to meditate for happiness is a much better idea.
If you are not already engaging in a daily spiritual practice, please consider the benefits of doing so. The benefits are listed in the c-course. Please investigate this for yourself.
If you are not yet ready to meditate but would like to try something else, see our Breathing Exercise web page:
To learn how to meditate, simply request our free e-course [below].
(Don't worry about privacy. We hate spam as much as you do. We will never share your e-mail address with anyone. Also, we use a double opt-in policy to help ensure that you don't receive any email you don't want.)
Learn How to Meditate for Weight Loss
We have a free e-course that is suitable for all beginners who are interested in one kind of meditation (namely, Zen meditation, which is called 'zazen').
Even if you are not a beginner and already have a daily practice of some kind, this course of seven emails may still interest you; for example, it ends with a list of recommended readings that may include some you have missed.
Are you looking for something in particular? You can now FAST-SEARCH our website or the World Wide Web.
