Thread: Meditation

Well my reasons for meditating are getting a greater understanding of conciousness, and happiness. The Dali Lama said that the goal of our lives is to find happiness, I generally agree with that. The outcomes of meditating are a greater awareness of everything, and clarity of thought. When my head is clear, I am more aware, I can think more clearly and have better memory, so I guess you could consider that increased intelligence. Meditation also creates new path ways in your brain. (which is a good thing)

Heres some buddhist theory (which makes sense to me):
-The goal of our life is to find happiness
-We perpetuate our 'ego' which is any idea of the illusion that there is a "I"
-Because we have this idea of an "I" and all of these beleifs about what we should desire, it makes us unhappy.
-It makes us unhappy, becuase if we always have desires, there is always something we are reaching for, that keeps us from being truely happy in the present moment.
-The idea of self, is very firmly implated in our brain. To get rid of the illusion of self that is making us unhappy, we need to meditate, untill we are unaware of the body or any thoughts (although at this time the meditator is highly alert and aware), this will temporarily rid us of the former stream of conciousness that perpetuates the "I".
-This complete distruction of ego, is probably impossible without entering this state, or very near impossible because of how firmly it is implated in our brain (the stream of concioussness has to change).

So to recap, desires make us unhappy, desires are created because we have an ego (which is not a real thing, its a dilusion created by us), the best way to get rid of the ego and desires is to meditate.

About self controll: It takes self controll and will power to align your concious intent with your subconcious thinking. you subconcious probably doesn't want to meditate for long periods, so meditating for longer and longer times, builds your self controll.

PS: take all that with a grain of salt, i'm no expert.