Some days I listen to ’60s jazz while doing the dishes. The other morning Spotify, for reasons I still cannot explain, served up Peggy Lee singing Is That All There Is?
I stood there with a soapy plate in my hand thinking, “Yes, Peggy. Some mornings it does feel that way.”
Most of us come to meditation looking for a repair. We are anxious, lonely, bored, or discouraged, and we would like meditation to fix us. I understand the impulse.
But meditation is less about fixing what is broken than learning how to be happy.
Something surprising appears.
Sit quietly for a while and something surprising appears. What seemed like a solid self is really a stream of mental pictures, running commentary, and feelings moving through the body.
An image triggers a thought. A thought stirs a feeling. The whole process rolls along mostly on its own.
Watch this stream with a little kindness and you notice something else. Sadness appears and passes. Boredom appears and passes. Even joy comes and goes. None of it stays long enough to be a permanent address.
Your well-being remains.
Here is the relief. We do not have to get rid of stress or confusion to feel at ease. They are not obstacles blocking our natural calm. They are more like clouds drifting across a sky that was never actually damaged.
If I sit down hoping to manufacture a particular feeling, I have just given myself another job. That is the old habit Buddhism calls grasping and aversion: chasing what we want and pushing away what we do not.
Let that job go, and the sky clears a little by itself.
Most of us spend our days moving from one pleasant experience to the next, a good meal, a good song, a good conversation. There is nothing wrong with any of that. I like a good meal as much as anyone.
But the happiness meditation points toward does not wait for anything. It comes from resting in what is already here. Next to that, ordinary pleasures can seem a little on the thin side.
One of my favorite Zen teachers, Cheri Huber, says it is not so much what happens to us as how we are with ourselves, regardless of what happens.
The hard stuff still shows up. Fear. Jealousy. Physical pain. It happens to us. But it does not happen to be us. Weather passes through. We are not defined by it.
Maybe that is all there is.
Be happy. Meditate.