How can meditation, something so simple, have so many benefits?

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Meditation is mind training. The popular saying, that you only use 10% of your brain, isn’t strictly true in a scientific sense, but it’s very true in the fact that you’re only conscious of a very small part of it at any given time. The rest of your mind competes hard for your attention, that’s why mind is so noisy all the time.

Meditation resets all that. You’re training all those noisy parts in your head and showing them that they have to wait their turn. While enshrining the conscious part of your mind as the part that needs to be in control.

Imagine you’re living in a movie Western, where all these weird criminal elements are running around the town wreaking havoc. Meditation is having a new sheriff roll into town and clapping them all in jail for awhile. They can’t stay in jail forever, but the knowledge that there’s someone out there bigger and badder than they are and is willing to lay down the law eventually gets them all to play ball.

Except that this isn’t the Wild West and the criminals are a part of you. The way most people get control over their mind, discipline, only goes so far. Ultimately you need to learn how to work with your mind instead of against it. Meditation serves that goal.

When you’re sitting there trying to be still and thoughts intrude, the right way to handle it is just like you would your little boy trying to get your attention and show you his finger painting. The painting will be forgotten after five minutes, but if you tell your son to get lost with that shit, he’s not going to forget that. So you put down your work, look at what your son has made, compliment him on what a good job he’s doing, and show him a little love.

Meditation is showing love to your mind and hoping that your mind rewards you with some nice interesting experiences.