The Happiest Man in the World

I wouldn't have expected something like this to be measurable, but apparently some scientists have given it a pretty good try, and the best results were from a Buddhist monk named Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche.

An organization called the Mind and Life Institute worked with Richard Davidson, the director of the Weisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior at the University of Wisconsin. The bottom line result is that people who had spent a lot of time meditating (they compare it to the amount of a time an Olympic athlete puts into training for the Olympics) showed much greater activity in the parts of the brain associated with happiness than the average person, showing as much as 700 to 800 percent more activity. And our boy Yongey was the champion of the bunch, standing out significantly even from the other champion meditators.

The good news for more mainstream folks is that even beginning meditators showed a 10 to 15 percent improvement over average people, so you don't have to devote your life to it to feel results.

So now I'm reading Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche's book, "The Joy of Living". It's interesting stuff, drawing from both Buddhist training and science. His father was a scientist and had a lot of friends who were significant figures in the world scientific community while he was growing up, and they were more than willing to talk with him about science, so he learned everything he could from them. His main point is that the more he learns about science, the more he feels it validates spiritual ideas that have been around for thousands of years.

The most significant application for me has been his detailed descriptions of various meditation techniques, which I've been putting to use. It's far too soon to expect results of any kind, but I don't think I'll ever be bored again. There's too much available to do with a human mind, even in an empty room with nothing in particular to do outwardly. Maybe in a year or two I can honestly claim some of that 10-15% improvement in my mental well being.