<story><title>That Misery Called Meditation</title><url>http://www.slate.com/id/2257585/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>mcantor</author><text>My Dad went to a zendo regularly for quite some time, when I was much younger.  As a child, the concept of sitting and only sitting was mysterious to me, so I asked him why he did it.  He told me that he wasn&apos;t sure, so he asked the head teacher at the zendo, and later recounted the exchange to me, which I have always valued as something of a modern &lt;i&gt;koan&lt;/i&gt; in its own right:&lt;p&gt;Dad: &quot;So, sitting will definitely produce positive results if you do it for long enough, right?  What if I sat for 20 years?&quot;&lt;p&gt;Master: &quot;You mean, a guaranteed amount of enlightenment, however small?&quot;&lt;p&gt;Dad: &quot;Exactly.&quot;&lt;p&gt;Master: &quot;The only thing I can guarantee you will get after 20 years of &lt;i&gt;zazen&lt;/i&gt; is hemorrhoids.&quot;</text></comment>
<story><title>That Misery Called Meditation</title><url>http://www.slate.com/id/2257585/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>philk</author><text>I&apos;m not really sure of the benefits of these big one off things; after seven days meditating you come back into your regular life, surrounded by your old environment and soon end up reverting to your previous mental patterns.&lt;p&gt;It seems analogous to going on a running retreat, spending seven days running all day and then coming home and not running again.&lt;p&gt;It strikes me that it would be more worthwhile to cultivate the habit of meditating once a day rather than making a large unsustainable change.</text></comment>