Why should we meditate? If it was truly beneficial, would evolution have not predisposed us to do that?
After all, our ancestors in Savannah surely never meditated and they did just fine. Then why should we?
The problem with this logic is that evolution optimizes for one and only one thing — survival.
And if we were satisfied to just survive, then most of us would have no problems in life. But we are not satisfied with this surviving business — we want to be happy.
And that is where evolution makes a mess of things. In the most pleasurable of circumstances, possibly on a picture-perfect beach, all it takes is one negative thought or worry to spoil the party.
This inherent unsatisfactoriness of life is what the Buddha talked about. It is not that life does not have joys, but our mind can conjure up mental pain anytime. And it does.
As a species, our brains have become too smart to let us be happy. So we need to retrain our minds.
That is why we need to meditate. 🤗
– Rajan