It's an interesting question, too rarely asked. I think that emptiness is sort of brain hacking, not something we evolved into. but on the other hand, evolutio

It's an interesting question, too rarely asked. I think that emptiness is sort of brain hacking, not something we evolved into. but on the other hand, evolution might not optimized us for happiness either. As for what the experience is , while living in a modern context, this interview with Gary Weber, who once led big r&d organizations, and is now "enlightened", is great: https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/14840 https://bloggingheads.tv/videos/14840 As for you colleagues' being unsecsseful, sadly, one of the bigest lies told/implied by some parts of buddhism, is that "if you're dedicated, you will become englithened". But if you look at the statistics, this is not the case at all, and rarely few get enlightened. What are they missing ? my guess is that: (a) our training technology isn't good enough, yet, but there's a lot of hope in that front in recent science/tech (b) Enlightenment may require certain level of psychological development. so maybe certain types of psychological work might be better at the early stages. (c) Genetics play a role too. For example, if you're someone with bipolar disorder, meditation may trigger mania(and than comes depression). maybe. Personally, i wonder if another type of brain hacking, instead of enlightenment, is better for happiness, for the masses: teaching people how to achieve a flow state at will, combined with helping them with standard tool of ego based psychology.