If meditation is making you cranky and uncomfortable, I'd say you haven't yet found the right form of meditation for you. There are a huge number of different

If meditation is making you cranky and uncomfortable, I'd say you haven't yet found the right form of meditation for you. There are a huge number of different practices out there, and most of them strike me as self-violent and painful. Of course, they probably work well for some people; to each her own. Personally, I've always been drawn to practices that emphasize simplicity, ease, gentleness, and acceptance in the cultivation of awareness. If I need to pee, I get up and pee; if I need to adjust my position, I adjust my position. I don't force my mind, I do the opposite: I let go of my mind and instead watch it. Thoughts come and thoughts go, and a surprising number of them are pretty funny when I'm not caught up in them. It's truly easy because you can't do it wrong: the goal isn't to have no thoughts, be perfectly present, or have super-concentration. You will have thoughts (lots of them at first), you will have moments when you're present and moments when you're not, you will have pretty crappy concentration at first. Over time, you develop a very easy, effortless form of concentration that doesn't involve forcing anything. Concentration isn't the goal, just a pleasant byproduct. The benefits? I feel much more centered and present, more relaxed, my mind is sharper. My mood tends to be better. To be sure, there are times when I'm cranky when I start and cranky when I finish -- we don't get to use it to force our experience to change. But by practicing being gently present, practicing accepting "this is what my experience is right now," I seem to have more pleasant moods and fewer, briefer unpleasant moods.