I started meditating in 2007, and it has completely changed my life. The benefits I've noticed are too numerous to list, but for example: - My ability to susta

I started meditating in 2007, and it has completely changed my life. The benefits I've noticed are too numerous to list, but for example: - My ability to sustain attention and keep a lot of details in mind (say, for writing code) has improved significantly. Before I started my practice, my ability to code was declining with age. - I'm much less reactive than I used to be. I have more ability to choose what I say and how I act. Of course, I still can and do make unskillful choices. - Rather than expend energy on judgement, on right vs. wrong, I now focus on skillful vs unskillful. Meditation does change your view of the world. You realize you can't control your mind. So it's not, "I think, therefore I am." It's, "I think, therefore there are thoughts." A healthy relationship to your thoughts removes many obstacles. The thing about meditation is that you have to actually do it. No amount of knowledge of the various techniques can substitute for actual practice. For this reason, as michael_dorfman says, you really do need a teacher. Don't just read the menu, eat the food. Buddhist Geeks[1] is a great podcast. It has interviews with various Buddhist and non-dual teachers. In Berkeley, there's an excellent pay-what-you-want 6 week beginner class offered by James Baraz[2]. The first session is presented without any Buddhist stuff. The remaining sessions have Buddhist content, to elucidate the foundations of practice. Plenty of people who are not interested in Buddhism take the class. Many of James' talks are on DharmaSeed[3], another great source of Buddhist audio. [1] http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/ http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/ [2] http://www.insightberkeley.org/calendar.html http://www.insightberkeley.org/calendar.html [3] http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/86/ http://dharmaseed.org/teacher/86/