What actually is meditation? That thought occasionally crossed my mind in the many years during which I disparaged the practice. I had no idea. The cross-legged statuesqueness of it and the beatific Buddha-smile were enough to put me off. Whatever it was, it stank of prayer. Having escaped my parents’ evangelism, their exorcisms and speaking in tongues, I was more than happy to live as an adult in a world emptied of all things esoteric.

I got busy and used my head and studied and wrote. Life presented itself as a task to which I felt I was just about equal, assuming I gave it absolutely all I had. There was no time …