Robert Wright, a senior editor at The Atlantic and the author, most recently, of The Evolution of God, writes from time to time about his meditation practice, especially when he’s going on retreat, for example here and (most recently) here.

Wright has found, as many people have, that meditation improves his life. He talks of the “sharp, even cold, clarity” he gains from sitting, as well as the “warm and fuzzy” feelings that arise from that clarity.

Surprisingly, to my mind, Wright finds himself in the position of having to “defend” finding that meditation makes him happier. One commenter said, for example:

Well, if you’re talking about

…

Robert Wright, The Atlantic: In Early December, right before I headed off for a one-week silent meditation retreat, I encouraged readers to leave comments or questions about meditation that I could respond to upon returning.

A commenter named Jon Johanning obliged: “If you’re talking about Buddhist meditation, I’m sorry to say that you’re missing the whole point,” he wrote. He was referring to my having noted that on a previous meditation retreat I felt lousy after the first few days but great later on. He continued, “Whether you feel ‘good’ or ‘bad’ or ‘bored’ or ‘fuzzy’ or ‘ecstatic’ or anything else in particular …

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Robert Wright, the Atlantic: At the moment this post is published–Monday evening–I’m probably miserable. But I can’t say for sure.
Monday is the third full day of a week-long silent meditation retreat I’m attending. Since being on a silent meditation retreat means cutting off all contact with the world, I had to write this post before the retreat started. But since this isn’t my first week-long meditation retreat, I can with some confidence predict how I’ll be feeling three days into it. And it’s not a great feeling.

As I put it a couple of years ago in a piece I wrote about …

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