Did you ever feel you were missing something in your life? If so, what is it that would make you happier?

We can make it a saner and happier world if we just slowed down and had less focus on wanting or needing more stuff. If stuff made you happy, there would be nothing but happy people living in Bel Air and unhappy people living in Fiji where they have nothing, but I have been to Fiji and there are plenty of happy people there. I have never seen a hearse with a luggage rack on top. We have got to get away from stuff and appreciate what is here. Ed Begley, Jr., from Be The Change.

Meditation is now the IN thing. Cross-legged yogis and Buddhist monks can be seen in advertisements for everything from computers and credit cards to herbal teas, major newspapers and magazines carry stories on the benefits of meditation with tips from famous film stars, and no self-respecting bookshop is without a how-to-meditate section. But can meditation do more than just make us feel good? Can meditation change us enough to save us from further suffering, both individually and globally?

All of the pain and pleasure that we experience stems fundamentally from the mind. So when we say we want peace on earth, what we are really talking about is reducing the conflict in our own minds. Sakyong Mipham

We have tried many ways to bring peace to the world, creating organizations like the UN and NATO, we have had treaties and summits and endless meetings, but still there are difficulties and disagreements. Egos battle, greed for power dominates over humanity, and old hatred divides one against another. What will it take for us to come together in goodwill and to generate genuine peace? Could meditation be the missing ingredient?

Who makes problems? We humans. And who is the controller of the human? The mind. And how to control the human mind? Through meditation. If you can control the pilot, then the pilot can control the plane. Mingyur Rinpoche

To make changes in the way we live our lives and how we treat each other means being aware that everything I think, say, and do affects everybody and everything else, just as they affect me. This is the turning of our energy away from being focused on self-centeredness, self-survival, and closed-heartedness toward concern for others, generosity, and open-heartedness. If we genuinely want to end war, inequality, and abuse, then we need to have kindness toward all equally. There will never be peace in the world if we are not at peace within ourselves. Such a deepening of understanding is essential if we are to end the disregard and violence that destroy so many lives and cause so much unnecessary pain and distress.

The point of meditation is to keep the mind free of confusion. Meditation, past calming our nerves, past being good for our blood pressure, past allowing us to work out our own internal psychological dramas, which it does, past helping us to get along with our kin and our community, is a way of really deeply seeing the truth that the only way to ameliorate our own suffering and the suffering of the world is to keep our minds clear. Sylvia Boorstein

The equation, therefore, is simple: The more meditation becomes a part of our lives, the more we change and evolve; the more we change and evolve, the more society is transformed and the world moves into a more sustainable, wise, and loving place to be. And all we have to do for this chain of events to occur is to be mindful!

A caveman out on a hunt or a soldier on the front line needs the stress response in his body in order to have the energy to fight; the anticipation of the life-or-death experience puts his entire physiology into a state of red alert. So from a positive perspective, stress enables us to meet challenges, to push ourselves into new areas of experience or understanding, through heightening awareness and focusing concentration.

All of this would be fine if we had a bear to hunt or a war to wage. However, the stress most of us are dealing with is not from life-or-death situations, but is the distress that arises from an accumulation of pressure from much smaller issues. And although each separate incident may appear benign, if our response becomes increasingly stressful and we are no longer able to maintain our equilibrium then the body will put out the red alert. The stress response is activated when we are unable to adjust our behavior or deal creatively with demanding circumstances; we soon feel overwhelmed, like a steam cooker coming to full pressure. We are the only one who can turn down the heat, but unfortunately we usually feel powerless to do so.

When there is no animal to hunt or war to fight in which to release the energy accumulating inside us, where does it go? Is it difficult to believe that ulcers or irritable bowel syndrome are connected to high stress levels, that we might get constipation, diarrhea or lose our appetite? What happens to the urge to scream, to lash out, to find release from the tension? Is it surprising that marriages suffer, or that alcohol and food addiction is rising?

In the US, stress-related problems cost the economy up to $300 billion per year, with $7,500 per person lost per year to stress, whether through absenteeism or decreased productivity. According to the American Psychological Association and The American Institute of Stress, over 19 million Americans are affected by stress, 77% suffer from suffer from physical symptoms and 73% from emotional and psychological symptoms, and by one account. That’s a whole lot of stress, and it is on the rise.

Few of us like to think of ourselves as stressed, we prefer to think of stress as what happens to others, without realizing how susceptible we may be ourselves. The most comprehensive study of the causes of stress was done by Drs. Holmes and Rahe at the University of Washington. They based their findings on the level of adjustment required for different circumstances, as the inability to adequately adjust is most likely to stimulate the stress response.  Their Social Readjustment Scale placed the death of a spouse as the most difficult circumstance to adapt to, followed by divorce or separation. In more recent studies, money problems and work/unemployment issues are being rated more highly. To that list we must also add environmental stressors, such as pollution, traffic, noise, and increased population.

What must be remembered, however, is that as we all respond differently to circumstances, a divorce may be high on the list of stressors for one person but it may be a welcome relief to another! Our perception of the circumstances and of how well we can cope is the vital factor. For although we may have little or no control over the circumstances or stressors we are dealing with, we do have control over our understanding of the situation, and over our response. Remember: we cannot stop the wind but we can adjust our sails. Although changing our circumstances certainly can help, it may be only temporary. Invariably, no matter where we go or what we do, the change that is the most effective is within ourselves.

In a relaxed state we have access to far greater physical and psychological energy levels. That is why stress-management is fast becoming an integral part of most forward thinking businesses. The greatest lesson we are learning, both individually and collectively, is that we can work with our stress response and develop a higher level of adaptability, and that the results of such change have a far-reaching effect on every aspect of ourselves, each other and our world.