What I've Learned from Mindfulness Meditation
Three Books that Helped Me Discover the Science, Philosophy, and Practice of Meditation
When I started this Substack, I mentioned that while my main focus would be US foreign policy and Iran, I also wanted to explore a personal passion: mindfulness meditation.
Over the past few years, meditation has profoundly shaped my life. Yet, despite including it in my Substack’s description, I haven’t written a single post about it!
Over the holiday break, I decided it was time to change that. In this post, I’ll share why mindfulness meditation has been so meaningful and practically beneficial for me. I aim to make this post the first of many, where I share the teachings and techniques that have helped me—and perhaps inspire others to explore mindfulness too.
My aim here will be to provide a general overview of mindfulness meditation—what it is and its benefits—by drawing on three books that have been particularly insightful for me: Why Buddhism Is True by Robert Wright, Altered Traits by Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson, and Science and Spiritual Practices by Rupert Sheldrake. Each offers valuable perspectives, blending science, philosophy and spirituality to illuminate the benefits of meditation.
My introduction to meditation and mindfulness actually first began with the popular app Calm, which offers guided meditations and training courses. I highly recommend it as a great starting point for anyone new to this practice.
From there, I deepened my practice by delving into books and had the great fortune of learning from a knowledgeable and experienced mentor who has maintained a regular meditation practice for decades.
Before diving in, it’s important to highlight a key lesson I’ve learned: While understanding mindfulness meditation “intellectually” is necessary, the real transformation comes from regular, consistent practice. Daily meditation, whenever possible, combined with “applied mindfulness”—actively cultivating present-moment awareness throughout the day—is essential for truly integrating these practices into your life.
With that said, what is meditation? How can it truly benefit someone living in the modern world?
Altered Traits provides superb answers to these questions. Written by Daniel Goleman, a Harvard-trained psychologist and longtime science journalist for The New York Times, and Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a PhD from Harvard, the book explores the lasting effects of meditation on the mind and body.
Drawing on decades of empirical research, Goleman and Davidson demonstrate how meditation reduces stress, sharpens focus, and rewires the brain for greater resilience and compassion. With their combined expertise, they present a compelling, science-backed case for the transformative power of meditation.
They have one passage that I think very effectively and concisely explains the process and experience of mindfulness meditation. During this practice, you sit still, focus on a focal point (like the breath), and observe your thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations, with curiosity and without judgement.
They write:
'At first, the flow of thoughts rushes like a waterfall, which sometimes discourages beginners, who feel their mind is out of control. Actually, the sense of a torrent of thoughts seems to be due to paying close attention to our natural state, which Asian cultures dub "monkey mind," for its wildly frenetic randomness. As our concentration strengthens, wandering thoughts subside rather than pulling us down some back alley of the mind.
The stream of thought flows more slowly, like a river—and finally rests in the stillness of a lake, as an ancient metaphor for settling the mind in meditation practice tells us.
Sustained focus, the manual notes, brings the first major sign of progress, "access concentration," where attention stays fixed on the chosen target without wandering off.
With this level of concentration come feelings of delight and calm, and, sometimes, sensory phenomena like flashes of light or a sense of bodily lightness.
With mindfulness, the meditator simply notes without reactivity whatever comes into mind, such as thoughts or sensory impressions like sounds—and lets them go. The operative word here is let go. If we think much of anything about what just arose, or let it trigger any reactivity at all, we have lost our mindful stance—unless that reaction or thought in turn becomes the object of mindfulness.'
They further explain about the 'default mode’ of our brain, explaining:
'The default mode turns on while we chill out, not doing anything that requires focus and effort; it blossoms during the mind’s downtime. Conversely, as we focus on some challenge, like grappling with what’s happened to your Wi-Fi signal, the default mode quiets.
With nothing much else to capture our attention, our mind wanders, very often to what’s troubling us—a root cause of everyday angst. Managing attention, as we saw in the previous chapter, is an essential ingredient of every variety of meditation. When we become lost in thoughts during meditation, we’ve fallen into the default mode and its wandering mind.'
They summarize the definition of mindfulness meditation as follows:
'In the mechanics of meditation, focusing on one thing only means also noticing when your mind wanders off so you can bring it back—and so concentration and mindfulness go hand in hand.
Perhaps the most widely quoted definition [of mindfulness meditation] comes from Jon Kabat-Zinn: “The awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience.”
I have found the general practice of mindfulness meditation, as they describe, to be incredibly beneficial. What is most fascinating is that, paradoxically, it offers a kind of 'control' over our thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations—not by forcing them away, but by 'letting them go.' This means observing without attachment or identification, free from judgment or the need to label thoughts and feelings as good or bad, and without the desire or urge to make them disappear.
In this regard, Robert Wright explains in his invaluable book Why Buddhism Is True:
'Seeing things in these terms helps illuminate a core paradox of Buddhist meditation practice: accepting that your self isn’t in control, and may in some sense not even exist, can put your self—or something like it—in control.'"
Wright, a Princeton-educated author, has taught at Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, and Union Theological Seminary and is renowned for his work on science, psychology, and philosophy.
In Why Buddhism Is True, he presents a secular, science-backed exploration of traditional Buddhist meditation practices and philosophies, drawing on evolutionary psychology and neuroscience to highlight their benefits in reducing suffering, easing anxiety, and fostering well-being.
I found Wright's scientific insights into how the human mind works both compelling and deeply illuminating. He explains how our feelings and thoughts often function as illusions—and how shifting our perspective can dispel these illusions.
Wright draws on evolutionary biology to show that the modes of thinking and emotions ingrained in us were shaped for survival, not happiness, and often fail to serve our interests in the modern world.
We find ourselves on a “hedonistic treadmill,” constantly chasing fleeting happiness and pleasure while trying to push away “negative” feelings and states of mind, without realizing that all emotions are inherently transient.
As Wright explains:
'Feeling arose as a proxy for thinking about what we want. Feelings encode judgments about things in the environment, mostly about ourselves. Feelings are illusory because they don’t necessarily lead to things that are good or bad, they are wrong. Eating too much of what feels good is not good for us, like powdered donuts.'
He elaborates with examples like road rage, noting:
'There are quite a few feelings like this—feelings that, back when they entered our lineage, served our ancestors’ interests but that don’t always serve our interests now. Take road rage. The desire to punish people who treat you unfairly or show you disrespect is deeply human. And admit it: though there’s something unpleasant about being made angry, there’s something pleasing about the feeling of anger itself—the feeling that you’re rightfully enraged. The Buddha said anger has a "poisoned root and honeyed tip."'
Underlying these tendencies, Wright identifies what he calls 'the happiness delusion.' As he writes,
'As the Buddha emphasized, our ongoing attempts to feel better tend to involve an overestimation of how long "better" is going to last. What’s more, when "better" ends, it can be followed by "worse"—an unsettled feeling, a thirst for more. Long before psychologists were describing the hedonic treadmill, the Buddha saw it.'"
In sum, Wright compellingly explains that simply noticing your mind has wandered reveals a profound truth: you are not fully in control of your thoughts. Grappling with this realization—that your thoughts arise on their own—becomes the first step toward regaining control. By cultivating mindfulness, you can better discern which thoughts are healthy and worth holding onto, and which ones should be let go. This, ultimately, is the goal.
Indeed, what mindfulness meditation has ultimately afforded me is a transformation in how I relate to my consciousness and its contents—my thoughts and feelings. As Wright puts it, “Those are not your ‘self’; contemplate them rather than engaging with them.” This shift in perspective can be profoundly liberating.
This brings me to Rupert Sheldrake’s Science and Spiritual Practices. Sheldrake, a British biologist educated at Harvard and Cambridge, has conducted fascinating research into the nature of consciousness. Sheldrake’s book stands apart from those by Wright and Goleman and Davidson. While it remains grounded in science and the scientific method, Sheldrake takes an explicit “spiritualist” approach, arguing for a metaphysical dimension to both consciousness and existence.
Growing up secular and deeply rooted in a scientific worldview, I was surprised by how insightful many of Sheldrake’s ideas were for me. His work has opened the door to learning from diverse modes of inquiry, including those drawn from religious traditions across cultures.
Indeed, Sheldrake highlights in Science and Spiritual Practices that medidation and similar practices exist in virtually every religion but emphasizes they can be practiced in a strictly secular way, writing,
'Although techniques of meditation grew up within Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Sikh, and other religious traditions, meditation can also be practiced in a secular spirit, without any religious framework.'
Similar to the other books, Sheldrake’s chapter on meditation in Science and Spiritual Practices offers valuable insights into the benefits of the practice.
He writes,
'One of the effects of meditation is an increase in self-knowledge, a greater awareness of the workings of our minds. We might assume that we are fully in charge of our thoughts and our attention. But even a slight acquaintance with the practice of meditation makes us aware of how many thoughts insert themselves into our minds and how little control we have over this process.'
He then gives a great overview of the increasing scientific consensus on the benefits of meditation (all the sources are in his book), explaining,
'In the modern Western world it is commonly used in this nonreligious form, either through various derivatives of Hindu meditation, such as Transcendental Meditation, or of Buddhist meditation, as in mindfulness meditation.' He emphasizes its widespread adoption, noting that mindfulness techniques are now taught in schools, practiced by business professionals, armed forces, prisoners, and even politicians.
He adds,
'Dozens of British members of parliament have learned mindfulness techniques and meet weekly to meditate together.'
Sheldrake underscores:
'Because of its therapeutic benefits, mindfulness meditation is now recommended within the British National Health Service for people suffering from mild or moderate depression, because it has been found to be as effective, and cheaper, than long courses of antidepressant drugs.' In the U.S., Jon Kabat-Zinn’s work at the University of Massachusetts Medical School has led to the development of 'mindfulness-based stress reduction,' a training regime now used in hundreds of clinics and health centers.
Sheldrake says of the outcome of extensive scientific research:
'Since the 1960s, scientific journals have published thousands of papers on the effects of meditation on health and well-being.' These studies show a range of benefits, including reductions in anxiety, blood pressure, and insomnia; relief from conditions like asthma, ulcers, and cardiac arrhythmias; and improved fertility and pain management. Meditation has also shown remarkable results for schoolchildren, college students, and U.S. military veterans, significantly improving social competence, well-being, and symptoms of post-traumatic stress.
He adds,
'Meditation tends to reduce ruminations, obsessions, cravings, fantasies, and being lost in thought. Not surprisingly, these changes in the activity of the mind are associated with changes in the activity of the brain.'
All in all, these three books—Why Buddhism Is True by Robert Wright, Altered Traits by Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson, and Science and Spiritual Practices by Rupert Sheldrake—offer a compelling case for the transformative power of meditation.
Bridging ancient wisdom with modern science, they show how meditation can reshape the mind, enhance well-being, and reduce stress. I highly recommend reading these works and incorporating mindfulness into your life—the benefits of greater self-awareness, inner peace, and improved health are truly worth it.