There’s another kind of happiness. We live in a world in which many people believe that happiness consists in getting what you want, even if it’s on credit. But that’s the happiness of endorphins. Endorphins are these hormones, these chemicals that are secreted in the brain. Certain things can produce these endorphins. Things like exercise, things like chocolate, chili peppers, release endorphin. So does wine, and sex, and laughing. And actually the scientific research shows us that so does meditation. So meditation makes you happy. But the true happiness that Jesus refers to in the Beatitudes (Mt 5:3-12) – happy are the poor in spirit, happy are the pure of heart – that happiness is not the happiness of the endorphins.
Christian Life in the Light of Christian Meditation 2: Holyness by Laurence Freeman OSB
