This “handbook to happiness,” is a series of five brief essays on the theme of meditation, and its role in promoting human happiness. It seeks to show that, even though the practice of regular meditation is promoted by various religious bodies, it is not necessarily, or even primarily, a religious exercise. It is what the scientist-turned lama, Mathieu Ricard, terms “mind training.” As religious institutions lose their credibility and influence over the general run of modern people, we are still left with the human hope and, and need for, transcendence. Meditation teaches that this transcendence is a point of view, which each human being can choose for themselves. It is a sense of detachment from, and yet involvement with, all that is. It depends on an act of will, and serious intention: mind training. It is not an indulgence in fantasy, but an engagement with one’s own humanity in all its frailty yet glory.
