The Importance of Meditation

[kycahi]

In Don's Freshman Physics class, he announced that in the last class of the quarter, he would tell us the best way to prepare for a final exam. The time came, and he said this, without once saying the m-word: "Find a quiet place with very few distractions, sit comfortably with your back fairly straight and stare at a tree or flower, then think of nothing. This won't happen at first, but keep making the attempt."

All of us just wondered what he was even talking about, but a few tried it and a few of them said they thought it helped. I tried and thought I failed, but a couple of years later, I took a Thermodynamics class where I took notes off the board but otherwise didn't study or even do homework.

I was about to drop out of the Engineering school, but went into meditation before and during the week of final exams. The Thermodynamics final was three problems, and I read them over and then flipped through my notes and found what looked like good equations to use. I wrote them down and then plugged in some numbers from the problems and derived some results. I got credit for solving two of the problems, and so did one other guy. The rest solved one or none of them, so I got a passing grade for that class. That was proof enough for me.