Today, and again next week, we'll read from Meditation Made Easy (1998), by one of my teachers, Lorin Roche. The reading is long, but worth it:
Nature has designed us to thrive. Meditation is part of Nature's maintenance program for keeping us at our best. Meditation is for repair, healing, revival, inspiration, preparation for action, and love. The ability to meditate is built in, innate. It is woven into the very fabric of our bodies. It is built into the human body as part of our survival skills and is just waiting to be used.
In the same way that we have the ability to perceive a threat and become alarmed and juiced with adrenaline, we have an equal and opposite ability to perceive our own competence, to perceive beauty and safety. This results in relaxation which lets the body recharge its batteries. These instincts balance each other and we need both. Without some sense of urgency, we are out of touch with the dynamic ebb and flow of life, and without the skill and will to take incredibly deep repose in ourselves, we fail to discover the finer qualities of what it means to be human.