Meditation
What is the benefit of meditation?
When meditation is mastered, the mind is unwavering like a flame of the lamp in the windless place. In the still mind, in the depths of meditation, the Self reveals itself. Beholding the self by means of the self, an aspirant knows the joy and peace of complete fulfillment. Having attained that abiding joy beyond the senses, revealed in the still mind, he never swerves from the eternal truth. He desires nothing else, and cannot be shaken by the heaviest burden of sorrow.
– TheBhagavad Gita 6:19–22, translated by Eknath Eswaran
The path to happiness is paved by the breath.
From from Chris Greene my Restorative Yoga teacher:
The abundance of external objects distract our minds by creating attachments, anger, jealousy, etc., have to first be seen as something unwanted and a wish to be without them and happier has to be desired even more. That wish begins after the acknowledgment of the limits of one lifetime. The time we have in this life is so short in the grand scheme of things that now is the best time to be happy.