Meditation

You'd think about the contrasts between two of the world most prominent religions, Buddhism versus Christianity. It's more like the difference between rats and rabbits, both of which come from the same family. Well, it's not fair; one is enlightening, and the other dawned the Dark Ages. One predates the other by more than seven hundred years. One is a way of life; the other is a religion. One asks you to pray, and the other centers you through meditation. One offers the path, the light, the way, here on earth and no deities floating in the sky, with judgmental agendas and a god full of wrath that will punish you after you die.
Look, there are parallels to both anecdotes, and Christianity, which sprang from Judaism and wasn't even a religion until the Rome under Constantine decided to make it officially the Empire's main religion. Constantine did it to get the help of a large Christian population and use them to overthrow his brother, who history chronicles as a more benevolent figure. Of course, Rome did not interfere with others' practices but eventually it became more and more common and preferable to be known as Christian. Jesus was a Jew, and may or may have not intended to create his own religion. That was far-fetch, even for him, who self-proclaimed the savior of all Jews. Why show modesty, after all he's the son of God, his dad, who sent him to sacrifice himself for us and to restore him as king on earth. King! Of course, if it had been a religion created nowadays, he'd probably would have been better off being president. Or dictator in a small, backward nation...

Unlike poor Jesus, Siddhartha, whom later would become the Buddha, was born in a kingdom. His father had gone to great lengths in order to avoid him seeing how crude life can be, so whenever he passed by, they'd hide the old and the sick, so that he didn't have to suffer such spectacle. Nonetheless, he did see the sick and the suffering, and decided to leave behind his life as a prince and venture into the world to find the reason why there was so much suffering. It's not like he was born in poverty and pretending to be something like the son of God, that would've gotten him killed probably. The Buddha went to know extreme deprivation and taught himself disciple by not eating more than a few grains of rice a day. Of course, he came out of that spiritual starvation, and ate, and went about to teach what he had learned while he meditated under the tree. He had seen, among other things, the righteous path, the middle path... which teaches that we should not deprive ourselves of anything but also not over do it. Somewhere in the "middle path."

New studies have shown that Buddhists are among the happiest human beings in the world by studying their brain's neurology and pathways. Meditation is for the mind what exercise is for the body. I meditate every days, twice a day, twenty minutes to an hour, sometimes more, way more, depending on how stressful the day has been. It defuses everything. It soothes you. It puts you at ease.