SO WHERE HAVE I BEEN? Meditation made the cover of Time years ago, a sure sign that a trend has reached critical mass and the whole world's doing it. There are seemingly more meditation options than there are lattes at Starbucks: transcendental meditation, transformational meditation, tantric meditation, mantra meditation, vipassana meditation, shamatha meditation, and a hundred others. And the whole world's gone Zen: Zen golf, Zen gardening, Zen and the art of ferrets, Zen and the art of the mosh pit, Zen and the art of pumpkin bombing. Even Grasshopper—David Carradine—has been resurrected as a twisted Zen master in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill films.

Meditation is a practice older than Hinduism and Buddhism. Although the dogmas of both religious philosophies have become intertwined with meditation, the most basic reason for meditating is to calm the mind and live in the present. Shamatha, also called "peaceful abiding," is a physical and mental discipline. You sit cross-legged, back straight, head erect, eyes lowered, and train your mind to follow the breath. In and out, in and out—steady, calm, fluid. The point is to unshackle yourself from external distractions, the incessant discursiveness of thoughts, and any emotional roller-coastering. The goal is to be with yourself, in the moment, which will help you—voilà—unlock the secret to true happiness.

Or so they say. That first night at meditation camp, I dreamed I was trapped in a tight glass box in the sitting position. The next morning, I shuffled through the snow from my dorm to the Sacred Studies Hall. Friends had raved about yoga for years—"It would be so good for you"—but I'd held out.

Only a third of the class showed up. For an hour and 15 minutes, while focusing on our breathing, we went through a series of poses that both stretched and tensed my body: sun salutations, cobra, upward-facing dog, downward, triangle, corpse—the names sounded exotic to a neophyte like me. But I was sweating and my body was doing something and my mind was focused. Which is to say, my friends had been right.

After breakfast, it was back to the meditation cushion for a marathon four-hour session. This time I loosened up the reins, and the natural divagations of my mind seemed to distract me a little less. I discovered I could focus on the breathing, but still for only a few seconds at a time. In my best moments, my mind shifted from concentrating on my breath to hearing my heart inside my chest. I could feel the blood surging down through my arms and out to my fingertips, moving down my legs and into my feet.

We took a break for walking meditation—strolling so slowly that it's possible to lose your balance and fall over—and then did another Q&A with Smith. He asked us to describe the sensations we were having. Some of us said we could only hold on to a single breath; others said they could go for five or ten. When I mentioned that I could feel the blood streaming through my body, Smith seemed surprised. "That could be indicative of a deep state of meditation," he said.

I wish.