I went through a phase of being really into zen buddhism in my late teen years. I actually went two separate times to a buddhist monastery for a 9 day retreat. It was awesome. To see a whole community of monks and nuns, of an actual buddhist way of life was really special. In fact I don't think Id seen anything so amazing in my whole life. Its easy to say how happy they were etc, but this was special. The energy you picked up from the place was incredible.

Either way, I've kind of gone of zen buddhism a bit. Not that Im against it. It makes perfect sense. But I guess, it was really attached to my teen years, a kind of experimental phase. I did find, especially on my second trip to the retreat, that there were elements of of the whole thing I really didn't like. Perhaps more to do with the people that went on these trips. I found the type of people almost too stereotypically 'new age' and happy clappy. It almost seems too much of a fad these days.

And then, as entropy said, buddhism in the west is quite different to the buddhism in the east, but probably for many ways in the better. In the east Buddha is often revered as a kind of god, which, according to the texts, he isn't. The way I see it, the buddhism that came to the west was actually healthy, as it was able to free itself from the way it had changed in the east and go back to what Buddhism meant in a more literal way.

But anyway. What put me off to a large degree, was that 'buddhism' in this day and age carries too many connatations of new age and trendy. A kind of cool middle class liberal thing to do. My whole idealogy now is, get on with life, do things. No need to sit around pontificating the meaning of life and sitting on your arse counting. Whilst your doing that, people are doing things in life. I saw a lot of it as hot air basically.

In terms of meditation, im sure its good for you. I know its good for you. There are shitloads of scientific reports to back this up. Even though the actual 'point' of meditation, is not because you want to 'improve' but anyway.

Meditation is cool but there are loads of things you can do to give you the same focus. I dont think its necessary or even necessarily more beneficial then, sleeping well, eating well, having an active lifestyle etc.