Confession: Though I tell everyone differently, I wasn't really a '60s hippie. I wasn't in it for the peace and love; just the sex and drugs.

Astrology, crystals, macrobiotics, the Maharishi, mantras, mood rings, pyramid power and TM were just subjects about which I'd listen -- until 3 or 4 a.m., if necessary -- to get to the good stuff. Sure, I had long hair and bell bottoms, but even then I craved mod cons and red meat. To me, Woodstock sounded more repulsive than a long weekend on a Georgia chain gang. At least the incarcerated don't have problems getting toilet paper. And I never believed we could levitate the Pentagon, that John and Yoko could end the War by staying indefinitely in bed, or that all you need is love.

Flash forward to 2006. I'm bald, work for a large corporation, have two kids in college, live in the suburbs and still devour red meat. I also still love sex and drugs, but I've had my prostate removed and I'm only interested in SSRIs, Xanax and, on a good day, Viagra. One other detail: My wife has stage-four cancer.

Like George Costanza on Seinfeld, I'm desperately seeking "Serenity now!" What to do?

A number of well-meaning friends gave us pain-management CDs. My wife wants nothing to do with them. I suggest we listen to one together, which we try. After 10 minutes, she yells, "Are they fucking kidding?" But I'm not in pain the way she is, and I find the CDs relaxing. I start listening to them on my own. My wife doesn't mind. In fact she encourages me. The last thing she needs is a husband so tense his ear wax melts spontaneously.

My first official attempt at real-life, unabashed meditation was listening to The Soul of Healing Meditations by Deepak Chopra. For me, it was the wrong path. I have nothing against Deepak Chopra, but listening to his deep Indian basso chanting "Sat-Chit-Ananda" over that squirrelly musical accompaniment did not sooth. Instead, it brought to mind Mola Ram, the Thugee villain from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom who ripped the beating hearts from the chests of his human sacrifices. This was not serenity. This was "Prepare to meet Kalleeee!"

But, I reasoned, taking the wrong path before finding the right one seemed an appropriate roadblock. Don't all searchers of wisdom encounter cul-de-sacs? Take, for instance, my friend Ed.

In his own desperate search for life's meaning, Ed found himself naked in a Native American sweat lodge with six other nude baby boomers all dripping perspiration just a few minutes into the three-hour cleansing ritual. Ed recognized he'd taken an unfortunate turn and brazened it out among the sags and stretch marks until his gastrointestinal tract threatened betrayal. He fled the lodge and blew veggie burger chunks into the snow, startling his soul mates. He is now a confirmed meditator who always reminds me that meditation can be practiced solo, indoors or out, in an orange robe or a tighty whitey.

Next I got a book: The TM Technique by Peter Russell, a Cambridge mathematician and physicist. No mumbo jumbo for me. I needed the seal of approval from someone who understood quantum mechanics and nanotechnology -- even if I didn't. Inside, I found a wonderful picture illustrating the concept of "Quieting the Mind." That had the sound of real inner peace. I was ready to buy it off the floor.

But Mr. Russell's book, smart and knowing though it is, breaks one of my hard and fast rules: Distrust and/or disregard all "meta-" prefixes. The TM Technique is a steaming hotbed of said prefixes. One section is called "Metapathology." Another is "Identity as Metaparadigm."

My blood ran cold. Surmising that an editor inserted the subheads so readers could grab a breath, I riffled through the book picking passages at random. The first one I encountered: "It may well be that the deterministic and libertarian interpretations of reality are just two different views of reality which arise from taking different stands with respect to the self."

I have trouble determining the difference between a fast ball and a curve ball.

I needed spoon feeding, which is exactly what Jack Kornfield's CD, Meditation for Beginners, offered. It worked. Soon I was meditating all over the house.

I freely admit that I fall asleep about half the time. Though, in my own defense, I point out that sleep is not an unproductive use of time. When I remain awake, my goal is "seeing the waterfall." This happens when you separate your consciousness from your own train of thought and see the vast and diverse "waterfall" of thought that cascades through the brain.

But even if I spend my meditation time not searching for the waterfall, even if I spend it daydreaming about what I did with high school dates in the back seat of the family Chevy, the session is still just fine. Meditation is one of the few things in life you just can't do wrong; there are no grades for it, it's not even pass/fail.

One of the subtlest aspects of meditation is that the harder you struggle and strive to do it right, the less peace the process offers. The enduring riddle of meditation is how simple it is and how elusive that simplicity can be. Sometimes it's best to let your inner Alec Guinness remind you to "use the force." Like a foolproof pound cake recipe, there just ain't no way to screw it up. The result -- though it sounds like zen mumbo jumbo -- is that, even when it's bad, it's good.

So, recently, when my wife finally lost her battle, it was Buddha's First Noble Truth that helped me through some of the darkest hours. "There is suffering in the world," it says. It's so simple, but hearing it always helps.

It's Not Just for Hippies Anymore

Though it's an ancient pursuit, meditation was not widely known or practiced in this country until the 1960s, when the practice was taken up in the general enthusiasm for eastern mysticism.

The fad faded, of course, but meditation is still here, and in a very big way. The Transcendental Meditation Program claims six million practitioners. Meditation is widely recognized as a powerful tool for stress reduction and pain management. Some corporations provide meditation training for their workers because it enhances productivity. And all of us trying to concentrate on breathing deeply as we wait our turn at airport security are meditating, or at least hoping to.

To Learn More...

Meditation: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Meditations, Chants, and Devotionals From a Variety of Spiritual Traditions

The Transcendental Meditation Program

Spirit Rock Meditation Center

John Buskin is the editor of http://www.dowjones.com, a Web site run by Dow Jones, & Co.