But what guides us to abandon such worldly escapisms at all, is the intuition that there exists a form of unconditional happiness, reliable happiness, absolute happiness, unbounded and unending. Herein lies the practice and challenge of meditation. This is both why it is so hard and why it is so necessary. For the reality hits us immediately as soon as we sit down in silence. A taste of what is inevitably to come. A realisation that if we do not choose to let go of all the things that bring us temporary relief now, they will inevitably be stripped from us suddenly and unceremoniously. 

We practice for what is to come. Here we choose to put these conditions aside and search for the alternative. The unconditioned peace deep inside. The pure, unsullied, ultimate freshwater source of absolute happiness that flows into the wells from which we eventually draw our murky liquid; that of relative happiness. Yet what we drink is not the same pure water we ultimately seek. Salted from its journey through the earth, the liquid we drink is unable to ever truly or fully quench our thirst. But instead with every drop, it makes us a little more thirsty.

To find this pure source however, we must be willing to fully taste the taint itself; taste and recognise it's impurity so that we may use this knowledge and experience to sniff out the true source and upon finding it, appreciate its richness and quality. For now we think the purpose is to perpetually crave and obtain. But for those who have seen the truth it is to sip and let go of this craving altogether.