@Uncle jeff,
Jeff, I have been meditating since 1961 and throughout the early decades of that period I've sought all kinds of ends: power, invulnerability, happiness, tranquility, etc. etc.. Many of the people who began around the time I did have quit (my impression is that they did so after around five years of effort) because they saw no obvious change in their subjective lives. Those who continued--and with whom I continue to meditate--will answer, if you ask what they are seeking in meditation, merely to experience themselves, i.e., their life experience, as they truly are. In a sense they meditate for its own sake, something that is both extremely humble and grand. I, for one, do not see my state of mind as anything like the "blankness" someone has likened to that of a stroke victim, and I certainly am not concerned with the "scientific" nature of the physical corrolaries of the process of meditation, as if that knowledge were a means to an end like those I sought years ago. The unmediated direct experience of life stands as as ultimate value. Try it (as a way of life), but if you are uninterested let it go but without the complacent arrogance of hehehehehehehe.
