The Price of Zen
To make sure that we survive in a dangerous world dominated by scarcity, our genes have programmed us to be greedy, to want power, to dominate over others. For the same reason, the social group into which we are born teaches us that only those who share our language and religion are to be trusted. The inertia of the past dictates that most of our goals will be shaped by genetic or by cultural inheritance. It is these goals, the Buddhists tell us, that we must learn to curb. But this aim requires very strong motivation. Paradoxically, the goal of rejecting programmed goals might require the constant investment of all one’s psychic energy. A Yogi or a Buddhist monk needs every ounce of attention to keep programmed desires from irrupting into consciousness, and thus have little physic energy left free to do anything else.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life