Meditation increases positive sensation and inner joy

The mental realm of entering meditation or tranquility status has been fully explored and discussed in the literature of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), which can be divided into different stages or levels by different standards and needs.  The common characteristics of subjective experiences in the process of entering tranquil meditation can be divided into the following four stages: relaxation and tranquility stage, pulsations and senses stage, joy and pleasure stage, and void and nothingness stage.

During joy and pleasure stage, the pleasant sensation obtained can hardly be described with words, since it is not the specific sensations experienced in everyday life but one that seems to include them all. Such joyful and pleasurable sensation is physical and mental, strong and serene, profound and penetrating, as if coming from every cell and pore. Enveloped in these sensations, the body and mind become tranquil and permeated with infinite, persistent contentment and happiness. This stage of mediocrity and knowing marks a significant advance in Qigong or meditation practice (Liu and Chen, 2010)

At the stage of void or nothingness, what the body and mind are after is not satisfaction of senses or emotions but losing self into the eternity of the universe. Once self-consciousness vanishes, your state broadens suddenly, changing from finite to infinite, instant to eternal. By this time, the mind has become barely distinguishable from what it perceives. The external sensation does not affect your inner peace and joy that much. On one hand, the mind seems to be both itself and the perceived; and on the other hand, what is perceived is both itself and the consciousness.  Thus, a state of peace and harmony represented by void and nothingness is reached, where it is full of infinite vitality and vigor for the purification and creation of everything, which becomes the source for true joy and harmony in life.