Years ago I had contracted a job for an eastern religious medition temple. This was a very large well organized worldwide group. It appeared to be a cult. Anyway aside from all the negatives that go along with belonging to a cult the one outstanding feature of this group that was unmistakable was how young they all looked and the energy that had for work. The meditation they did was on regular intervals maybe 2 hours apart or so. When they came out of meditation they appeared to be high, so it was very intense.
I have often wondered what natural drug or hormone they were producing by doing this meditation, if I were to guess I would say seratonins and endorphins. The long term affect it seemed to have on aging was unmistakable. The two ladies I contracted the work through were 51 and 48 years old. When they came in my office I did not take them seriously as I thought they were youngsters. The old man who was managing everything while I was there was 81 years old and could easily pass for late 50’s. The three I mentioned had been members of the temple for many many years.
It might not be the Power of Meditation so much as the demographics of it perhaps. Most of the western Buddhists I’ve encountered have been the sort of organic, ascetic (yoghurt-weaving?) middle-class people who would look younger than their chain-smoking Maccy Dee counterparts anyway.
That, or the wheatgrass and stem-cell smoothies (apparently their only real indulgence).
The followers are almost exclusively Caucasian, only the upper management that I met was Indian. A very well known group in the 60"s they are still holding their own yet less notoriety. I am avoiding the name.