The latter part of the book by Jack Kornfield "Bringing Home the Dharma" tells of meditation masters who had not transferred important insights about their lives, habits and personalities from mindfulness into good living and habits. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote that she didn't like students who zoned out and would stick them with a thumbtack to jolt them out of their trance.
Simple concentration meditation can do wonders for one's awareness of the way the conscious and unconscious minds play with us, pull tricks on us, filter out what doesn't make us look good to ourselves and others. But it isn't a perfect tool. If you want to, you can sit concentrating on the breath, calm yourself into bliss and still be a real pain. If you don't give yourself a good examination once in a while and pay attention to the results, you can still avoid self-knowledge and any application of good sense to better living and better behavior with others.
Once you get comfortable with settling into your own mind, you can take shelter there to avoid contact with others and with problems. You can decide that others are bothersome insects that are beneath you and quietly and steadily view them with contempt. Of course, with genuine and open awareness, you will see what you are doing and take steps to import the beauty of life and company into conscious gratitude and respect for it all.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
