[Kilimanjaro]

Meditation won't make you happy. It will help you deal with stressful situations so you can make better decisions.

And that as a result makes you happier.

[VMG]

Hate to be that guy - but is there good scientific evidence for your claims?

[praptak]

There seems to be quite a lot of research on this topic, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_on_meditation

This article: "Mindfulness-based stress reduction and health benefits. A meta-analysis" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15256293 seems to be relevant to your question.

Of course the mere existence of articles does not prove anything. Caution advised :)

[zbuc]

MBSR is becoming increasingly common in cognitive behavioral therapy as well -- it's interesting (to me) to see how much intersection there is between meditative practice and what cognitive behavioral therapy is discovering. Different paths to the same conclusions.

[chc]

There are studies that show a strong correlation between meditation and higher levels of happiness and lower levels of stress. These studies are a big part of why meditation is sort of trendy nowadays AFAIK. Googling [meditation study stress] (or whichever claim you're interested in) will yield a number of relevant results.