Will power
In a sense, meditation can be seen as the development of will-power, to control one's irrational emotions. Some cultures believe in a free-will that we are born with, which means that we have will-power naturally. But we know by experience that when emotion and will are in conflict, emotion wins most of the time. This means that w ill-power is not a power we are born with. It is only a human "potential" that has to be actualized through practice. We are not born with a fully developed will- power; it is only a potential. Biologically speaking, the human being, as a higher animal, has a more evolved brain, especially the fore-brain (the cerebrum). The difference between the human being and all the other animals is that all other animals are passively reacting to their environment. The human being has the potential to delay the reaction, to get sufficient time to think and decide which response to make in a given situation, and respond rationally instead of emotionally. It is this ability to choose the response that is called will-power. Yet every human being is not able to use this ability all the time.