Morality, Meditation and Anxiety

Morality causes anxiety. When the mind perceives that a moral code has been broken then punishment must be meted out in the form of anxiety. Under normal circumstances the self and the mind are one so that when the mind produces anxiety the self feels it. Meditation (on the other hand) alleviates anxiety by putting distance between the self and the mind whereby the mind cannot so easily infect the self with anxiety. Now, it could be said that an anxious self tends to act immorally. For example, one reaction to anxiety is to take action to get rid of anxiety. The most common tactic is to distract the self in some way and the most effective distractions are typically the most destructive. Alcohol comes to mind here. Another reaction to anxiety is to become irritable and to lash out at other people. So, from this perspective, meditation is a moral act even though its immediate effect is to insulate the self from the punishment it seemingly deserves. In the long run (theoretically) the act of meditating will promote moral behavior by reducing anxiety. So in a round about way, meditation produces moral behavior by avoiding the punishment for imoral behavior. Or something like that. This reminds me of the wheel of suffering or samsara. Perhaps it is a miniature version.