What You Gain from Meditation Depends on Why You Do It (HH the 17th Karmapa)
“What we think of as the goal of meditation determines what we get out of meditation. For example, we might approach meditation with an interest in alleviating the immediate difficulties of our day-to-day activities. We might be feeling stress due to our jobs or experiencing emotional hardships due to our immediate circumstances, and we might want to engage in meditation to alleviate the stress or distress caused by such conditions. If we meditate with that motivation, meditation might take care of those goals, but it will not bring us any result that goes beyond that.”
In this way, His Holiness the Karmapa encouraged practitioners of meditation to broaden their aims. He invited them to look within to ensure that their motivation was sufficiently far-reaching to allow them to enjoy the fullest fruits that meditation can offer. “If we give rise to a motivation that goes beyond immediate and limited goals, we can attain powerful results that are far more vast.”
Full Text: http://www.karmapaamerica2015.org/?p=2423
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WtwdMNEShI&feature=youtu.be&t=18m45s
