The Purpose of Meditation

Our purpose in life is to improve ourselves everyday and become happy. We do many things to gain happiness. However, most of the things we do to gain happiness may generate unhappiness, pain, suffering and trouble because our minds are not pure. It is the pure mind that can generate happiness, not the impure mind. Therefore, the first purpose of practicing meditation is to purify our mind; that generates peace and happiness.

The second purpose of meditation is to overcome sorrow and lamentation. When a meditator begins to see the truth he or she can bear and conquer sorrow and lamentation caused by impermanence.

The third purpose is to overcome suffering and disappointment caused by greed and hatred.

The fourth purpose of meditation is to tread the wise path, the correct path which leads to liberation from grief, sorrow, disappointment, pain and lamentation. This is the path of mindfulness - the only path that liberate us from suffering.

The fifth purpose of meditation is to liberate ourselves completely and totally from mental pain and defilements and to free our minds from greed, hatred and delusion.

These five purposes are very noble purposes. All other purposes of meditation may be overlooked because none of them is capable of generating these results making us really peaceful and happy by eliminating our problems. We don’t try to ignore or avoid them but mindfully we face and tackle them as they arise in our minds.

-Bhanta Henepola Gunaratana