#493 — Two Reasons to Meditate

There are many reasons to meditate, but they tend to fall into two basic categories. The first is psychological and ethical. One wants to live a better life. One wants to suffer less. This is the reason that's emphasized in Buddhism, and it's what motivates most contemplative traditions.

In Buddhism, meditation is part of what's called the Eightfold Path that includes right understanding, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. And the last three, effort, mindfulness, and concentration, encapsulate the practice of meditation. The other aspects of the Buddhist path relate to one's worldview and one's ethics, and one's behavior altogether.

The point is that meditation isn't traditionally recommended as a mere tool of stress reduction. It's part of a larger effort to live a better life. The goal really is to become more sane and ethical, and to experience less psychological suffering, less anxiety and regret and anger and despair, and to experience deeper states of well being, love and compassion in particular, and to have better relationships on that basis, to find a better way of being in the world altogether. Many people seem to have no idea that such a project exists, but some understand that it must exist,

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