Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Sign In Register
Examples: Monday, today, last week, Mar 26, 3/26/04
Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.

What is the purpose of meditation?

PalzangPalzang Veteran
edited May 2007 in Buddhism Basics
I saw this and just had to put it up:
Q. Would you care to sum up the purpose of meditation?

A. Well, meditation is dealing with purpose itself. It is not that meditation is for something, but it is dealing with the aim. Generally we have a purpose for whatever we do; something is going to happen in the future, therefore what I am doing now is important - everything is related to that. But the whole idea of meditation is to develop an entirely different way of dealing with things, where you have no purpose at all. In fact meditation is dealing with the question of whether or not there is such a thing as purpose. And when one learns a different way of dealing with the situation, one no longer has to have a purpose. One is not on the way to somewhere. Or rather, one is on the way and one is also at the destination at the same time. That is really what meditation is for.

Chogyam Trungpa, Meditation in Action

Palzang

Comments

  • OneSunTempleOneSunTemple
    edited May 2007
    Nice post .. thanks.

    To be the pulse of the universe ...

    Good Day ...
  • not1not2not1not2 Veteran
    edited May 2007
    While I am not disagreeing with Trungpa, I would like to add that, on a more basic level, the purpose of meditation is to introduce the mind to itself and it's activities through the repetitive or continuous application of a technique, to establish tranquility & to collect the mind enough to gain penetrating insight into the nature of reality.

    metta
    _/\_
  • PalzangPalzang Veteran
    edited May 2007
    Hmmm, I think I like the Vidyadhara's answer better. It's a "purposeless purpose."

    Palzang
  • not1not2not1not2 Veteran
    edited May 2007
    Palzang wrote:
    Hmmm, I think I like the Vidyadhara's answer better. It's a "purposeless purpose."

    Palzang

    Vidyadhara??

    Anyway, I guess I would say that meditation begins as something along the lines of what I was saying and sort of un-becomes into what you are saying.

    maybe?

    metta
    _/\_
  • PalzangPalzang Veteran
    edited May 2007
    Vidyadhara means "Knowledge Holder". One of his titles.

    Well, I guess we could split this hair a number of ways, but the real purpose of meditation, as I see it, is to learn how to just be. Of course, to achieve that purpose one must discipline oneself to meditate regularly and to allow the mind to settle. So half of one, six dozen of the other!

    Palzang
Sign In or Register to comment.