Hi. This is a video on the number two reason why everyone should practice meditation.
So counting down we're at number two, the number two reason why everyone should practice meditation is
because meditation allows you to get yourself on the right path.
Now we understand in life that there are many different paths.
Many different ways that people could go.
You could practice a path which leads to your destruction,
leads to your suffering for the future.
You could practice one that is charitable, a life that is charitable.
You could practice a life that is moral.
You could practice meditative lifestyles, yoga, tai chi, many of the various traditions in Hinduism or
even in the Western religions that teach you to fix and focus your mind to the point
where you gain great states of peace and tranquility.
Now, I'm going to go out on a limb and sort of say that all of these are not what I would consider to be the right path.
It's not that any of the meditative paths which exist out there are wrong in and of themselves,
but that's not what I mean when I say the right path.
Just as it's not what I mean when I say the right path is that you should become a monk,
or you should become a Buddhist, or you should become a lawyer, or a doctor or so on.
All of these paths exist and there's really actually nothing I have to say about them as either good or bad.
What we're talking about the right path here, is a path which knows how to deal with every situation.
Knows how to deal with the present moment as it arises.
So when something comes up, knowing the choice to make, knowing the way to go.
So whether you're a lawyer, or a doctor, whether you're a Christian or a Buddhist, or whether you're
of whatever bent, whatever path you're choosing to follow.
Once we create this clarity of mind, once we really understand things as they are,
we don't give rise to greed and attachment, which would color our perception.
We don't give rise to anger which would inflame our mind.
We don't give rise to delusion and conceit and views which would muddle our mind and confuse us.
We simply understand things as they are.
So when everything arises, it's really amazing how this works and you really have to practice to understand it,
but you can at least have a preview of what it's going to be like to meditate is that
you're able to then understand situations as they arise, and as they really are.
So if you're confronted with a difficult situation, you're able to understand it much better than before.
You know it's not that after a few weeks of meditation you're going to become brilliant and super and wise,
but slowly, surely, bit by bit, through the meditation practice
you are able to help yourself and help other people.
You're able to do your work much better than you ever could before, in a much more efficient,
much more practical, much more reasonable, a much wiser way, simply by understanding things as they are.
Because of course, that's what wisdom means, is to understand, understand things as they are.
And that's really all we're doing in the meditation, understanding things as they are.
For what they really are, not as we wish them to be, or want them to be, or not want them to be, or
understanding things in terms of our mental defilements, or the things which are impurities in our mind.
Once we get rid of these, and we really just purely understand things as they are,
then we get on the right track, and it doesn't have to be as this or that kind of person either.
And of course the world is full of many different lifestyles, which we can choose.
We do come to see that many of the lifestyles out there are not good,
and there's many things that we do have to give up, and these are the ones that lead to destruction.
Basically what we're talking about is
learning to know the difference between a path which leads to our development
and a path which leads to our destruction.
And this is what is meant by being on the right path, not that we should live our lives in a certain way,
but that when we do live our lives, we take the right paths, we take the right forks in the road,
and we make the right decisions.
So this is the number two reason why everyone should practice meditating.
Thanks for tuning in, and please look forward to the number one reason in the near future.