Meditating for Others
February 19, 2013

When you’re meditating trying to find a sense of peace of mind inside, you’re not the only one who’s benefitting. When the mind has come from a place of peace, it tends to be a lot more mindful and alert to what’s going on, and particularly to what you’re doing: the impact you’re having on yourself, the impact you’re having on other people. When the mind is in a very gentle state like this, you want to that impact to be gentler, too. You have less greed, aversion, and delusion motivating your actions, which means that other people are going to be subject to less greed, aversion, and delusion from you. So they benefit, too.

Then there’s the simple fact that the mind is constantly giving off energy. You’ve probably sensed that some people just walk into a room and immediately the room changes because of their presence. And this energy doesn’t extend just to rooms: It can extend all over the place.

This is how we dedicate merit to the people who have passed away. As life goes on, you’ll be finding that the people you know in this lifetime have a larger and larger proportion who have passed away, and they’ve gone on to someplace else. So you want to send a good mental energy to them. That’s the way you can maintain contact. You don’t know where they are, what level of being, but there is that sense that there still is a connection. When you meditate, that connection becomes a good connection.

So keep this in mind when you meditate and you’re starting to feel a bit lazy about your meditation. Remember it’s not just for you. It’s for all living beings in all directions, so that we can all live in a better world, and all find a greater sense of happiness as we do.

So make this part of your motivation, “It’s not just me, it’s not just the immediate circle of people around me. It’s everybody that my mind’s energy can have contact with.” Sometimes they’ll be strangers you meet on the street, sometimes they’ll be people far, far away, but that mental energy can reach them if there’s a karmic connection.

So make sure the energy you’re sending through the connection is good energy. It’s your gift to yourself and your gift to the world.