Meditation is not for you; it’s for others. It’s for everyone else who benefits from your awakened mind and calm state. Meditation is for the world, and for the benefit of the world.

Yesterday I was speaking with my meditation teacher. I confessed that, of all the paramitas I’ve practiced thus far, meditation feels both the most familiar and the least clear.I’ve been meditating for a few years now, so the logistics of how to do it (and there are so many ways!) and the concept of why we meditate isn’t new to me. So I asked for clarity about why this word, dhyana, is counted as a paramita. Of all the wonderful things meditation offers, why, if you had to name one thing, is it listed as a virtue?

He answered that meditation is the aspiration to benefit others. It awakens what Buddhists call aspirational bodhichitta, Bodhichitta simply means the awakening mind. (That’s what we’re working toward as soul ninja- being forces of good in the world to the best of our ability.)

Bodhichitta has two forms: aspiration and action. You spend time pondering this path with intention, and then you translate those intentions into concrete action in your life.

So meditation is the way we practice aspirational bodhichitta. It’s how we bring focus to our desire to benefit others.

The ancient Buddhist teacher Shantideva said that the highest goals of the paramitas is the good of others. We practice not primarily for ourselves, though we certainly benefit. We practice so we can be of benefit to others. Shantideva describes our aspirational intentions as an “ocean of great good/that seeks to place all beings in the state of bliss.” It’s a lofty goal, but a worthy one.

Seeing meditation as a gift we offer to others is important for us to remember. We see meditation described most of the time as me-focused. I want to be careful here. I don’t want to give the impression that doing meditation for ourselves is bad. That’s where we start! But it’s important to notice, and maybe question, when forms of meditation don’t encourage us to go beyond that.

Dhyana is the kind of meditation that faces outward. It asks us to set aside time to awaken compassion for ourselves and others. Dhyana leads us to that still place within where we long for everyone to be healthy, happy, and free.

This weekend, can you envision your meditation practice as an ocean of great good?

This post is part of the Paramita Project, where I’m practicing one paramita, or virtue, every month for ten months. You can read all my posts on January’s paramita, meditation, here.