Once you engage in meditation each day, what kinds of outcomes can you expect?

While you may have one or more specific reasons to begin meditating, you will find that you get a wide variety of results. A few of them are listed here.

• Ability to focus your attention narrowly on one thing at a time. This capacity has value in everything you do. From tying your shoes quickly to preparing a seven-course meal, attention to the details is necessary. The child brings everything to her observation of an ant crossing the patio, slipping between the stones, only to emerge again. You have the most ecstatic experience of sex when you clear your mind of all distractions. Meditation helps you to develop and maintain focus.

• Awareness. Understanding what you perceive is also essential in everyday life. If you hear a sudden noise, knowing the difference between a branch hitting the roof and a burglar breaking in is helpful. Knowing your position in a dark room helps you move toward the light switch. Knowing that you have just awakened from a dream helps you put the dream experience in the context of your waking life. Meditation aids the development of simple awareness.

• Awareness of distractions. Often we don't know to what we are truly paying attention. Have you ever had the experience of driving along, and suddenly you were much farther down the road than the last time you looked? You were thinking about something else and failed to experience the trip. Perhaps you were once so hungry that you didn't take the time to experience the taste of your food. Where did your mind take you?

• Remaining fully present. A great deal of suffering has to do with the inability to remain fully present. We desperately need to be somewhere else in order to avoid the pain, but this strategy actually causes greater suffering. We usually have to return to the pain sooner or later to resolve it. When we play games, we often continue to play well past the comfort level into pain. We ache, and yet we continue to play because we find the game enjoyable. 

Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche has written,

"Why could we not cheerfully handle other sorts of pain? We certainly have the ability."

We could just as well apply this tactic to any pain we experience. By cultivating focus and awareness, we face emotional pain and deal with it at once, instead of ignoring it and delaying resolution. It is true that not all pain goes away simply by paying attention. However, suffering is lessened when we understand the nature of physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual pain.