Meditation would then be like the aspirin we take to be rid of a headache. The pain may go away, but that does not mean we are cured. After some time it will return because the method of treatment was unrelated to the real cause of the diYculty, and thus any relief gained will necessarily be short-lived. Since temporary pleasure and alleviation of pain are available through many external means, there is no need to use meditation or any other spiritual practice for such a purpose. We should not squander the power of meditation on such limited aims.
Meditation is primarily concerned with caring for the mind.
Although our body and mind are intimately interconnected, they are quite different types of phenomena. Our body is an object we can see with our eyes, but not so the mind. The members of a particular family may share many similar physical traits, but each child will instinctively have a different personality, mental attitude, set of interests, and the like. Though they attend the same schools, their intelligence and learning will differ not only from each other's but from their parents' and grandparents' as well. Somehow, everyone here has been very fortunate.