The pleasure we're working toward when we're meditating is a noble, worthwhile pleasure

"Everything we do is for the sake of pleasure, physical or mental. So when we’re meditating, we’re doing it for pleasure, too. And it’s good to think about what kind of pleasure we’re working toward and why this is a worthwhile activity — why the Buddha says the pursuit of this pleasure, or the use of this pleasure, is part of a noble path, whereas a lot of other pleasures in the world are anything but noble.

We work with the breath, trying to find a comfortable breath, and then we learn how to use that sense of comfort, that sense of ease, and spread it around the body. We’re working with pleasure here that’s both mental and physical. The breath feels good when you allow it to find a good rhythm and when you allow it to spread around. And there’s a mental pleasure that comes as well. The mind has a good place to stay. It feels at ease. It can rest. It can put down a lot of its guard, a lot of its tendency to be ready to jump of at any moment — because that’s what it’s learned from the pleasures of the world: You stay with them a little bit, and then you’ve got to jump of. But here you can relax into the pleasure. It’s more reliable. That’s one of the reasons why it’s better.

At the same time, there’s a lot less karma involved with it. Most of the pleasures of the world involve getting something from somebody else, either through honest or dishonest means. We’re feeding off of that person, or those people, or that situation outside. There’s karma there, and there’s a kind of weakness there as well. You need to have things a certain way outside and if they’re not that way, the mind gets really upset.

Whereas if you have this source of well-being inside, you’re a lot more resilient. You can put up with whatever the situation is out there. It’s like having your own private source of wealth. The economy may be going pretty badly, but you’ve got your internal source. As the Buddha said, if you have this source of inner pleasure, it can help wean you off of your need for sensual pleasures. It can wean you away from your clinging to sensuality."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "A Pleasure Without Stories"

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