A new book I’m reading about developing your meditation places a pretty strong emphasis on clarifying ones motivation every time one sites down to meditate. This is great above and I know I can benefit from it immensely both in formal practice and daily life.
Without bearing in mind or motivation it is so easy to get lost and swept up in this emotion or that thought. What, then, is my motivation to practice? Ultimately it is to gain release and provisionally to strengthen the heart and mind to mind them secure refuges in the storms of samsara. We have all been so fortunate to live in relative ease but, this state of affairs, is so fragile and subject to change like all else. How will I react when comforts are taken away,? Hope all I act in dire need? Will I abandon my precepts? Will I commit evil deeds for short term gain?
This is my motivation: to practice well enough to gain a foothold in the deathless. May we all practice well while there is yet time.
Cattāri Brahmavihārā 
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