The buddhist saint Atisha was travelling to Indonesia:
...on the ocean a great storm arose and Atisha... meditated on red Yamantaka and completely subdued... the storm.
-- Pabongka Rinpoche
This is not folk tale, not allegory, not fantasy.
The storm was subdued by the act of the meditator.
Meditation changes the fabric of reality. Not all kinds of meditation have this effect, but there are types that do. Some meditations build the capacity of the meditator, so they may stay in samadhi for longer periods of time. Other meditations re-structure the mind to accept the burden of other kinds of meditations. Some meditations develop better abilities to deal with hinderances to the meditative state, such as expanding the memory structures to allow access to transpersonal information or meditations to alter emotional reactions to disturbing content.
Tangible, though seemingly acausal, results occur once you move into the energetic realm of meditation. Magnificent and stunning changes happen to the world around us because of the merit of meditation. It is not that the meditator, by reforming their mind becomes a better human being, and that has a positive influence on others, and in some abstract way, the world. The nature of our shared reality is actually changed by the meditator. Reality bends to the energy of meditation. The world becomes just a little nicer, people become a little stronger and braver. Compassion and love become more accessable.
