You could throw out all of the spiritual trappings on the Buddhist path and still have a set of basic practices that lead to the effects promised. You could also keep all of the spiritual trappings, do the basic practices, and produce the
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“The essential point about meditation is this: to get anywhere in meditation you need to be able to really steady the mind and be present. That’s just all there is to it and it is largely a question of just doing it. There is an important shift that happens in people’s practice when they really make the commitment to developing concentration and follow through with it. Until one does this, not much is likely to happen in one’s meditative practice! If you decide to do a concentration practice, stay on that object like a rabid dog until you have enough stability and skill to let the mind rest on it naturally. The first formal goal when training in concentration is to attain something called “access concentration,” meaning the ability to stay consistently with your chosen object with relative ease to the general exclusion of distractions. This is the basic attainment that allows you to access the higher stages of concentration and also to begin the path of insight (the third training), so make attaining access concentration your first goal in your meditative practice. You will know when you have it.”
― Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book - Revised and Expanded Edition
― Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book - Revised and Expanded Edition
“Basically he was saying, “Get to know your actual reality really, really, really well, and try to do right by yourself and the world.”
― Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book - Revised and Expanded Edition
― Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book - Revised and Expanded Edition
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