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During its 2,500-year history, Buddhism has manifested itself in a multitude of different schools and styles. Always the dynamic nature of living Dharma has brought about, in different cultural and historical environments, new modes of expression. But at the heart of all of these manifestations lies the practice of meditation, as exemplified and taught by the Buddha himself. Only through personal meditative practice is the student of Dharma enabled to slow down the speed of neurotic mind and to begin seeing the world with clarity and precision. Without this, he will only be able to increase his confusion and perpetuate his aggressive grasping for self-confirmation. Without meditation, there is no approach to genuine sanity, no path to enlightenment, indeed no Dharma.
The practice of meditation presents itself as an especially powerful discipline for the shrinking world of the twentieth century. The age of technology would like also to produce a spiritual gadgetry -- a new, improved spirituality guaranteed to bring quick results. Charlatans manufacture their versions of the Dharma, advertising miraculous, easy ways, rather than the steady and demanding personal journey which has always been essential in genuine spiritual practice.
-- Vajracharya, the Ven. Chogyam Trungpa
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