Bear in mind, as you prepare to raise your consciousness with the
great techniques ahead, all adepts would urge that no method should become more important
to you than your goal. Your method is only your means toward higher consciousness. Methods
are not meant to be more than the means.Many Zen advocates, for example, urge that
since the mind is ignorant to begin with, the mind must be silenced through paradox or by
some other "mind-bypassing" means. The Zen student strives to stop the
misperceptions and the distortions which his or her mind regularly creates through its
ignorance.
Other schools of thought generally say that while the mind is ignorant and generally
distorts any particular technique, it would be better that the mind be given some food,
some reason or some idea of what it’s doing, so that it might cooperate toward a
transcendent process which leads to higher consciousness.
So, some methods strive to directly calm the mind while others engross and concentrate
the mind. Many wondrous levels of awareness become available when either approach is
practiced well.
The three techniques comprise what is formally called...
