Meditation consists of two elements. One is theory and that’s what we study in the text. The other is the actual practice or training of the mind, the body, and the emotions.  It’s what we call self-cultivation. You’re cultivating this ground of your being so that there is some dialogue between the theory and the practice and eventually, they come together. The theory guides and forms the practice. It gives the basic concepts so that you can be sure that you are in a solid mode of training.
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The practice done in the correct way starts to increase insights and understandings so that when you go back to the text, things make more sense. As the text makes more sense, the practice gets deeper. As the practice gets deeper, the text makes even more sense. Eventually, there’s a mutually responding cycle between theory and practice.  

It’s self-sustaining so that if you come to enough classes and you get the basics, you can continue your practice on your own without the need for a monastery, temple or teacher. You can take the text as your teacher and your practice as your monastery and create this space for the dialogue between theory and practice.  

If you just practice the meditation without the theory, they tend to be blind and just be experiences with no context or frame on which to evaluate them. On the other hand, if you just study and you don’t practice, it’s sterile. Nothing happens and it becomes just an intellectual exercise. The ideal thing is for the theory and practice to happen together.  A famous monk said they were like two wings of a bird: one theory and one practice.  With the two together, the bird can fly.  With only one wing, the bird just flops around.  This is why we do this methodology.  

The sitting meditation is only one form of practice. However, for many people, it’s the preferred way because it’s so complete, so direct and brings everything together in a very tight experiential package. Moreover, you can do this with a minimum number of acoutrements, images, statues, even the monastery itself.  It’s particularly modern, portable and inexpensive. You do not have to buy those expensive meditation seat cushions. You can just use a towel and the same goes for the pad. It’s all about your mind.  

Components of practice
The practice consists of three contemplative elements. These three elements underline most of the contemplative traditions. These contemplative study traditions go way back and seem to come out of not just Buddhism but throughout South, Southeast Asia and East Asia.

Sila
The first is called sila. It means moral ethics and purity. The first stage is the process of self-reflection and purification. You are getting your life in order. You’re living, talking, thinking, and conducting yourself in a way that produces harmony, reduces anxiety, and clears the conscience. When the conscience is clear; when it’s not disturbed by residue from killing, harming self, harming others, dishonesty towards others, self-deception, so on and so forth; when the background is clear and undisturbed, then the next stage, which is called samadhi or concentrated awareness or equanimity of mind happens naturally.    
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So, if you did the sitting meditation practice and did the first stage, quite naturally, just by it self, your mind and your nature will start to become calm, clear, balanced and your life would start to reorient. Your priorities would become much clearer and straight. Your decision-making would be much more immediate, untroubled and so forth.    ​

Meditation
Once you have the basis of sila, then you take up the meditation practice, which is the training of concentration in a particular way through sitting, although it can be done standing, walking and even lying down. We are focusing on the sitting meditation. Once the conscience is clear, the mind naturally settles. It doesn’t have disturbances. The texts say it’s somewhat like a pond or a lake where when the wind dies down and everything settles, the surface of the lake is tranquil and everything reflects in it perfectly, the stars, the sun, and the moon. In the same way, once the ethics part is straight, the waters are really calm and therefore, when you focus and concentrate, it’s easy to develop both insight and calm equanimity.  

Prajna
The third stage is called ‘prajna’. It means wisdom or insight.  It also means ‘bodhi’ in the sense of liberation and completely understanding things very much as they really are. It’s very profound.  It leads up to very profound states. The teachings say that when the first two are in place, the third happens by itself. Once the conscience is clear, and there’s a calming of the mind, then there’s a focused concentration of equanimity through the meditation practice, the insights happen by themselves. It’s not something you need to seek for.    

Most importantly
This goes back to the most important thing about this whole teaching which is the potential awakening, wisdom, understanding, liberation; a profound grasp on the whole purpose and meaning of being a person and connecting with one’s spiritual nature. The text and teachings say this is whole, complete and innate in every one of us. It’s not lacking in any of us. It’s already there. The only reason it doesn’t manifest fully is because we cover it, obscure it, get it twisted and distorted and then we think it’s lacking and not there; that we have to go out and search for it. So this teaching is called nothing more than a return, a recovery of this innate potential.   
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I want to stress this because sometimes people come in and do the first two stages and get really eager and hungry for the awakening experience; thinking that it’s going to come as some sort of bolt of lightening, an immediate grasp or a cathartic moment. When in fact, what’s happening is that it just arises naturally; just as grass, when you take the concrete or coverings off, it naturally comes up again and returns. So does this wisdom and enlightenment, just comes up naturally when we take off what’s covering it.  ​​​