[jonesboy]

From pg 220-224. Originally Posted by Longchen Rabjam, A Treasure Trove of Scriptural Transmission, Padma Publishing 2001

Briefly, all meditation techniques
are subsumed under two headings, based on whether or not their frame
of reference involves a support. Techniques that involve a support consist
of focusing one's mind without distraction on an appropriate object
perceived outwardly-a form (such as the image of a deity, a symbolic
implement, a twig, or a pebble), a sound, an odor, a taste, or a tactile sensation. Techniques that involve no outer support are the province of
mind. Some involve mental images and are held to elicit nonconceptual
states of awareness through focus on specific visualizations entailing the
subtle channels, subtle energies, and bindu. Others involve focusing on
syllables, spheres of light, or chakras in the subtle channels, visualizations
of fire in the practice of chandali, and so forth.

To summarize, everyone holds that "meditation" refers to some
state with a single reference point, positing that it is essentially a state of
mind at rest, that its purpose lies in some hoped-for goal that can be
reached through stabilization, and that its function is to arrest dualistic
perception. The Reverberation of Sound states:
"Meditation" is mind at rest,
cutting through mental stirring, whether directed outwardly
or inwardly;
it is the cessation of dualistic perception.
Subtle channels, subtle energies, and bindu,
physical postures, visualizations, and emptiness these
are held to be "meditation."

True meditative stability is a particular feature of the great perfection
approach.

....Once you have been directly Introduced to awareness, you abide in that naturally settled meditative
stability, so that even though you do not deliberately cultivate meditative experiences of bliss, lucidity, and nonconceptual awareness, they
arise naturally. This is similar to the fact that meditative stability, being
present as a natural attribute of awareness, arises naturally in the intermediate state after death.

Once you forge the spiritual path using ordinary mind, it is in the
very nature of the process that you either have the experience of meditating
when you strive or lose it when you do not. But as soon as you
forge the path using awareness-timeless awareness- [Io5b] you abide
in the ongoing flow of naturally settled meditative stability, so that you
abide at all times in that state in which enlightened qualities come about
as a matter of course and there is no possibility of its being lost.

In brief, meditation with ordinary mind, which involves some frame
of reference, is anchored in dualistic perception, while awarenessnaturally
settled meditative stability-is the ongoing and naturally settled
state that is the true nature of phenomena. And so there is a difference
between achieving those worldly states of ordinary mind that lead to the higher realms (and perpetuate samsara) and abiding in your own
natural state within the enlightened intent of buddhahood (which actually
connects you with the liberation of nirvana).