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Meditation is not a way to enlightenment,
nor is it a method of achieving anything at all.
As you can see for yourself, (you can see everything for yourself if you open your eyes and look for yourself), peddling enlightenment as the holy grail of spiritual attainments is just a timeless marketing scheme like get-rich-quick, easy-weight-loss, reverse-aging and eternal-salvation. Would you step in front of a bus for a million bucks, or off a cliff to shed a few pounds? (Some would.) Awakening from the dreamstate is a kind of suicide, but how do you sell that, and why would you try to sell it when you can just sell the high-demand sugar-coated version instead? That’s what everyone is lining up for, so if you just want to be a big shot in the spirituality space, truth and authenticity aren’t your friends, sweetness is. You have to give the people what they want if you want them to want you, and what they want is the dream of awakening, not the reality of waking up.
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"If you cannot find the truth right where you are,
where else do you expect to find it?"
Dōgen (1200–1253) was a Japanese Buddhist monk, writer, and philosopher who founded the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan. Born into a noble family in Kyoto, he was orphaned at a young age and became deeply troubled by the question of why, if all beings are said to possess Buddha-nature, practice was necessary. This question led him to study under various teachers, and eventually he traveled to China, where he studied Chan (Zen) Buddhism. Dōgen is best known for his major work, the Shōbōgenzō (“Treasury of the True Dharma Eye”), a collection of profound and poetic essays exploring Buddhist practice, time, being, and reality. His teachings stressed simplicity, direct experience, and the unity of practice and enlightenment.