| [In the practice of meditation]
beginners achieve mental stability by degrees, their stream of thought [at first] breaking
through like a mountain cascade, until eventually the mind remains naturally focused
wherever it is placed. This is termed “mental stability,” and since it is the
foundation of the absorption levels [dhyanas], there is no advancement without it.
When your body is rightly posed, and your mind absorbed deep in meditation, you may feel
that thought and mind both disappear; yet this is but the surface experience of dhyana
(meditation). By constant practice and mindfulness thereon, one feels radiant
self-awareness shining like a brilliant lamp. It is pure and bright as a flower. It is
like the feeling of staring into the vast and empty sky. The awareness of voidness is
limpid and transparent, yet vivid. This non-thought, this radiant and transparent
experience, is but the feeling of dhyana.
— Milarepa
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