What Are The Stages of Meditation?

Some readers may know that classifying the meditative experience into stages is a controversial topic. From one perspective, we are already enlightened we just need to wake up to it. This would imply just two stages of meditation, unenlightened and enlightened. Or perhaps, it would imply only an enlightened state of mind that is either realized or not, thus no stages of meditations.

The Theravadin insight traditions have elaborate maps of the stages of enlightenment and meditation. We will add some of those here soon.