I'm sceptical, as a lot of people are, I'm sure, of books written by people who are so full of advice declaring how to get rich on the stock market or how to live a happy life or how to attain samadhi. Perhaps these types of how to books help some of the readers some of the time. But there's a niggling doubt, most probably at the back of the readers' minds (as there would tend to be since the book's been paid for and nobody wants to be consciously taken for a ride more than once), that the writer maybe knows less or only as much as you do.
In particular, the flux of books that were on the market about how to attain enlightenment has now become an avalanche of knowledge cascading into a pool of titles such as Naked Awareness, The Heart Treasury of the Enlightened Ones, Taming the Tiger, Awakening the Sleeping Buddha, Wisdom Energy, and Jack Kornfield's memorable title, After the Ecstasy, the Laundry.
Apart from Kornfield's book, which has less posturing and parroting than the others and does gain some credibility being mostly case studies of people who were mentees at his psychoanalyst/buddhist practice, the others are written with what seems to be as deliberate obfuscation as that which you can find in the bible. Strange archaisms without any literal signposts hit a wall with me: is Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon them that hope on his mercy; to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine, any less meaningful (even as poesy) than To these vast oceans of good qualities/I offer praise, a sea of airs and harmonies./May clouds of tuneful eulogy/Ascend unceasingly before them? Ultimately, jargon is jarring and fancies of the imagination as expressed by books bought become meaningless on reflection. Of course, this is my subjective response.
But there is a dharma book that is free and published in Thailand by Forest Dhamma Books. (The texts are also downloadable from the net. Reading about the meditative experiences of Venerable Acariya Maha Boowa we can get a real sense of how to meditate. He explains in great detail the depth of his wisdom attained through deep practice that the veracity of his expression rings clear as a temple bell. I always felt that the dharma should be free from payment. The best meditative practices are beyond a price.
