Most intellectuals have great difficulty understanding the simplicity of meditation first, and then practising it regularly even if they do start. Illiterates or non-intellectuals find it much easier to continue since their experience is immediate and not mediated or bogged down by intellectual frameworks.
12 seconds of resting one's attention on the same object without force is a starting point. 12x12 seconds, approximately 2.5 minutes is next. 12x12x12 seconds, approximately 30 minutes is accepted as the highest - samadhi. What occurs at each level has to be experienced personally, though rough ideas are given for understanding.
In even simpler terms, it is about rediscovering the pathway inward. It is not new, just unused. Again, intellectuals have difficulty going beyond thought, so these long-forgotten inward levels are tough for them to accept.
This is a self-correcting and self-validating practice, and so even more difficult to understand theoretically for one with years, nay, lifetimes, of being validated only by others. Of course, they in turn similarly validated others. Others - outside one's home and outside one's body. And in doing so, they have blithely handed over the keys to their own peace, happiness, love, and contentment to others.
NOTES
[1] C.f. Acceptance and grace
[2] C.f. Bottom-lines
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