In the beginning, a person uses the technique of meditation as a kind of game, because they are still imagining that they are meditating. But the techniques—physical feeling, sensations, and breathing, for instance—are very earthy and tend to ground a person. And the proper attitude toward technique is not to regard it as magical, a miracle or profound ceremony of some kind, but just see it as a simple process, extremely simple. The simpler the technique, the less the danger of sidetracks because you are not feeding yourself with all sorts of fascinating, seductive hopes and fears.

When a person is able to see the simplicity of the technique without any special attitude toward it, then they are able to relate with their thought patterns as well. You begin to see thoughts are simple phenomena, no matter whether they are pious thoughts or evil thoughts, domestic thoughts, whatever they may be. One should just see them as simple thoughts.

From The Myth of Freedom and the Way of Meditation, Shambhala Library Edition, page 60.