Why do people use different meditation approaches yet still manage to anchor the mind?

Meditation methods and the effort applied to them can be divided into two categories: correct practice and incorrect practice.

When practicing correctly:

• With sufficient merit — When someone follows a correct meditation method and has accumulated enough merit, the mind naturally enters deep meditative absorption, or Jhana and Samadhi.
• With little merit and a heavy karmic burden: confusion and discouragement — When the method is correct but merit is insufficient or the karmic burden is heavy, progress may be slow or stagnant. Some practitioners lose faith and abandon the practice.
• With little merit and a heavy karmic burden: unwavering determination — Under the same difficult conditions, other practitioners remain steadfast in their chosen path.

When practicing incorrectly:

• With little merit — No matter how much effort is exerted, an incorrect method combined with little merit will not produce significant progress. When heavy negative karma is also present, improper meditation may even lead to serious psychological disturbance or psychosis.
• With great merit — Someone using an incorrect method may still experience certain meditative states because of great merit. This can endanger Buddhism and fellow practitioners if that person begins teaching from personal experience and spreads flawed methods. Practitioners with little merit who follow such approaches may fail, deplete their merit, or suffer psychological disturbance.

Although practitioners use different meditation techniques, merit ultimately determines their ability to anchor and focus the mind. Those who lack merit, especially when burdened by negative karma, cannot attain true meditative depth merely through effort, whether the method is correct or incorrect. Those fortunate enough to follow a correct method should persist with patience and continue generating merit; over time, this cultivates the inner strength required for deep meditative absorption.