Hello DhO,
Upasaka Culadasa is a meditation teacher and former neuroscience professor who has who has done some wonderful writing on meditation practice, especially concentration practice. In particular, he has an excellent series of notes on concentration practice based on the 9 stages of meditation of
Master Kamalashila. Personally, I find that they're by far the most precise, detailed, and clear treatment of basic meditation practice that I've read.
I've obtained permission to redistribute some of his writings which are not otherwise easily accessible on the Internet. I'm attaching a number of PDFs to this message which were obtained from from files and messages uploaded to the jhana_insight Yahoo group on which he participates, and from other sources.
I've attached the following as a .zip file (Culadasa.zip)
LightOnMeditationHandout.pdf: An overview of the stages of concentration practice (also available at www.dharmatreasure.com, but reproduced here for convenience)
Plain English - Introduction.pdf,
Plain English - Part I.pdf,
Plain English - Part II.pdf,
Plain English - Part III.pdf: These four PDFs provide a much more detailed treatment of stages 1-6 from LightOnMeditationHandout.pdf, including very precise meditation instructions both for sitting and walking meditation.
Ekaggata.pdf: A discussion of the Pali term
Ekaggata, often translated as "single-pointedness" or "unification of mind". From a series of posts to the jhana_insight group in Dec. 2009.
Jhanas.pdf: A discussion of the Jhanas
Meditation and Joy Handout.pdf: A discussion of joy and happiness in meditation. Also includes a comparison between
flow (from psychology) and meditative experiences.
Positive Reinforcement.pdf: A note on positive reinforcement in mental training, posted to jhana_insight in Dec. 2009.
I hope people will find these useful. I may add more material later if I find anything.