Guidance in practical aspects of buddhism and meditation

Buddhist samadhi development is founded on moral disciple. If you can't or don't maintain the moral discipline, your mind will have samadhi-hindering emotions (such as sensual desire, anger, restlessness, fear, etc) that are produced by immoral actions. Since killing, stealing, sexual activity, talking, taking drugs, etc, require lots of exertion, to not perform these actions is the 1st step of 'meditation without exertion'.

As for "samadhi", the Pali suttas (SN 48.10) teach samadhi is developed by making "letting go" the meditation object. This is the closest thing to real "meditation without exertion", even though a subtle effort is made to constantly "let go" or keep the mind bright, buoyant and non-attached. For example, a renowned Buddhist teacher said:

As for samadhi, an empty mind is the supreme samadhi, the supremely focused firmness of mind. The straining and striving sort of samadhi isn't the real thing and the samadhi which aims at anything other than non-clinging to the five khandas is micchasamadhi (wrong or perverted samadhi). You should be aware that there is both micchasamadhi and sammasamadhi (right or correct samadhi). Only the mind that is empty of grasping at and clinging to 'I' and 'mine' can have the true and perfect stability of sammasamadhi. One who has an empty mind has correct samadhi.

Heartwood From The Bo Tree

The term "meditation without exertion" obviously is attempt to teach a method different to the Hindu yogic techniques followed by most Buddhists, such as aggressively attempting to watch the breathing or artificially develop insight, such as: Ven. Bodhi's "Going for Refuge & Taking the Precepts" and Ven. Thanissaro's "Refuge: An Introduction to the Buddha, Dhamma, & Sangha" and "The Healing Power of the Precepts". Ven. Yuttadhammo's free ebook entitled "How to Meditate" and his YouTube playlist.

This said, "exertion" can merely refer to the exertion required to keep the mind free from unskillful emotions. In other words, the exertion need not be anything significantly forceful, as long as it is effective in keeping the mind clear. Therefore, such exertion may simply be applied to not judging an experience or to not grasping an experience.

Even though the Buddha taught to use "exertion", the idea of "meditation without exertion" is close to what the Buddha actually taught about samadhi development because most people do not understand what exertion really is and how to use it.

Compare it to the exertion required to lift a load of bricks and the exertion required to throw away a load of bricks one at a time. Both tasks require exertion however one type of exertion makes the load heavy and the other type of exertion lightens the load.

There is a good primer on Buddhist training, it is called Sutta Pitaka and it is basically a collection of discourses attributed to the teacher and the foremost disciples.

It's pretty good and i recommend memorizing it.

You won't go wrong by familiarizing yourself directly with the teacher's message before seeking out teachers & methods as it will equip you with the discernment to see which teachings are based on texts known to be true and whose teachings are worthless.

https://suttacentral.net/sn20.7/ ... in a future time there will be mendicants who won’t want to listen when discourses spoken by the Realized One—deep, profound, transcendent, dealing with emptiness—are being recited. They won’t pay attention or apply their minds to understand them, nor will they think those teachings are worth learning and memorizing.

But when discourses composed by poets—poetry, with fancy words and phrases, composed by outsiders or spoken by disciples—are being recited they will want to listen. They’ll pay attention and apply their minds to understand them, and they’ll think those teachings are worth learning and memorizing. And that is how the discourses spoken by the Realized One—deep, profound, transcendent, dealing with emptiness—will disappear. So you should train like this: ‘When discourses spoken by the Realized One—deep, profound, transcendent, dealing with emptiness—are being recited we will want to listen. We will pay attention and apply our minds to understand them, and we will think those teachings are worth learning and memorizing.’ That’s how you should train.”

"Meditation without exertion" that I found on the Internet, based on the top Google search result, appears to be about Gnostic meditation and not Buddhist. It may have borrowed some elements of Buddhism. I will not put the link here as that is off-topic.

For Buddhism, the first step is to gain understanding into the basic teachings of Buddhism.

For a classic introduction to the Buddha's teachings, I recommend the book "What the Buddha Taught" by Walpola Rahula. You can find the PDF version here. There is also a very short collection of the suttas at the back of the book.

The ebook "Without and Within" by Ajahn Jayasaro, available in PDF and epub formats, is 127-pages long and is meant to be a collection of questions and answers on Buddhism for beginners.

The second steps are:

• Undertaking the five precepts
• Taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha
• Cultivation of virtues based on Right Speech, Right Action and Right Livelihood

Please read Ven. Bodhi's "Going for Refuge & Taking the Precepts" and Ven. Thanissaro's "Refuge: An Introduction to the Buddha, Dhamma, & Sangha" and "The Healing Power of the Precepts".

Only after that, you could consider meditation.

For a beginner's guide to Buddhist meditation, I would recommend Ven. Yuttadhammo's free ebook entitled "How to Meditate" and his YouTube playlist.

When you have gotten through this, then you can move to more advanced material on meditation.