The Path of Serenity & Insight by Bhante Gunaratana
The Buddha does not come into our midst as a savior descended from on high. He comes as an enlightened teacher, a man who has found the way to the end of suffering and who points the way out to others. The path itself every man must follow for himself. It is each man's own delusions and defilements that chain him to the cycle of suffering, and again each man's own efforts at inner purification that pave the road to his deliverance. Since bondage ultimately springs from ignorance (avijja) the key to liberation, the Buddha declares, is found in wisdom , a wisdom which must be generated inwardly as an immediate personal understanding of the basic truths of existence. The Dhamma is paccattam veditabbo vinnuhi " to be realized by the wise within themselves."
It is because personal realization of truth is needed to reach the end of suffering that meditation assumes a position of such crucial importance in the Buddhist formulation of the liberating path. Meditation, for Buddhism, is the means of generating the inner understanding required for deliverance from suffering. Its diversity of techniques stems from the differences in the people to be taught, but its purpose and procedure is the same for all : to produce that purity of mind and clarity of vision needed for the liberating wisdom to arise.
From : The Path of Serenity & Insight by Bhante Gunaratana
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