Mental development

Many people who come to know the Buddha's teachings want to apply themselves to mental development immediately, in order to reach the goal of their lives. They want to develop 'meditation' without first studying the Buddha's teachings and thus they do not know that mental development includes both samatha (tranquil meditation) and vipassana (insight meditation) ; they do not know that the practice of samatha and vipassana are different and that they lead to different results. If we do not study the Buddha's teachings before we start with mental development we cannot have right understanding about the practice and we do not know whether the practice we follow is the Buddha's way or not.