When the book The Mind Illuminated (TMI) by John Yates came out in 2014 I bought a copy immediately. It was even better than I had hoped for. Yates, a retired neurologist, built upon a method to teach Samatha stage-by-stage that was described by an Indian monk called Asanga in the 4th century AD, but he greatly expanded on it. Yates describes the terrain in great detail, including a score of possible challenges on the path of developing Samatha and how to overcome them. He also describes a set of theories of consciousness, that are built on the traditional Yogacara school but completely modernized and made compatible with known neuroscience, in a way that supports the practice. He makes several innovations, in particular by dividing consciousness into attention and peripheral awareness, which need to be trained concurrently to attain Samatha and greatly increase one’s chance of experiencing awakening. The tips provided by Yates are useful not just to the complete newcomer to meditation, but also to the many who have practiced for decades only to reach a plateau, with little progression for years. Yates describes the common trap of falling into subtle dullness, which is very pleasant, and to which I had occasionally fallen prey. Practicing Samatha according to the TMI method gives a boost to the mind’s stability, brightness, and power, as defined by its ability to be aware of every mind moment, and scope of attention and awareness. But as the mind grows quieter it can allow the upwelling of psychological material that needs to be attended to but never is when the mind is busy. These upwellings are called “purification” and they tend to happen in stages 4 or 7 of TMI’s stages. I never had to deal much with such material and just considered myself extremely lucky to not have been burdened by such issues. I had a mostly happy childhood, so maybe I had escaped it? It turned out not to be so after all.