One reason meditation is so varied is that it's unlike most skills. You can't learn it by watching someone else, and teachers can't see if you're doing it wrong. Progress is only made through trial, error, and dialogue. This is quite different from any physical activity, where visual feedback makes errors obvious.
To borrow an analogy from Sam Harris: Imagine if looking at the stars required building your own telescope. Nobody could ever see someone else's telescope, or even the images from it. They could only listen to each others' descriptions. This would make research much harder and much less rigorous. But the stars would be no less beautiful. That's the state of meditation today.
To borrow an analogy from Sam Harris: Imagine if looking at the stars required building your own telescope. Nobody could ever see someone else's telescope, or even the images from it. They could only listen to each others' descriptions. This would make research much harder and much less rigorous. But the stars would be no less beautiful. That's the state of meditation today.