You're following the breath. In. Out. In. Out. You lose count. You start over. You add a mantra. You buy a different book. You try a different technique. Twenty years later, your practice is sophisticated. Your method is refined. You still can't answer the question the practice was supposed to answer — who is doing the practicing.
K's position on method was absolute. No technique produces insight, ever. Insight is what happens when the technique stops. The reason: the technique is run by the same fragment the insight is supposed to dissolve. The fragment can't produce its own dissolution by trying harder. Effort is the fragment, defending itself with the appearance of progress.
Insight isn't earned. Insight isn't accumulated. Insight isn't the payoff of a long practice. Insight is the cessation of the practitioner. The instant the practitioner ends, what was being looked for is what looks. There's no transition. There's no graduation. There's no certificate. There's no level achieved. The practice and the practitioner dissolve in the same moment, leaving behind nothing that can be claimed.
This is the bad news for the spiritual marketplace. Nothing can be sold. No course can be packaged. No graduation can be marketed. No certification can be conferred. Real insight has no transferable artifact. The seeker who came in is not the one who left. Also nothing was given. The exchange has no inventory.
Method promises insight as a payoff for the right effort. K said: the payoff doesn't come, because the effort is the obstacle. Drop the method and the obstacle drops with it. What remains is the seeing. The seeing doesn't belong to anyone. It just is.