Buddhism, to name one of the most prominent contributors to the discussion on Enlightenment topics, would appear to disagree with the premise that there’s nothing to do and there’s no technique. Buddha himself promoted a set of well-known techniques called the Eightfold Path. According to Buddhism, the path to enlightenment is one that gradually unfolds according to one’s development of insight, for which there are most certainly a plethora of prescribed techniques to develop the same.

Ramana Maharishi, one of the sages I see quoted often for His advocacy of Silent awareness, Just Being As You Are, similarly advocated self-inquiry and maintenance of a particular awareness on the way to the goal. That’s a technique. He advocated Silence while simultaneously acknowledging the same to be all but impossible for the average human being and thus taught that great effort was required to attain the deepest states of meditation. Another technique in order to reach the perfection of just being as you are.

I agree somewhat with an analogy to genius in so far as we are born with a particular level of development or we are not. At the same time, however, there are a few fields of science that are at this very moment showing us how to develop genius, and still another valid question remains.

How many people are really, really ready to put in the great effort, devotion and time it takes to reach the heights intimated in the words genius or enlightenment, if the same can in fact be attained through effort?

Spiritual teachers who say there is nothing to do, that there is no technique, without offering context and clarification, are no better than nihilists in this regard, and the oversimplification is not doing the earnest seeker any favors.