Direct Experience of Meditation This morning I read many posts on this site. I felt like topics on Buddhist doctrine were somewhat clear to me, but those on meditation seemed complex, difficult to me. 

I wondered: Does meditation practice increase knowledge about meditation? Is this what is meant by direct experience?

I feel this may seem as a naive question; I'm mainly wondering how something experienced (i.e. meditation) might affect cognition / knowledge about the topic of meditation. 

For example, I'm unsure whether a person hammering nails all day would necessarily understand their task conceptually. Does meditation necessarily give one conceptual knowledge of meditation?
One possible answer is that meditation relies both on the theoretical understanding on what's going on, but also the direct experience. They are mutually dependent as far as i can see.

A mere theoretical understanding of meditation will not take us very far in the progress, just like meditation without a theoretical description of the phenomena involved probably won't take us far either.