I've sparsely read Marcus Aurelius but I've found that his insights are deeply human and thoughtful. Sometimes his style can be somewhat obscure to me compared to Seneca for instance, which is another Stoic philosopher that I really like. But the Meditations are exactly that after all: the inner thoughts of an interesting guy who happened to be an emperor of Rome.

I concur with your comparison to Buddhist meditation. I've practiced Zen for many years and Stoicism is very close from a philosophical standpoint to some of the Buddhist ideas stemming from meditation. While Stoic meditation is not quite the same, "studying yourself" was a very important practice for their followers, just like Zen students.

Thank you for posting your ideas, happy to be part of this discussion!