The Origins Of Meditation

One of the most interesting things to work out is the history of where meditation originated and why meditation was used in the first place.

To do this,

We need to look back primarily at a region in northeastern India which was called the Greater Magadha.

This was also the region where Buddha was born and the founder of Jainism.

In this region of the world,

Scholars have noted,

Such as Johannes Bronkhurst,

That people believed in this idea of karma,

Samsara,

And rebirth.

One of the issues was that the people in this region believed that this endless cycle of death and rebirth and death and rebirth was something that was seen as a form of suffering.

And therefore they wanted to exit this constant cycle so that they did not have to ever have the chance of being born into more suffering.

The first people that came along to do something about this was the Jains.

The Jains believed that what they had to do was stop producing any form of karma.

If they had no karma,

They would therefore not be reborn and could therefore exit the cycle.

The way of dealing with this idea of no karma had to come about via no action.

If you have no action,

Then you will have no karma.

The Jains dealt with this in very extreme methods.

They left their families,

For example.

They became celibate.

They did not have marriage or partners.

They wore no clothes.

They didn't even eat plants or vegetables that would be killed if you were to take it.

So for example,

You're not allowed to eat things like garlic or onion because if you take those,

You're actually killing the plant itself.

This was called ahisma,

Actually,

Which was a concept of nonviolence.

The Jains also believed in holding their breath.

They also believed in eating a minimal amount.

In the end,

The ultimate non-action of the Jains was actually to starve themselves to death.

Buddha tried these same methods and nearly died from it until a country girl saved him with a bowl of rice.

Buddha came out of this experience and said,

These extreme methods do not work,

And therefore we need to follow the middle way,

A way without extremes.

Buddha also changed this idea of non-action in Jainism from being a very physical aspect of life to being more mental.

So for example,

In Buddhism,

Instead of holding the breath,

You now observe the breath.

Instead of focusing on things such as eating a minimal amount of food,

You instead focus on meditation.

So Buddhism became much more a non-action of the mind as opposed to a non-action of the body.

The Brahmins actually came along later on and took many of these ideas from Buddhism,

And they then believed that what you had to do to follow non-action was to make the mind like a piece of wood.

What this means is that it was completely flat of any mental activity whatsoever.

Their non-action was even more mentally based than Buddhism or mind-based because they believed in having to follow one's dharma or duty.

Therefore,

If you were born in a warrior caste,

For example,

You still had to do your duty and become a warrior.

Buddha's idea of the non-action of the mind was much more in line with,

I make the fluctuation of my mind flat so that I can see the true nature of reality.

Therefore,

The mind is kind of like a tool where there are no fluctuations until one chooses to use it by which there are fluctuations.

And then one stops using it,

The mind goes back to having no fluctuations.

So here we start to see that the original idea all came back to this concept of non-action.

The Jains were non-action of mind and body,

But much more heavily on the non-action of the body.

Then Buddha came along and things changed to much more of a non-action of the mind and still some non-action of the body,

But nothing extreme.

And the Brahmins came along,

Which was completely non-action of the mind and much less non-action of the physical body than both Buddhism and Jainism.

The most interesting aspect of this is we also have a fourth.

Lao Tzu,

Who was from China,

He also had the concept of non-action in his theory and teachings,

But was much more philosophical in it.

He didn't really talk too much about the non-action of the mind and non-action of the body,

But spoke more about a non-action in a practical sense.

So for example,

What makes a room useful?

And Lao Tzu would say the emptiness or the non-action of the room is the thing that makes it useful.

What makes a cup useful?

It's the non-action of the cup or the emptiness of the cup that makes it useful.

Lao Tzu also spoke about that the greatest understanding of non-action was actually living by or living with nature,

Because he saw nature as a form of non-action,

Which is a very interesting concept because how can nature be a non-action?

But his view was that through the non-action of nature,

Its action can do anything.

So here we end up with a very interesting concept and a very different view of Lao Tzu.

Therefore so many of the Chinese arts viewed things in the sense of nature's way is always the right way,

Because this is the way of non-action,

And therefore humans should follow that.

It is very,

Very likely,

Because of various forms of trade routes,

Etc.

,

That Lao Tzu may have got this early idea of non-action from India,

But later on started to change and adapt its concept to Chinese culture.

So this is a really important point for us to remember and understand,

That the essence of these arts is so heavily based in non-action,

But they change the angle of this idea of non-action depending on the tradition or the culture.

One further example of this changing of things is actually breathing.

So if we were to look at the Jains,

They simply and unquestionably just wanted you to hold your breath.

Again,

A very extreme form of non-action.

Buddha's non-action was again far softer.

He wanted you to observe the breath instead of holding the breath.

And then we've got the Hindus and their yoga who wanted to do pranayama.

They wanted to control the breath and train the breath so that it would naturally become extremely long and deep.

Lao Tzu also mentioned the breath where he wanted the breath to be like an infant.

Again,

Following his idea of the most natural way is the best way because it is the way of nature and therefore the ultimate example of non-action.

I hope this short lecture can help you to some degree to understand these concepts and what these arts were about very much at their essence.