Practice of Meditation in Pre-Buddha's period

Abstract

This article entitled to study the practice of meditation in pre-Buddha's period. This is a qualitative research done by studying academic documents. In the research, it was found that In Buddhist Texts (Aggaññasutta), there was a record on the first period when humans started to be ordained for doing meditation in forest until they gained meditative absorption and lived their life by asking for alms. Monks and priests who did Samantha meditation in Pre-Buddha's time including ascetics, hermits or jatilas who held Buddhist doctrine (teaching on Karmic Law) and preferred settling their hermitages in distant forest. These persons doing meditation depended on three types of meditation as emotion in doing Samantha meditation including: (1) Kasina; (2) Brahma-Vihāra ; (3) Rupa-Arupa meditation. Person with proper habits would be able to achieve the highest Dharma including eight Samāpatti and five Abhinñāña, for example, Arala Tapasa and Udaka Tapasa. If these persons passed away while their Samapatti meditative absorption was not disappeared, they would be born in Brahma World. However, if these persons turned to comply with the Buddha’s practices, they would be able to become the Arhanta (Buddhist Worthy One). It was noticeable that fair amount of these persons who did meditation in Pre-Buddha's time turned to listen to the Buddha’s teaching and become monks, for example, Nalaka Thera, Pancavaggiva Thera, etc.