What the Buddha Taught: Revised and Expanded Edition with Texts from Suttas and Dhammapada

by Walpola Rahula

The Buddha’s teaching, particularly his way of ‘meditation’, aims at producing a state of perfect mental health, equilibrium and tranquility. It is unfortunate that hardly any other section of the Buddha’s teaching is so much misunderstood as ‘meditation’, both by Buddhists and non-Buddhists. The moment the word ‘meditation’ is mentioned, one thinks of an escape from the daily activities of life; assuming a particular posture, like a statue in some cave or cell in a monastery, in some remote place cut off from society; and musing on, or being absorbed in, some kind of mystic or mysterious thought or trance. True Buddhist ‘meditation’ does not mean this kind of escape at all. The Buddha’s teaching on this subject was so wrongly, or so little understood, that in later times the way of ‘meditation’ deteriorated and degenerated into a kind of ritual or ceremony almost technical in its routine.2