A guru from India said this about the meditation partaken by the historical Buddha’s disciples, in the context of samadhi:
“Many of Gautama the Buddha’s disciples went into very long meditations. They did not come out for years. But Gautama himself never did so because he saw it is not necessary. He practiced and experienced all the eight kinds of samadhis before his enlightenment and discarded them. He saw this would not take him closer to realization.”
Where, in the Pāli canon, is mentioned that the disciples “went into long meditations”, and where is it alluded the historical Buddha “himself never did so because he saw it is not necessary”?
Some of the monastics who are mentored by Ajahn Brahm sometimes tell us that he advised them to extend the periods in meditation initially, while they were still learning, if they felt it was still not working. It makes sense that quality is often more beneficial than quantity, however it also makes sense that, during the earlier stages of learning, long practice periods are necessary. As children, we spent countless hours practicing the alphabet, but as adults we don’t need to that anymore.
Ultimately, it would be helpful to check whether what the aforementioned guru said, is indeed present in the Buddhist scriptures.
