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involves an object to meditate upon; it means something is there. You can meditate on Christ, or you can meditate on the cross. But DHYAN means to be so alone that there is nothing to meditate upon. No object, just simple subjectivity exists -- consciousness without clouds, a pure sky.
When the word reached China it became CH'AN. When ch'an reached Japan, it became Zen. It comes from the same Sanskrit root, DHYAN.
India can give birth to dhyan. For millenia the whole Indian consciousness has been travelling on the path of dhyan -- how to drop all thinking and how to be rooted in pure consciousness. With Buddha the seed came into existence. With Buddha the seed came into existence. Many times before also, before Gautam Buddha, the seed came into existence, but it couldn't find the right soil so it disappeared. And if the seed is given to the Indian consciousness it will disappear, because the Indian consciousness will move more and more inwards, and the seed will become smaller and smaller and smaller, until a moment comes when it becomes invisible. A centripetal force makes things smaller, smaller, smaller -- atomic -- until suddenly they disappear. Many times before Gautam Buddha the seed was born -- and to become a DHYANI, to become a great meditator. In fact he is one of the last of a long series. He himself remembers twenty-four Buddhas before him. Then there were twenty-four Jaina Teerthankaras, and they all were meditators. They did nothing else, they simply meditated, meditated, meditated, and came to a point where only they were, and everything else disappeared, evaporated.
The seed was born with Parasnath, with Mahavir, Neminath, and others, but then it remained with the Indian consciousness. The Indian consciousness can give birth to a seed, but cannot become the right soil for it. It goes on working in the same direction and the seed becomes smaller and smaller, molecular, atomic and disappears. That's how it happened with the Upanishads; that's how it happened with the Vedas; that's how it happened with Mahavir and all others.
With Buddha it was also going to happen. Bodhidharma saved him. If the seed had been left with the
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