Bhavana

To explain the cultural context of the historical Buddha's employment of the term, Glenn Wallis emphasizes bhavana's sense of cultivation.

Wallis infers the Buddha's intention with this term by emphasizing the terrain and focus on farming in northern India at the time in the following passage: I imagine that when Gotama, the Buddha, chose this word to talk about meditation, he had in mind the ubiquitous farms and fields of his native India.

[6]In Hindu literature, bhavana is a concept that is often attributed to deities, such as Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita:[7] O Puruṣottama, Supreme Person!

You alone know Yourself by Your own potency.In the Pali Canon bhāvanā is often found in a compound phrase indicating personal, intentional effort over time with respect to the development of that particular faculty.

Meditation is properly called dhyana (Sanskrit; Pali: jhāna), as practiced in samādhi, the 8th limb of the eightfold path.