It’s like when someone views someone else. Someone standing might view someone sitting, or someone sitting might view someone lying down.
Seyyathāpi, bhikkhave, aññova aññaṃ paccavekkheyya, ṭhito vā nisinnaṃ paccavekkheyya, nisinno vā nipannaṃ paccavekkheyya.
This part has never made much sense to me so I’ve been looking into it.
From the PED
Paccavekkhati: [paṭi+avekkhati] to look upon, consider, review, realise, contemplate
So here we see not merely about looking, but has this sense of review. Now looking at the etymology:
paṭi: directional prefix in well-defined meaning of “back (to), against, towards, in opposition to, opposite.”
avekkhati: to look at, to consider, to see
To me that gives a sense of comparing also, a kind of analysis. And so for this reason, I consider translating it here as ‘examine’, or you could even have in the kind of slang sense, 'check out’.
So then we would have:
It’s like when someone examines someone else. Someone standing might examine someone sitting, or someone sitting might examine someone lying down.
When I read it like this, I have the sense of how easy it is to examine someone sitting when you’re standing above them, checking them out. Same as when you’re sitting, looking at someone who’s lying down, as a doctor might for a patient, or a romantic lover to their partner. And, this gives me the sense of how it should be similarly plain and easy to examine mental objects/states in meditation, as plain and clear as that. And for me that gives an interesting meaning that I could not fathom from the translation with ‘view’.
What do you think?