That is a very important point, IMO. People understand the instruction in the Sutta on Mindfulness, in the section on breathing in and out, as “calming the breath, I will breathe in… calming the breath, I will breath out.” But the literal translation of the Pali is “Causing bodily doing to cease, I will breathe in. Causing bodily doing to cease, I will breathe out.” There is indeed a huge difference. One approach is direct, seeking to influence the breathing directly. The other approach is indirect. I think it is the difference between ignorance and wisdom.
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That’s exactly what I think. In fact, I’ve been wondering lately if the final step in the Agama version–cessation–might not be a reference to nirodha samapatti: which would be very different from how the Pali tradition even conceives of the final tetrad.
Do you know much about the Anbanshouyijing? I think it also has a different sequence for the 16.
Thanks for the Dharmatrata Dhyana Sutta link! I’ve had a copy of the Chinese for years; it’s hefty reading, though, and I never really got too deep into it. But this’ll help. Could you similarly direct us toward some of that material you mentioned on Sarvastivada anapana?
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It’s great, you can notify me on this topic when it’s ready 
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Interestingly, in all the Chinese translations, there is no “I will,” or “I,” or even “he.” There is no sense of “I will breathe in,” or “I will” do this or that. After all, this is a practice of mindfulness and awareness of the breath.
Right, that’s interesting, and there are certainly parts of the sequence that have clear parallels to entering the Nirodha Samāpatti, as explained in SN 41.6 and SA 568. The sequence given in the Mahāvibhāṣā also gives cessation as the final stage, so that was the last item for the “orthodox” Sarvāstivāda.
I know a bit about it, but I don’t know if I have access to the original text. The version in the Taishō is just a commentary on the original text, which was lost for about 1000 years, until some years ago when the original was found at an old temple in Japan. The text has been published, but I don’t know the details. It would be interesting to compare, though, as that is a 2nd century text from the Northwest.
You’re right. It’s pretty inscrutable, being full of Sarvāstivāda terminology and squeezed into short lines of Chinese verse. It was a proper subject for a PhD thesis. The English translation has a very good introduction, and it’s pretty amazing to have a detailed meditation manual like this from Kashmir.
From what I know, the Mahāvibhāṣā would probably be the best source for understanding standard ānāpāna practice as taught by the Sarvāstivādins (of course it is not translated from Chinese). I’ve read some parts from the Mahāvibhāṣā on ānāpāna, and it is interesting. Not awful and dry. There is a good article on it here:
[Suen Hon-ming - Methods of spiritual praxis in the Sarvāstivāda: a study primarily based on the Abhidharma-mahāvibhāṣā (2010)] (HKU Scholars Hub: Methods of spiritual praxis in the Sarvāstivāda: a study primarily based on the Abhidharma-mahāvibhāṣā)
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In the West, many people are still focused on studying early Buddhism in terms of a large and interpenetrating corpus of texts. So for example, studying the Pali Canon, the EBT’s, or something like that. But usually we don’t hear about someone studying just one collection like the Saṃyutta Nikāya. The reasons for this approach are probably well-meaning and done out of respect for the historicity of the canon itself. In my opinion, though, very real differences may be ignored in the process.
Since Yin Shun and others started studying the Saṃyukta Āgama, their approach has been almost the opposite. They tend to focus on the Saṃyukta Āgama as the earliest collection, and to direct much of their attention to this one āgama. This is kind of interesting because the SA and MA have some pretty big differences in some respects.
Since I started looking at the SA more, it has also become clear to me that even within these collections, there is older and newer. Some texts are obvious additions, or should otherwise be considered “late,” like from the time of the MA or EA. But even within these collections, there are certain doctrines that are closer to the core of the teachings, and others that are out on the periphery.
This is interesting in the case of the ānāpānasmṛti saṃyukta in the SA. Outside its own saṃyukta, there is only one reference to ānāpāna in the entire SA, which is SA 746, linking the practice to the Seven Factors of Bodhi. Within the saṃyukta itself, which otherwise seems completely isolated, the texts clearly reference two other frameworks multiple times. The first is the Four Bases of Mindfulness, which the 16 steps of ānāpānasmṛti must have been based on. The other is the Seven Factors of Bodhi, as ānāpānasmṛti is held to fulfill mainly the “mindfulness” factor. Within the saṃyukta, ānāpāna is said to be able to accomplish just about everything in Buddhism, being praised in the highest terms, but practically all the other sūtras have basically nothing to say about the practice and do not even mention its existence. Doesn’t that seem strange?
The role of impurity meditations within the collection is also a bit unusual. These only seem to be mentioned very sporadically. I don’t see much evidence (so far) that they were known and taught at the time the SA was compiled. SA 809, which uses the term impurity contemplation (不淨觀) over and over, was likely taken from a Vinaya story about a mass suicide, which Richard Gombrich has described as a grotesque and unrealistic fable. But the role of this story in the ānāpānasmṛti saṃyukta seems to be to portray impurity meditations as dangerous, and to promote ānāpāna instead. Maybe there some resistance to impurity meditations becoming popular around the time of the MA?
In any case, I think these individual collections tell their own stories, and hopefully we can learn some interesting things about them in the future. A few interesting scenarios, for example:
- Maybe we will learn about some core teachings that were tightly integrated, and thus learn more about the “original” Buddhism from even before the SA.
- Maybe we will see the MA, DA, and EA more as progressive “expansions” of Buddhism, and thereby gain a better and more detailed understanding of the development and growth of the tradition.
- Maybe ānāpāna and impurity meditations will be seen more as “newer” methods of meditation that were gradually accepted into the Buddhist community by being framed as fulfilling the Four Bases of Mindfulness (of course they must have been effective too).
These are just a few ideas, and proving any of them would likely require a larger study and effort. But even looking at individual practices and saṃyuktas can give us some really interesting and challenging clues.
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Thanks for the very interesting info. You might remember the palicanon micro-analysis on parimukha I was lead to do - in the phrase usually translated as “and established mindfulness in front of him”. The conclusion was that if in the pali canon parimukha appears with a specific meditation it was overwhelmingly with anapanassati - a connection that was not to be found in the sanskrit versions. I had to think of that when you write in your article that anapanassati “is the only form of explicitly seated meditation that is given its own saṃyukta within the SA”.
Also lately I went over Sutta Nipata IV and V, and if I remember correctly there is no specific meditation method mentioned at all. Could it be that the systematized methods we find in the suttas are a condensation of editors who brought order into much more diverse practices and approaches?
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Does anyone have last suggestions, corrections, or criticisms for this article?
http://lapislazulitexts.com/articles/anapanasmrti_in_the_agamas
I’ve been falling behind recently, but I just updated it with information from SA 805 and SA 806, which feature Ariṣṭa and Kapphiṇa, respectively.
In particular, the one about Kapphiṇa seems simple at first glance, but tells us some valuable information, including illustrating that mindfulness leads to samādhi, and that one who practices ānāpāna correctly becomes motionless in both body and mind.
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Hi Llt,
I have had a quick look at your essay, and I jotted down a few random comments as I went along. Your review is very useful, at least until we have a proper translation of this into English. I noticed on the way that there is a lot in common with the Pali, especially in the Saṃyukta. This is true in regard to individual suttas, but also more generally in regard to the ideas expressed. As usual it is hard to avoid the feeling that the Pali and the Chinese are different recensions of the same original teachings.
Hopefully you will find something useful in this.
With metta from Oz.
This section should give us sūtras that are generally older and more likely to be shorter, simpler, and earlier than those in the other āgamas.
Perhaps, but the extent to which this is true is still up for debate. One of the issues here is how much older. It seems reasonable to think that the suttas would have evolved within the lifetime of the Buddha. He would probably have started off with simpler and shorter suttas, of the type we normally find in the Saṃyukta/Saṃyutta. The suttas would then have evolved in both content and length throughout his career. It seems reasonable to think that many of the lengthy but oft-repeated suttas would have been spoken by the Buddha himself, such as the gradual training (e.g. MN 27 or DN 2). And if a sutta originated from the Buddha, its relative age is not all that significant.
Another important issue is the fact that the same sutta was often either placed in different Nikāyas/Āgamas to begin with, or moved around the various Nikāyas/Āgamas. We know this because a Pali sutta found in a particular Nikāya is often found in a different Āgama in the Chinese. So even if the Saṃyukta as a container is old, this does not necessarily mean that the content is older than that of the other Āgamas/Nikāyas. To me it seems that there is too much uncertainty around this to make any general statements about age.
In my opinion, a better and more reliable method of relative chronology is to look at linguistic criteria. For instance, you can tell that the Abhidhamma is later than the suttas simply on the basis of the language used. The vocabulary is different, and so is the style. When you look at the four Nikāyas/Āgamas, the language is very similar across the board, and this should mean that they all stem from roughly the same period. It is true that we still need better research in this area, and it is quite possible that we might be able to relatively date certain suttas, even collections, on linguistic criteria. But the general outline is clear enough: the differences within the four Nikāyas are relatively minor. All this is of course much easier to ascertain with the Pali suttas than with those translated into Chinese, where such minor linguistic details often got lost in translation.
… only form of explicitly seated meditation …
So far as I am aware, ānāpānasati is the only form of explicitly seated meditation anywhere. Seated meditation is also mentioned in the gradual training, but in connection with the abandoning of the hindrances, not with a specific meditation technique.
… the Four Bases of Mindfulness …
This is similar to the common translation “the four foundations of mindfulness”: both of them imply that mindfulness arises as a consequence of this practice. However, mindfulness is needed at the outset of satipaṭṭhāna practice: the practice is described as satimā, which implies the presence of mindfulness as the practice is done. I would prefer a translation such as “the four applications of mindfulness”, or even “the four focuses of mindfulness”. The purpose of satipaṭṭhāna, as you point out further down, is samādhi, not mindfulness per se.
The Smṛtyupasthāna Saṃyukta also contains a strong narrative element that includes illustrations, for example, about a small bird and an eagle (SA 617), monkey hunting (SA 620), acrobats (SA 618), a chef (SA 616), and the most beautiful woman in the world (SA 623).
All of which are found in the Pali as well.
This highly detailed approach to meditation is unique within the Saṃyukta Āgama, and perhaps reflects the ideas of a certain group of authors who had strong opinions and particular ideas about how this type of meditation ought to be practiced, and who believed that each detail was important enough that it should be memorized and followed.
I see no reason why this should not have come from the Buddha. I agree with you that the degree of detail is striking – the same is true of the Pali – but I would see this as an indication of the importance the Buddha placed on ānāpānasati. Apart from the Ānāpānasati Saṃyutta, the sixteen steps together with the introductory instructions are found in a number of places in the Pali canon (MN 62, MN 118, AN 10.60; in addition you find the introduction together with the first tetrad in MN 10, MN 119, and DN 22). Moreover, ānāpāna is mentioned in brief in number of other places. It seems unlikely to me that such an important teaching should not stem from the Buddha.
The authors of the Ānāpānasmṛti Saṃyukta …
May we not assume that this is the Buddha, unless proved otherwise? This is the sort of language used by academic scholars, and to me it is the result of academic over-caution and fashion. I feel it would be good for Buddhists to take a stand on where these teachings come from.
The impression left by the texts in the Ānāpānasmṛti Saṃyukta is that its authors were exacting, demanding, opinionated, eremitic, avoidant, and puritanical. They do not seem to have been particularly creative, tolerant, flexible, or sociable. They did not care much about entertaining others or communicating their message in a charismatic way. They were simply concerned about the details of their practice, and how it should properly be carried out.
Gee, you are really going for it! To me the point is that there is a time for solitude, especially when one wants to develop samādhi. There is also a time for communicating the message, but that should be at a different time from when you practice samādhi. I don’t really see the division in personalities that you seem to see.
… nectar of immortality (得甘露究竟甘露) …
Would it not be better to translate this as “nectar of the deathless”, or even “the nectar of freedom from death”, as is customary for the Pali? “Immortality” is not a very Buddhist idea.
… in accordance with separation (依遠離), in accordance with desirelessness (依無欲), in accordance with cessation (依滅), tending towards abandonment (向於捨).
The Pali equivalent is vivekanissitaṃ virāganissitaṃ nirodhanissitaṃ vossaggapariṇāmiṃ, which means “dependent on seclusion, dependent on fading away, dependent on cessation, ripening in giving up”. Virāga can mean both “without desire” and “fading away”.
… Bodhi factor of pliancy (修猗覺分)
The Pali is passaddhi, which means “tranquillity”. This is how other translators have also translated the Chinese, e.g. Marcus Bingenheimer’s translation of MĀ 42 in the recent BDK translation of the Madhyama-āgama.
… he obtains equality and abandonment (得平等捨).
Should this not rather be “equanimity”, as in the Pali?
He then cuts off craving and affection (斷世貪愛), and develops purity apart from desires (離欲清淨). He then severs ill-will (瞋恚), drowsiness (睡眠), restlessness and remorse (掉悔), and doubt (疑).
This is interesting. In the standard exposition of the gradual training, the abandoning of the five hindrances is always mentioned just before the attainment of the four jhānas, but without specifying any particular meditation topic. I have always thought that this referred to satipaṭṭhāna, since it is mindfulness that is everywhere the cause of samādhi. Since satipaṭṭhāna is primarily exemplified by mindfulness of breathing, I decided a long time ago that this was the preeminent method for abandoning the hindrances, that is, the refined remnants of the hindrances that are still present at this stage.
It seems likely that SA 813 originally came from the smṛtyupasthāna camp, since much of the style and terminology seem much more at home within that saṃyukta.
I don’t find the idea that there were different camps particularly convincing. Satipaṭṭhāna is more of an overarching framework, whereas ānāpānasati is a quite specific technique within satipaṭṭhāna. It is perhaps not so strange that ānāpānasati should be described in such a detailed and rather dry fashion, compared to satipaṭṭhāna. I don’t think a two camp thesis is required, and I would say it is all likely to stem from the Buddha.
… the destruction of outflows (成盡漏心)
This is interesting. Does the Chinese literally mean “outflows”?
Outside the Ānāpānasmṛti Saṃyukta, there is only one sūtra in the entire collection that mentions the practice at all (SA 746). It is almost as if the practice is invisible to the rest of the Saṃyukta Āgama.
But isn’t the point with the saṃyukta principle that it collects suttas of the same category in the same group? Should one really expect to see many suttas on this topic outside of its dedicated Saṃyukta?
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Hi llt,
Thank you very much for this work. Reading it has been of benefit and I look forward to more.
It is interesting that EA 17.1 mentions the tip of the nose as the point of focus during mindfulness of breathing. Is this an unambiguous instruction, unlike the controversial parimukhaṃ?
I’ve never thought of examining the temperature of the breath (EA 3.8 and 17.1). Perhaps this speaks to discerning the various qualities of breath in general as some meditation teachers teach. Perhaps this is part of the application of the verbal part of the mind in keeping the mind on the breath (e.g. using counting) until such a point when it can dropped.
Instruction 6 of EA 17.1* reminds me of one of Ajahn Chah’s meditation instructions:
When it appears that the breath has gone, you might panic or become afraid that you are going to die. Here you must establish the understanding that it is just the nature of the practice to progress in this way. What will you observe as the object of meditation now? Observe this feeling that there is no breath and sustain it as the object of awareness as you continue to meditate.
*[6] If there are times when there is breathing (有時有息), he knows that it exists (知有), and when there is no breathing (又時無息), he is aware that it does not exist (知無))
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Thanks a lot @llt, I’ll go back to the anapanassati sutta and your translation and comments soon and appreciate your contribution!
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Wow, I asked for some feedback and I really got it. There are a lot of issues here, and I’ll try to address the main ones.
Maybe so, but tracing individual texts back to the Buddha seems quite speculative. What we do know is that the SA was first compiled at the First Buddhist Council, so earlier than the others. While we tend to think conventionally that the āgamas / nikāyas are homogeneous, not varying much in content, I am a bit skeptical about this. I think even within collections, there are differences in style, vocabulary, and ideas that represent different editors or redactors.
[quote=“Brahmali, post:18, topic:2868”]
I would prefer a translation such as “the four applications of mindfulness”, or even “the four focuses of mindfulness”. The purpose of satipaṭṭhāna, as you point out further down, is samādhi, not mindfulness per se.[/quote]
In some of these cases, the Chinese translations have already interpreted the term. In this case the term chosen basically means a locus or position, as one might stand in. I prefer sticking to the interpretations of the original translation if I can, because that preserves the historical interpretation made by Guṇabhadra, etc.
I know this type of language will inevitably step on some toes (sorry), but I think it is useful in the sense that it allows us to investigate the texts on their own terms. I prefer to think of Buddhist texts in terms of the groups and traditions that formulated them. When everything is attributed to the Buddha himself, we have no real need to consider differences in literary form, vocabulary, ideas, chronology, etc.
I agree it is not a very Buddhist idea, but that in itself is interesting. If I’m not mistaken, the Pali term refers to a drink that bestows godhood and immortality. The Chinese term similarly refers to the ambrosial drink that turns an ordinary person into a Daoist immortal.
Thanks, I’ve gone back and forth on this issue. Outside the Pali tradition, the term is interpreted in a number of different ways, such as pliancy, or lightness and ease.
There are some other divergent interpretations like this. For example, the seventh Bodhi Factor is often called “equanimity” when translated from Pali, but the Chinese term used means something more like “abandonment.” These may represent different interpretations of the original term. In that case, I try to preserve that other interpretation.
At least in the SA, it occurs in many contexts without any mention of the dhyānas. For example, in SA 636, the hindrances are abandoned before practicing the Four Bases of Mindfulness. If I remember correctly, it may also be done before practicing Mindfulness of the Tathāgata, as presented in the SA.
Yes, the Chinese term literally means “leak,” as in a leak of water, which also conforms to some of the other connotations of the term.
This is a good point, but within the collection, many concepts and practices are found not only within their own saṃyukta, but also in other saṃyuktas. This representation within the collection, or lack thereof, can tell us something about the position of these concepts and practices at the time of the compilation of the collection.
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I think the Pali term is “āsava” (Skt : āsrava), right?
I am not sure where you get this from. All the available recensions of the first saṅgīti (“communal recitation”) mention at the very least the four main Nikāyas/Āgamas and the Vinaya. Most add the fifth Nikāya/Āgama and many also the Abhidhamma.
There may be minor differences. But having read over 90% of the four Nikāyas in Pali, I can say with some confidence that they are minor. If you compare the Nikāyas with the Abhidhamma, for instance, the differences are quite pronounced. And the Abhidhamma would probably have started to emerge fairly soon after the Buddha’s passing away. Similar comparisons can be done with the later parts of the Khuddaka Nikāya and the Milindapañha, and again the differences in language compared to the suttas is quite marked. Some of these works would have come into existence in the first few centuries after the Buddha. It all points to the suttas being a distinct category of literature that came into being within a fairly narrow space of time.
This is an important point. You definitely need to be true to the Chinese.
I feel it is useful to remember that the Buddha has a place in all this. It is inconceivable to me how the Buddhist tradition could exist without a spiritual genius being its originator. I feel it is better to think in terms of lead author and subsequent redactors. The internal evidence in the suttas suggests that both the Buddha and his disciples took the task of preserving the word of the Buddha very seriously. The external evidence that comes from comparative study etc. points in the same direction. The academic world is rife with over-the-top scepticism, and we need to hear other voices. And I don’t just mean pious, uncritical ones.
Even if we assume as a starting-point that the suttas comes from the Buddha, we also know that this is not always true, and so we still need to consider the different literary forms, etc. This is one of our best tools in deciding which teachings are most likely to stem from the Buddha. That the four Nikāyas in the main stem from the Buddha is really just a working hypothesis.
So far as I know there is no such thing in the Pali. But do you have a reference?
Thanks for this. One of the debates among Pali translators is whether āsava, which is the Pali equivalent here, should be rendered as “inflow” or “outflow”. This adds to the ammunition of the “outflow” camp.
Yes. One of the debates in Buddhist studies is whether it should be rendered as “inflows” or “outflows”. Some prefer to disregard the literal meaning and just translate it as “corruption” or “defilement”, which may be the intended meaning anyway.
According to Theravadin and Dharmaguptaka account, the first collection compiled at the first council was Digha Nikaya/Dirgha Agama. But this seems unreliable.
According to Sarvastivadin account, in the first council Ananda was first recite the Dhammacakka then proceed to recite the rest of discourses which is now we called Samyukta Agama. It is mentioned by Bhante @sujato in his History of Mindfulness, which conclude the same opinion that Samyukta/Samyutta is the earliest collection formed, but doesn’t mean all discourses in the collections are the earliest ones too.
There is a paper that compare the account of first council from Chinese sources (which many are from early schools): The First Buddhist Council. You can read the Dharmaguptaka and Sarvastivadin account there.
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At first I thought so too. Then situations like “water leaking into a boat” and “water leaking in through the roof” came to mind…so it doesn’t really help in determining the direction of the flow in my oppinion.
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“Amataṃ te, bhikkhave, na paribhuñjanti ye kāyagatāsatiṃ na paribhuñjanti. Amataṃ te, bhikkhave, paribhuñjanti ye kāyagatāsatiṃ paribhuñjantī”ti.
“Bhikkhus, they do not partake of the deathless who do not partake of mindfulness directed to the body. They partake of the deathless who partake of mindfulness directed to the body.”
AN 1.616-627
is amata not a case of Buddhist appropriation of the Vedic amrta?
From the forward to The Fundamental Teachings of Early Buddhism:
Briefly put, Yin Shun’s claim is that the distribution of the sutras into four nikāyas/āgamas did not take place at the First Council; initially the sutras were grouped in a single collection, whose structure is largely preserved in the extant SN and SA. The other three principal nikāyas/āgamas were developed subsequently, probably at the Second Council, in response to a substantial increase in the number and size of the remembered sutras that had taken place during the intervening century. These conclusions are based in large part on a demonstration that the contents of SN/SA fit the first, second, and third categories in the traditional aṅga classification (sūtra, geya, vyākaraṇa), i.e. that SN/SA is structurally archaic. It follows that SN and SA are of special significance both historically and doctrinally—which helps explain why the author of the Yogācārabhūmiśāstra saw fit to include in his great treatise a lengthy commentary on the sūtra-aṅga portion of SA.
There are also some passages from northern sources that state that the SA served as the basis for the other three āgamas. Yin Shun held that not only was the SA the first āgama, but even that the sūtra-aṅga section of it was the earliest and most authoritative portion of that collection. The sūtra-aṅga is entirely based around the framework of the Four Noble Truths. Yin Shun maintained that the MA, DA, and EA were later collections that originated at the Second Council.
Some of this perceived similarity may be because the Pali nikāyas sometimes have extra sūtras that make each nikāya more representative. For example, the large sūtra on the Four Bases of Mindfulness in the DN is considered late by many, and does not exist in the DA. If we compare the topics and themes, though, the collections are not so uniform. For example, the SA has quite a lot about ānāpāna, but the MA has practically nothing about it. The MA has a lot about impurity contemplations, but the SA has practically nothing about it.
I agree it’s best to consider views like this as hypotheses when considering their history. Otherwise preconceptions may dissuade people from studying the particularities of each text or collection.
Not in Pali, but I think amṛta also occurs in the Ṛgveda, is cognate to the Greek ambrosia, and has PIE roots.
This is actually a really interesting point that I had not considered before: leaks can be inward too. In general, though, the Chinese term is used mostly for outward or downward leaks, but literally it does just mean “leak.”
Ok, but as far as the textual history is concerned, the interesting question here is which texts were recited at the first communal recitation, not which text was the first one to be recited at that recitation. Whatever was recited at this time, must be relatively early.
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Whatever the truth of Yin Shun’s ideas - and there are varying opinion about that - it is still the case that the suttas were moved around a lot between the different Āgamas. Even if do assume that the Saṃyukta was the first Āgama, it does not necessarily follow that the suttas of the Saṃyukta as we have it now are older than the suttas of the other Āgamas. It is perfectly reasonable to think that as the Saṃyukta expanded it eventually had to be divided into smaller groups, thus forming the four or five Āgamas. This may well have happened after the first saṇgīti, but this late division does not say much about the age of individual suttas, whatever Āgama they belonged to.
There is a lot of overlap, as I am sure you would agree, but I don’t think we should expect uniformity. The Āgamas are clearly different kinds of containers and so we should expect the content to be at least somewhat different. Suttas over a certain length would have found a more natural home in the Dīrgha and the Madhyama, than in the other two Āgamas. And of course length will have some bearing on the content.
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