Ānāpāna in the Saṃyukta Āgama

[raivo]

@Gabriel

You write that in SA 807 the Buddha practiced for two months anapanasati. Is that a report from before his enlightenment, or at-that-time as a Buddha? That’s a bit weird. Does the Buddha still need the breath as a vehicle for the mind to converge, or to observe cessation?

In SN 54.11 it’s said that the Buddha spent three months in seclusion in concentration by mindfulness of breathing and afterwards he comments that even for arahants:

… for them concentration by mindfulness of breathing, when developed and cultivated, leads to a pleasant dwelling in this very life and to mindfulness and and clear comprehension.

and

“If anyone, bhikkhus, speaking rightly could say of anything: ‘It is a noble dwelling, a divine dwelling, the Tathagatha’s dwelling,’ it is of concentration by mindfulness of breathing that one could rightly say this.”

Basically it seems to me he did it for the same reason he lived in the wilderness, mentioned in MN 4:

“Now, brahmin, it might be that you think: ‘Perhaps the recluse Gotama is not free from lust, hate, and delusion even today, which is why he still resorts to remote jungle-thicket resting places in the forest.’ But you should not think thus. It is because I see two benefits that I still resort to remote jungle-thicket resting places in the forest: I see a pleasant abiding for myself here and now, and I have compassion for future generations.”

[LXNDR]

@Gabriel

Apart from Bh. Analyo’s expositions I just found this: https://sites.google.com/site/ekottara/home

don’t know if you noticed, but i guess the content featured there must by now have found home on SC because

The Ekottara reminds us that the Buddha said: 'a monk should know that i always admire and praise someone who knows how to be grateful. So i express my tremendous gratitude to the translators for making this work available, and to all those who have assisted in typing and other ways, especially: Julie, Denise, Marianna, Teresa, Sooi, Nilushi, and Bhikkhuni Samacitta.

Bhikkhu Sujato

[sujato]

@Gabriel

by Aj. Sujato?

No, I haven’t translated any Chinese suttas. Which is good, because i don’t know Chinese, so that works out well! These translations are by Bhikkhu Pasadika, and are available on SC. The link you gave is to an old, unmaintained site.

[redmuntjac]

@llt

Ānāpānasmṛti in the Chinese Āgamas - Lapis Lazuli Texts

Wow, was that your translation? That’s impressive!

[josephzizys]

Maybe we will learn that DN/DA (continuing into its “second volume” MA/MN) is broadly the first doctrinally, and jhana is the meditation instruction at the heart of it.

Then anapana becomes deriguer after the suicide crisis amongst the impurities practitioners.

SN/SA come later, perhaps amongst a generation where jhana practice had effectively been lost, think larger urban institutional monasteries, (dominating the production of oral texts, away from the more likely out bush jhana practitioners) where brahmaviharas, anapanas, satipathanas etc duked it out for influence.

Will think/search some more.

Love the thread.

[josephzizys]

@llt

One thing that is clear is that ānāpāna played a very small, almost insignificant role in the MA and DA collections, at least the ones that were translated into Chinese. In the MA, it only shows up in abbreviated form for mindfulness of the body. In the DA, it is not found at all.

This is more or less true of DN and MN as well.

[llt]

@josephzizys

Then anapana becomes deriguer after the suicide crisis amongst the impurities practitioners.

SA 809 appears to be a later interpolation into the collection from a similar story in the Vinaya, which is why it takes a form very different than every other text in the anapana samyukta. Ven. Analayo covers this in detail.