“bhāvehi” is the 2nd person imperative form of the verb “bhāveti,” which is a causative verb form. It has the literal sense of 'you should/must bring into being." i.e. ‘cultivate/develop/practice’ (the root would be √bhū)
“bhāvanaṃ” is the accusative object of the verb, which according to PED has the sense of, “dwelling on something, putting one’s thoughts to,…developing by means of thought or meditation, cultivation by mind.” The Pali Text Society's Pali-English dictionary
Then, the objects, paṭhavī, apo, etc., have the suffix 'sama" in the accusative to match “bhāvanaṃ.” This gives the sense of ‘like’ (similar to the English ‘same’)
So, super literally (not a good translation) it could mean, 'you must bring into being the cultivation by/of mind… like the earth/ water, etc.
But, generally the sense is ’ to meditate on’ , and ‘meditation’.
So that is why the translations look like, “develop meditation that is like the earth.”
I dont think these parts are well translated in MN62 (“meditate like the earth/water/fire/air/space”??), so my suggested translation for them would be -
“Develop the attitude, Rāhula, that you (physically) are the same as (i.e. ‘made up of no more than’) the five natural elements; viz ‘earth’… ‘water’… ‘fire’… ‘air’… & ‘space’.”
“Also Rāhula, develop the attitude of friendliness/goodwill, compassion, joy, equanimity, non-attraction, awareness of impermanence, and (mental) attention to inhalation & exhalation.”
I think a big part of the challenge is the English word ‘meditation’, which can have so many meanings for people.
I’m not sure the phrase “you physically are the same as” is present in the Pāli, but I suppose it can be argued that it is implied.
The choice ‘attitude’ can be fraught. (Consider the common phrase, “don’t develop an attitude…”)
It also carries the idea of something superimposed on something else. But here, the Buddha is getting at the idea that a person is just the elements.
Maybe simply, “Be like earth”, “be like water” etc.. (i.e. abandon your idea of a self, develop the mentality that you are simply earth, water, etc.)
Exactly why it’s phrased like this I don’t know, but such constructions are quite common in Pali.
Though it has a slightly different grammatical structure, just as an example consider SN35.117:
cittaṃ bahulaṃ gacchamānaṃ gaccheyya
It literally means, “the straying mind may often stray” but is translated simply as “the mind might often stray”. Just one example of potentially many.
I think they are translated OK, because the simile “like water” is explained:
Suppose they were to wash both clean and unclean things in the water, like feces, urine, spit, pus, and blood. The water isn’t horrified, repelled, and disgusted because of this.
When you meditate, you’re supposed to be “like water” in that you’re not repelled by things, especially other people. That seems to be the idea here, not a contemplation of the body as being made of the elements. Compare also AN9.11, where the idea is made more clear.
I hadn’t considered this but it’s a very good point.
MN62:
Evameva kho tvaṁ, rāhula, āposamaṁ bhāvanaṁ bhāvehi.
In the same way, Rahula, be like water.
Āposamañhi te, rāhula, bhāvanaṁ bhāvayato uppannā manāpāmanāpā phassā cittaṁ na pariyādāya ṭhassanti.
When you are like water, Rahula, arisen pleasant and unpleasant stimulation will not vex your mind.
AN9.11:
evamevaṁ kho ahaṁ, bhante, āposamena cetasā viharāmi vipulena mahaggatena appamāṇena averena abyāpajjena.
In the same way, Bhante, I dwell with a mind like water- abundant, expansive, without measure, free of hatred and anger.
It does seem that developing these qualities extends beyond ‘meditation’, it’s more of a way of being.
Yes thanks for the correction. However there is nothing about meditation, it simply is talking about adopting the same equanimity that the earth has. The pathavīsamaṁ is an adjective of bhāvanaṁ.
I think you’re right, in a sense. But although I probably wouldn’t use it myself, I don’t think ‘meditation’ is a bad translation for bhāvana, which does not mean simply “being” but means developing something, since I think it comes from the causative bhaveti.
So the text literally says something like “develop the development (bhāvanaṁ bhāvehi) [that is being] like earth/water/etc”.
But it mostly depends on what we mean by “meditation”, I suppose.
The word is bhāvanā (not bhāvana) bhāvanaṃ is its accusative (as Pali shortens the vowel in the last syllable invariably, thus potentially confusing the reader to interpret the word-stems as pathavīsama bhāvana, whereas Sanskrit doesnt do that so it remains unambiguous as pṛthvīsamāṃ bhāvanām in accusative). If you say bhāvana it has one meaning as it is grammatically speaking - a lyuṭ participle, but bhāvanā has another meaning as it is a yuc participle.
Bhāvanā is a participle from bhāv (causative of √bhū), and bhāvehi is a modal (verbal) imperative 2nd person singular from the same causative root - however this does not mean all participles derived from the same roots have identical meanings to the verbal/modal forms. There are idiomatic meanings established by convention that must be recognized and understood. If you want to convey the normal verbal activity you would use the participle bhāvana, not the participle bhāvanā.
So the grammatical yuc suffix at the end of the word bhāvanā (which gives it the long ā at the end) has the meaning of ‘habituated state of being’, so when applied to the causative form of the root (bhāv), it grammatically means habituated manifestation i.e. (development/cultivation of) the ‘equanimity’, which is a habituated/invariable state of being, or an attitude/disposition (that the earth/water/fire/air/sky supposedly possess). Meditation is not what it means (despite the opinion of dictionaries that, in my opinion, mislead the reader) - as earth, water, fire, air and sky do not do any kinetic activity (such as meditation, contemplation etc) - this is more about attaining a state/disposition rather than doing any explicitly animated activity.
Here the expression used in the pali (pathavīsamaṁ bhāvanaṁ bhāvehi), in my understanding, has the same meaning as pathavīsamāna-bhāvaṃ bhāvehi
I too think it is speaking about such habitual/etc state of being/attitude/disposition/abiding.
However, regarding the earth/water/fire/air/sky, @stephen has posted a similar sutta AN9.11 where after earth/water/fire/air a rag is mentioned:
Suppose a rag was to wipe up both clean and unclean things, like feces, urine, spit, pus, and blood. The rag isn’t aṭṭīyati(troubled), harāyati(ashamed), and jigucchati(wishes to avoid it) because of this.
Since a rag was mentioned with the rest of the sentence more or less intact, this makes me think that the main point of focus is not on earth/water/fire/air/space/rag but on the three words: aṭṭīyati, harāyati, jigucchati. While in the original translation they are translated as horrified, repelled, and disgustedlooking at the sutta dictionary it returns troubled, ashamed, wishes to avoid.
Hi,
If you look above, you will find that it was, in fact, Ven. Sunyo who suggested the very helpful comparison with the Anguttara 9.11. As he said, the idea is not to develop the idea that a person is made up of the elements, but rather to cultivate the mind to be more like the elements- abundant, expansive, without measure, free of hatred and anger. ( vipulena mahaggatena appamāṇena averena abyāpajjena)
In English it’s not uncommon to take an intransitive verb and make it into a pseudo-transitive verb by adding a cognate accusative object:
I dreamed a dream.
He laughed a hearty laugh.
She sang a haunting song.
There’s no difference of meaning between the above and “I dreamed”, “He laughed heartily” and “She sang hauntingly.” The difference is merely stylistic.
It’s similar in Pali, except that in Pali you can also do it with transitive verbs. E.g., “I murdered a gruesome murder”, “They decided a fruitful decision” and “Cultivate [such and such] cultivation!” would be solecisms in standard English but perfectly correct in Pali.
Another difference is that in English the use of cognate accusatives tends to occur in elevated (e.g., literary and poetic) linguistic registers where it serves stylistic purposes such as emphasis or polyptoton. Not so in Pali, where it serves no special purpose and is merely the natural way of saying things.
you’re right, thanks for correcting. It’s also bhāveti instead of bhaveti. Sorry, atm I don’t have access to my usual keyboard where I have Pali characters.
That’s a good point, with which I agree. But then we also can’t universalize that
and apply this to derive the meaning bhāvanā.
I was perhaps also too rushed in deriving the meaning of bhāvanā simply from the verb bhāveti, but this was based on the (standard) repetition of the verb and noun in our phrase, both meaning basically the same. So it says “develop the development”, meaning simply to develop, as Ven. Dhammanando also pointed out. I think it doesn’t mean to develop (i.e. bring into being) a state of being, where the latter has a more passive sense.
But instead of such grammar, to derive the meaning it seems more fitting to look at how the word is used in context. And I think that a translation like ‘development’ (and sometimes ‘meditation’) is more fitting than something like ‘attitude’, or at least not wrong.
A standard phrase for example is that the awakening factors (which include things like investigation) come to fulfillment through bhāvanā (bhāvanāya pāripūriyā, e.g. SN46.51). There are also phrases like “develop the path” (maggabhāvanāya, e.g. SN45.9) or “developed in virtue/wisdom” (e.g. AN10.24). There are probably better examples—I haven’t looked too deeply.
I think the dictionaries and most standard translations therefore are fine.
