Since my recent essay on the future tense in mindfulness of breathing, I have revisited my approach to the translation. As always, my primary concern is to translate the text in a way that accurately captures the meaning in idiomatic English, so that a reader does not require notes or further explanation for comprehension. It is my job as translator to do the hard yakka, so the reader can ignore the form of the text and understand the point of it.
One of the difficulties, which is always a struggle, is to reconcile idiomatic translation with consistency. In the case of breath meditation, there are a number of technical terms that are clearly explained elsewhere in the suttas, but which are highly obscure if rendered literally. In this translation I try to rephrase some key phrases so as to bring out their meaning more clearly. This will create problems when I try to implement this consistently, so we will see how that goes.
The main changes I have made to my former renderings are as follows:
- An idiomatic approach to the future tense clauses. It seems to me that when we use the English word “practice” it implies something of the historical future mode found in the Pali. If I’m a guitar player and sit down to practice my arpeggios (what? it happened!) it is implied that I have already had (in the past) an idea of what should be done (in the future), and I am now actually doing that. And this is all that is really implied in the historical future idiom, so that should serve.
- The phrases kāyasaṅkhāra and cittasaṅkhāra are especially tricky. They literally mean “physical process” and “mental process”, but the suttas explain them as the breath, and the rapture and bliss. I try to capture this more idiomatically using “motion” and “emotion”. Since the “emotions” are meant to refer back to the rapture and bliss only, not emotions in general, I make that explicit.
- Rather than the unidiomatic “long” and “short”, and my previous choice “deep” and “shallow”, I use “heavy” and “light” in the first two steps. “Heavy” and “light” effectively conveys that we are moving towards a better, more subtle form of breathing, whereas “shallow” breath is usually felt to be worse than “deep”.
And what is mindfulness of breathing? It’s when a mendicant has gone to a wilderness, or to the root of a tree, or to an empty hut. They sit down in the meditation posture, with their body erect, and establish mindfulness in the present.
Ever mindful, they breathe in. Mindful, they breathe out.
Breathing in heavily they know: ‘I’m breathing in heavily.’
Or breathing out heavily they know: ‘I’m breathing out heavily.’
Breathing in lightly they know: ‘I’m breathing in lightly.’
Or breathing out lightly they know: ‘I’m breathing out lightly.’
They practice breathing in experiencing the whole body.
They practice breathing out experiencing the whole body.
They practice breathing in stilling the body’s motion.
They practice breathing out stilling the body’s motion.
They practice breathing in experiencing rapture.
They practice breathing out experiencing rapture.
They practice breathing in experiencing bliss.
They practice breathing out experiencing bliss.
They practice breathing in experiencing these emotions.
They practice breathing out experiencing these emotions.
They practice breathing in stilling these emotions.
They practice breathing out stilling these emotions.
They practice breathing in experiencing the mind.
They practice breathing out experiencing the mind.
They practice breathing in gladdening the mind.
They practice breathing out gladdening the mind.
They practice breathing in converging the mind.
They practice breathing out converging the mind.
They practice breathing in freeing the mind.
They practice breathing out freeing the mind.
They practice breathing in observing impermanence.
They practice breathing out observing impermanence.
They practice breathing in observing fading away.
They practice breathing out observing fading away.
They practice breathing in observing cessation.
They practice breathing out observing cessation.
They practice breathing in observing letting go.
They practice breathing out observing letting go.
This is called mindfulness of breathing.