My day has been rather pleasantly diverted into a study of the future tense in Pali, which, meandering on various byways, eventually led me to a consideration of the use of future tense in the context of mindfulness of breathing.
The 16 steps of mindfulness of breathing, as taught in detail in SN 54.1, MN 118, etc. and more briefly in MN 10, begin with a fairly standard phrasing in the present tense.
Dīghaṃ vā assasanto ‘dīghaṃ assasāmī’ti pajānāti
Breathing in long, they understand “I breathe in long”.
Such phrases are used commonly in meditative contexts, and they indicative a reflexive awareness. It doesn’t mean, “thinking”, but rather that you are aware of the process as you do it. Compare such phrases as:
sukhaṃ vā vedanaṃ vedayamāno ‘sukhaṃ vedanaṃ vedayāmī’ti pajānāti
Saṅkhittaṃ vā cittaṃ ‘saṅkhittaṃ cittan’ti pajānāti
And so on. But from the third step of anapana things get a little more complex. We have:
‘sabbakāyapaṭisaṃvedī assasissāmī’ti sikkhati
They train, “I will breathe in experiencing the whole body.”
Note that I’m keeping things as literal as possible here, I’m not discussing interpretation of sabbakāya.
The same pattern is used for the remaining steps. The shift is very characteristic, and is handled consistently in the context of anapana in Pali. It seems to be indicating a more intentional shift, a deliberate thought or determination to practice in this way, in contrast with the more natural flow in the first two steps. This is, however, not unproblematic, as we usually think of breath meditation as being very much about letting go, following the natural flow of the breath, rather than making oneself follow a set of pre-determined steps. Let’s see if this interpretation is justified.
Note that this shift is absent from the Sanskrit version in the Arthaviniścaya (Arv 20, Anandajoti’s translation):
Sarva-kāya-saṁskāra-pratisaṁvedī āśvasan sarva-kāya-saṁskāra-pratisaṁvedī āśvasāmīti yathā-bhūtaṁ prajānāti
While breathing in and experiencing the whole bodily conditions he knows as it really is: I am breathing in and experiencing the whole bodily conditions
Unfortunately there do not seem to be many parallels to this in Sanskrit. So far as I can determine, the Chinese versions also do not include the shift to future tense.
Regarding the relation between the Pali and Sanskrit, on the face of it the Pali would seem to be preferred as the more difficult reading. It is easy to understand how the Sanskrit version would arise by simple standardization, less easy to see how the Pali would have derived from something like the Sanskrit.
You’d think such a striking shift in a central passage would have prompted a clear explanation, but this is not so. The Visuddhimagga is the core text here, and it merely says that the shift to future tense is to indicate that from then on “the aspect of arousing knowledge, etc. has to be undertaken from then on.” The subcommentary seems a little embarrassed by this, admitting that of course knowledge must be aroused from the beginning of the practice, but that from here on it is much harder, and requires exceptional prior effort. This seems equally forced.
I’ve checked my usual go-tos for this point and nothing comes up, so if anyone knows of any discussions of this point, I would be interested to learn of them.
Given that this passage is included in MN 10/DN 22, it has been treated by many translators. Most of them acknowledge the future tense, using either “will” or “shall”. There are some exceptions, though. In older translations of MN 10 and MN 118, Ven Thanissaro used:
He trains himself to breathe in sensitive to the entire body
However, in more recent translations he has changed this to: “He trains himself, ‘I will breathe in sensitive to the entire body.’”
Ven Brahmali in his ongoing Vinaya translation has:
When breathing in, he trains in having the full experience of the breath
While Rupert Gethin in his Sayings of the Buddha has:
He practices so that he can breathe in, experiencing the whole body.
While avoiding the future tense, these do retain the sense that this is something that is intentionally trained in.
There is a common idiom that we can compare this to, the stock phrase where the Buddha instructs students to train themselves. This occurs countless times. Here is a typical example from AN 2.2:
Tasmātiha, bhikkhave, evaṃ sikkhitabbaṃ:
So you should train like this:
‘sabbūpadhipaṭinissaggatthaṃ padhānaṃ padahissāmā’ti.
‘We will try to let go of all attachments.’
Evañhi vo, bhikkhave, sikkhitabban”ti.
That’s how you should train.”
Compare with the phrase in breath meditation. In both cases the verb sikkhati is used, applied to another action expressed by a verb in the future tense.
The syntax is, in fact, identical to breath meditation. The only real difference is that in breath meditation the training is in present tense, something one is actually doing, rather than here, as future passive participle, something one should do.
The point is that the future tense as used in breath meditation does not mean what one will do from here on. It is a “historical future” referring back to a prior event, whether it was a teaching that was heard, or a thought or intention to implement that teaching, or even just a purely hypothetical occasion. It was at that historical time that the future tense was used, which is why it is indicated as a quote with -ti.
Curiously, this use of -ti is quite distinct from the reflexive use of -ti in the first two steps. There, the reflexive quality is indicated by the repetition (dīghaṃ vā assasanto ‘dīghaṃ assasāmī’ti), which is not the case from the third step on.
The use of such historical tenses is very common in Pali, and their representation in the target language should not be literal, but judged according to the context. For example, the opening of suttas says that:
bhagavā sāvatthiyaṁ viharati
If we were to render it “literally” it would be “the Buddha is staying near Sāvatthī”. Which would be the best news I have heard all day! Alas, here the present indicative tense is set in a historical past, as indicated by the prior ekaṁ samayaṁ, “At one time”. Thus, even though it is present tense, it is always rendered “the Buddha was staying near Sāvatthī.” Thus in such cases the context takes precedence over the linguistic form, and should be rendered using whatever idiom conveys the meaning most clearly.
In the context of breath meditation, this means that either the fact that the future tense is historical must be indicated—whether with quote marks or in some other way—or it should be rephrased in such a way as to make the situation clear.
So it seems we should accept that this idiom in breath meditation does, in fact, represent an intentional mode. It represents someone who has heard and accepted the teaching, and is consciously meditating in order to realize this, following instructions. Again, it doesn’t matter linguistically whether these instructions actually happened, if they are thoughts in the mind, or even if they’re purely hypothetical, merely a linguistic formalism to express the situation.
Of course, it doesn’t mean you sit there and say to yourself, “Now I will experience the whole body!” But it does mean that there is an awareness of the teaching, an understanding of how the practice proceeds, which is used to guide one’s development.
This leaves open the question as to why the pattern shifts from the present tense in the first two steps. I don’t know if there is a clear explanation for this, but it seems to me that the implication is that the first steps are simply experiences of the breath that everyone has. Everyone has breath that is sometimes deeper, sometimes shallower, and knowing this is not restricted to breath meditation as such. Only when we begin to expand our awareness, experiencing the subtle energies of the body, the rapture and bliss of meditation, do we begin to step into the realm where “training” is required, in the sense of a conscious, intentional spiritual practice.
To return to our translation:
‘sabbakāyapaṭisaṃvedī assasissāmī’ti sikkhati
They train, “I will breathe in experiencing the whole body.”
I don’t know if this sense is conveyed clearly enough. Perhaps we should use something a little more like:
They implement the training to breathe in experiencing the whole body.
Or:
They implement the training to experience the whole body while breathing in.
Or more idiomatically:
They practice breathing in experiencing the whole body.
