In SN54.6 in Bhante Sujato’s translation, the Buddha gives this instruction to Venerable Ariṭṭha on breath meditation:
“[…] Just mindful, they breathe in. Mindful, they breathe out. Breathing in heavily they know: ‘I’m breathing in heavily.’ Breathing out heavily they know: ‘I’m breathing out heavily.’ … They practice like this: ‘I’ll breathe in observing letting go.’ They practice like this: ‘I’ll breathe out observing letting go.’ This is how mindfulness of breathing is fulfilled in detail.”
This is interesting because it deviates from the 16 steps taught in MN118, and when putting the translation side-by-side with the root text, the Pali appears to match the translation.
However, several translations to other languages actually enumerate the 16 steps here. For example, Enzo Alfano’s Italian translation, Isidatta’s Spanish translation, and Rémy Zins’s French translation do this. Dr. Hellmuth Hecker’s German translation doesn’t enumerate the 16 steps but it explicitly references them:
Da begibt sich der Mönch in den Wald und übt die sechzehnfache Atembetrachtung
Does anyone have insight into what has happened here? Did these translators work with a different root text that was mistakenly coded as SN54.6?
There are indeed different root texts around for the same suttas (so probably not “mistakenly coded”). These different versions of the root text sometimes vary in details, but generally agree on all major points.
I assume that Hecker’s translation is based on the Pali Text Society’s edition of the root text, while SuttaCentral uses the Mahasangiti edition. I don’t know whether or not there are major differences in abbreviation in the various root editions. On SuttaCentral, only minor variations between editions are listed for SN54.6:
In plain view, the ellipses denotes the truncation.
Breathing out heavily they know: ‘I’m breathing out heavily.’ … They practice like this: ‘I’ll breathe in observing letting go.’
In line by line view you see in the Pali what Dogen showed ("…pe…)
Breathing in heavily they know: ‘I’m breathing in heavily.’ Breathing out heavily they know: ‘I’m breathing out heavily.’ …
Dīghaṁ vā assasanto ‘dīghaṁ assasāmī’ti pajānāti …pe…
They practice like this: ‘I’ll breathe in observing letting go.’ They practice like this: ‘I’ll breathe out observing letting go.’
