AN 7.67 B. Sujato translates hiri as 'conscience':
in the same
way a noble disciple has a conscience. They’re conscientious about bad
conduct by way of body, speech, and mind, and conscientious about having
any bad, unskillful qualities.
It's not necessarily a wrong translation or interpretation, but by not translating it as 'shame', as many other translators do, it loses the powerful motivating factor that 'shame' has in governing people's actions, in our practice. Here's an excerpt from B. Thanissaro that explains why really well.
And in a similar vein IMO, this is why the Buddha talks about 4 noble truths of suffering, and not 4 noble truths of happiness. Both could work, but dukkha is a powerful motivating factor, to drive our practice. A focus on happiness could easily lead to complacency.
As translators, I feel it's best to be true to the original source, and not try to white wash or attempt to improve the Buddha's words because at first glance they conflict with modern issues (such as psychological impact of unhealthy 'shame' and self esteem).
Two Kinds of Shame
This reflection by Ajaan Geoff is from the book, First Things First, (pdf) pp.12-13.
The high value that the Buddha placed on shame contrasts sharply with
the way it’s regarded in many segments of our culture today. In business
and in politics, shame is all too often viewed as weakness. Among
therapists, it’s commonly seen as pathological—an unhealthy low opinion
of yourself that prevents you from being all that you can. Book after
book gives counsel on how to overcome feelings of shame and to affirm
feelings of self-worth in their place.
It’s easy to understand this general reaction against shame. The emotion
of shame—the sense that you don’t look good in the eyes of others—is a
powerful one. It’s where we allow the opinion of other people into our
psyches, and all too often unscrupulous people take advantage of that
opening to trample our hearts: to bully us and force on us standards of
judgment that are not in our genuine best interests. It’s bad enough
when they try to make us ashamed of things over which we have little or
no control: race, appearance, age, gender, sexual orientation, level of
intelligence, or financial status. It’s even worse when they try to
shame us into doing harm, like avenging old wrongs.
But efforts to avoid these problems by totally abolishing shame miss an
important point: There are two kinds of shame—the unhealthy shame that’s
the opposite of self-esteem, and the healthy shame that’s the opposite
of shamelessness.
This second kind of shame is the shame that the Buddha calls a bright
guardian and a treasure. If, in our zeal to get rid of the first kind of
shame, we also get rid of the second, we’ll create a society of
sociopaths who care nothing for other people’s opinions of right or
wrong—or who feel shame about all the wrong things.
Businessmen and politicians who see no shame in lying, for instance,
feel shame if they’re not at least as ruthless as their peers. And for
all the general dismissal of shame, advertisers still find that shame
over your body or ostensible wealth is a powerful tool for selling
products.
When all shame gets pathologized, it goes underground in the mind, where
people can’t think clearly about it and then sends out tentacles that
spread harm all around us.
Anālayo is particularly well placed to give an authoritative account of
early Buddhist mindfulness in practice and theory. He is able to conduct
research by comparing Chinese Agamas and Pali Canonical texts, with
reference to Tibetan and Ghandharvan text fragments. And he is that rare
and precious combination, a scholar-practitioner. ...
Anālayo ends this book with a new and more comprehensive definition of
mindfulness than is used in most current scholarship, Buddhist or
secular. He defines it as “an openly receptive presence that enables a
full taking in of information, resulting in an awake quality of the mind
that facilitates clarity and recollection by monitoring, in the present
moment and without interfering, the internal and external repercussions
of whatever is taking place.”
I don't know what scholars are reading and what they're thinking if that's what they think 'mindfulness' is. It certainly isn't the Buddha's definition of 'sati' in the pali suttas, the agamas, etc.
Sati ("mindfulness") interferes actively whenever necessary. If defilements arise, you kick them out the door immediately. You don't stand idly by "without interfering", like a choiceless awareness zombie with "an open receptive presence."
AN 7.67 -🏰 Ask yourself if you want that guy in the picture to be your gatekeeper to the fortress (simile of mindfulness) in this sutta.
At the bare minimum he should so conduct himself that he becomes proficient in at least one kasiṇa meditation. It would be improper for him not to do at least this much."
Theravada subcommentary explains further
(B. Yuttadhammo trans.)
Āruppāti iminā catassopi arūpasamāpattiyo gahitā, tā pana catūhi rūpasamāpattīhi vinā na sampajjantīti āha –
In regards to "āruppa": by these ones, all four immaterial attainments are taken, but they do not attain without the four material attainments,
thus it was said, "āruppa was said referring to the extent of the eight attainments".
B. Dhammanando explains ‘ettavata’
frank k wrote: ↑Sun Oct 11, 2020 7:47 am
So what the Theravada commentary is saying, wrongly, is that the four jhanas are a-rūpa (since 4 jhanas are part of the 8 attainments).
Ven. Responds:
No. If the commentator had meant that, he would merely have said:
_Āruppā_ti aṭṭha samāpattiyo.
As it is, you're overlooking the word ettāvatā:
Ettāvatā: by just so much, with this much; to such an extent; so far, to that extent; thus.
(Margaret Cone's dictionary)
and the word api, ("also").
The combination of the two words is often used by the commentators when they want to say that some statement is to be understood as allusive or implicative: "Though the Buddha mentioned only X, we should understand Y and Z to be included too."
a-rūpa and āruppa
With regard to word-formation, arūpa is formed by adding the negative prefix a- to rūpa.
Āruppa is formed by adding the suffix -ṇya to arūp, leading to assimilation (p + -ṇya = pp) and stem-vowel lengthening.
It's analogous to how sāmaññā ("the state of an ascetic") is formed from samaṇa ("ascetic").
With regard to meaning, āruppa is a more specialised term, used to refer to either
(1) meditation subjects that lead to arūpāvacarajjhāna;
(2) the arūpāvacarajjhānas themselves; or
(3) the vipāka that comes from developing arūpāvacarajjhāna, i.e., formless planes of existence.
Arūpa includes all of these too, but a dozen other things besides.
Āruppa (adj.) [fr. arūpa as ā (= a2) -- *rūpya] formless, incorporeal; nt. formless existence D iii.275; M i.410 cp. 472; iii.163; S i.131 (˚ṭṭhāyin); ii.123; A iv.316 It 61; Sn 754; J i.406; Dhs 1385 (cp. trsl. 57); Vism 338; DA i.224; SnA 488, 508; Sdhp 5, 10; the four Vism iii, 326 sq.
The PED seems to have a typo. Āruppa is a noun, not an adjective.
frank k wrote: ↑Sun Oct 11, 2020 7:47 am
The subcommentary for MN 69 says:
[...]
That seems to be correcting the commentary, saying that it's only the four a-arupa attainments that are meant, and not the 4 rupa attainments. Then it mentions there are ten-fold kasinas.
I don't understand what it says about parikkama ...
Can someone confirm I'm translating correctly for subcmy?
Cūḷa Dhammapāla isn't correcting Buddhaghosa. The gist of his first sentence is that Buddhaghosa says what he does because there's no divorcing the attainment of the arūpasamāpattis from that of the rūpasamāpattis. The rest is just saying at length what Buddhaghosa said in brief.
Can someone give a complete translation of this line? It's the commentary to MN 69.
♦ "āruppā" ti ettāvatā aṭṭhapi samāpattiyo vuttā honti. tā pana sabbena sabbaṃ asakkontena sattasupi yogo karaṇīyo, chasupi ... pe ... pañcasupi. sabbantimena paricchedena ekaṃ kasiṇe parikammakammaṭṭhānaṃ paguṇaṃ katvā ādāya vicaritabbaṃ, ettakaṃ vinā na vaṭṭati.
First sentence says 'aruppa' refers to the 8 meditative attainments. Kasinas are mentioned, but I can't make out what the rest of that definition is saying.
The relevant line from MN 69:
Āraññikenāvuso, bhikkhunā ye te santā vimokkhā atikkamma rūpe āruppā tattha yogo karaṇīyo. A wilderness monk should practice meditation to realize the peaceful liberations that are formless, transcending form.
So what the Theravada commentary is saying, wrongly, is that the four jhanas are a-rūpa (since 4 jhanas are part of the 8 attainments).
And can someone explain the difference between the two spellings a-rūpa and āruppa (which mean the same thing)?
Āruppa (adj.) [fr. arūpa as ā (= a2) -- *rūpya] formless, incorporeal; nt. formless existence D iii.275; M i.410 cp. 472; iii.163; S i.131 (˚ṭṭhāyin); ii.123; A iv.316 It 61; Sn 754; J i.406; Dhs 1385 (cp. trsl. 57); Vism 338; DA i.224; SnA 488, 508; Sdhp 5, 10; the four Vism iii, 326 sq.
That seems to be correcting the commentary, saying that it's only the four a-rūpa attainments that are meant, and not the 4 rūpa attainments. Then it mentions there are ten-fold kasinas. I don't understand what it says about parikkama ...
Can someone confirm I'm translating correctly for subcmy?
The two suttas AN 4.11 and AN 4.12 are a connected set to be read and understood together.
AN 4.12 talks about doing four jhanas in all four postures without explicitly using the label '4 jhanas', instead using synonymous terms from the 7sb awakening factors (passaddhi, samadhi, ekaggata, etc.). Similar to how AN 8.63, SN 47.4, also are very clearly describing four jhanas without ever using the term 'jhana'.
AN 4.12 also doesn't mention vitakka and vicara, so it's clear when the previous sutta AN 4.11 is describing a stage prior to first jhana, with vitakka and vicara, and when the vitakka has been calmed, second jhana is implied, and since it has a clear thematic continuation with AN 4.12, we can then be certain it is second jhana being referenced.
The phrase Vitakk-ūpasame is used in the verse, which is nearly the same as second jhana's stock formula of "vitakka vicaranam vupasama" (thoughts and evaluation have subsided). In verse, for poetic and metric matching reasons, this is often done, where you see slight variations of recognizable parts of jhana formulas.
Evidently, B. Sujato must agree with that interpretation, because even though the word 'vitakka' appears exactly 28 times in AN 4.11, most of those references describing akusala thoughts to be removed and replaced with kusala thoughts, B. Sujato only translates 27 of 28 of those references as 'thought', and the 28th reference (highlighted in grey in the evidence below) when that vitakka/thought is referring to second jhana, he abducts and executes 'vitakka' and replaces it with an impostor "peace of mind", completely eradicating reference to 'thought'. Educated guess: when he tried plugging his usual "placing the mind" (for vitakka of first jhana) into that line of verse, he could not come up with any coherent phrase. "loving the act of not placing the mind", is just incomprehensible as well as linguistically awkward.
He also translates 'rato' here as 'loving', which is just wrong, and by doing that removes an implicit reference to piti and sukha of second jhana. 'Rato' (usually translated as enjoyment or delight), in conjunction with the 'vitakka upasame', is a poetic and super concise way of expressing standard second jhana formula's statement that one has rapture and pleasure born of samadhi in reaction to the subsiding of vitakka (thoughts, not 'placing the mind').
Audit of Evidence
https://suttacentral.net/an4.11/en/sujato
But one who, whether standing or walking,Yocacaraṃvātiṭṭhaṃvā, sitting or lying down,Nisinnoudavāsayaṃ; has calmed their thoughts,Vitakkaṃsamayitvāna, loving peace of mind;Vitakkūpasamerato; such a mendicant is capableBhabbosotādisobhikkhu, of touching the highest awakening.”Phuṭṭhuṃsambodhimuttaman”ti.
My version of the same sutta AN 4.11, based on B. Sujato mostly unchanged (as of yet), so you can see more context with the 27 other vitakkas in the sutta.
“monks, suppose a monk has a sensual, malicious, or cruel thought while walking.
Tañce bhikkhu adhivāseti, nappajahati na vinodeti na byantīkaroti na anabhāvaṃ gameti, carampi, bhikkhave, bhikkhu evaṃbhūto ‘anātāpī anottāpī satataṃ samitaṃ kusīto hīnavīriyo’ti vuccati.
They tolerate it and don’t give it up, get rid of it, eliminate it, and obliterate it. Such a monk is said to be ‘not keen or prudent, always lazy, and lacking energy’ when walking.
AN 4.11 one who purifies thoughts in all 4 postures capable of nirvana
B. Thanissaro, with one correct translation and interpretation of the verse:
♦ vitakkaṃ samayitvāna,
overcomes thought,
Vitakk-ūpasame rato.
delighting in the stilling of thought:
Do you see the important difference here, in comparison to B. Sujato's wrong translation:
vitakkaṃ samayitvāna,
has calmed their thoughts,
vitakkūpasame rato;
loving peace of mind;
AN 4.11 and AN 4.12 is giving very specific, technical, and exacting specification of what vitakka and vicara does in first and second jhana. B. sujato is wiping out that important instruction with his deliberate mistranslation. While "loving peace of mind" is an acceptable translation and interpretation from certain perspectives, we can not excuse B. Sujato here because he's translated all the pali nikayas, and he has consistently and systematically attempted to wipe out references to vitakka in jhana and replaced it with a completely incompatible jhana system not from the EBT (early buddhist teachings).
In the cases where he translated vitakka of first and second jhana correctly in some of the other suttas in the nikayas, as I've shown in my audits over many years, they were either done by oversight (he didn't realize those vitakka references were to jhana), or plugging in his preferred 'placing the mind' would have been completely incomprehensible (even more incoherent than his usual mistranslation offenses, in lexical and semantic ways).
In conclusion, where someone with a conscience and ethical translation standards might start to question themselves whether they actually have a correct interpretation of jhana and vitakka if they have to regularly translate passages with vague and tortured meanings of well established terms with incontrovertible meaning (such as vitakka), other translators are blinded by bias and true belief in their wrong views and soldier on in their mission to convert the rest of the world to their views.
In the EBT, vitakka always means 'thought'. Take a look sometime, I've tracked every single reference to that word in the suttas, highlighted and excerpted the passages, presented on a silver platter.
