AN 4.12, KN Iti 111: B. Sujato says that Mendicants should "carefully lie"

 

Ironically, the sutta is titled "Ethics" (sīla)

AN 4.12: Sīlasutta—Bhikkhu Sujato

At the verse section ending the sutta,

Carefully walking, carefully standing,Yataṁ care yataṁ tiṭṭhe,carefully sitting, carefully lying;Yataṁ acche yataṁ saye;a mendicant carefully bends their limbs,Yataṁ samiñjaye bhikkhu,and carefully extends them.Yatamenaṁ pasāraye.

KN Iti 111 is the same sutta, contains same error.

My lucid24.org translation based on Sujato's  is corrected to show

Yataṃ care yataṃ tiṭṭhe,	Carefully walking, carefully standing,
Yataṃ acche yataṃ saye;	carefully sitting, carefully lying down;
Yataṃ samiñjaye bhikkhu,	a monk carefully bends their limbs,
Yatamenaṃ pasāraye.	and carefully extends them.

Sujato is technically not wrong

"lying" is a present participle of "lie", 

and "lie" ambiguously can mean 

(1) telling an untruth, 

(2) or taking a horizontal resting position.

I can only assume Sujato knew his  translation of  "lying" was ambiguous, 

and reasoned that the context made the meaning clear (with 3 other postures).

My editorial on ethics, and appearance of it

But my eyes were burning and my skin was crawling with heebie jeebies

when I saw these two words next to each other:

"Carefully LYING." 

To me, Lying is arguably the most offensive thing in the history of the universe.

As the Buddha said in MN 61, 

someone who lies, 

there is no evil that they are unwilling to do. 

evameva kho, rāhula,	“In the same way, Rāhula,
yassa kassaci sampajāna-musā-vāde natthi lajjā,	when anyone telling-a-deliberate-lie {feels} no shame,
n-āhaṃ tassa kiñci pāpaṃ a-karaṇīyanti vadāmi.	{I say} there is no evil he will not do.
tasmātiha te, rāhula, ‘hassāpi na musā bhaṇissāmī’ti —	Therefore, Rāhula, [thinking]: ‘Even-in-jest no lie will-I-tell.’
evañhi te, rāhula, sikkhitabbaṃ.	In such a way, ********, you should train.

What's more offensive than deliberate lying?

Carefully lying.

To me, that implies someone cunning, ruthless, evil, crafty,

maintaining an appearance of goodness,

so skilled they can carry out their evil agendas with 

deliberate lies, blatantly, out in the open,

and trick the public into thinking it's true and justified.

So my stance on translating "carefully lying":

You don't even want to take a chance that someone is going to read that

and have to decode which  "lying" is meant. 

Just as the Buddha in the vinaya 

warns mendicants to stay clear of 

evil places, people, things, situations where the public 

might rightly become suspicious of a mendicant's character

for associating with evil.

I don't want to be seen anywhere near the words, "carefully lying".

Appearance of ethics is part of good ethics.