The Standard Pāli scheme on breath meditation (ānāpānasatisamādhi) and the Pāli Buddhābhiseka scheme

Abstract

A complete standard mindful in-breathing and out-breathing meditation development schema, ānāpānasatisamādhi, appears throughout the Pāli Canon and classical Pāli commentaries, such as the Visuddhimagga (Vism VIII 266-293), etc. The ānāpānasatisutta (M III 82) seems to contain not only a detailed textual interpretation of this practice, but it also explicates how this practice enables the practitioner to advance in a gradual way towards personal liberation. The development schema of ānāpānasati also appears in other places in the Pāli Canon, such as the ekadhammasutta (S V 311), girimānandasutta (A V 111) and mahārāhulovādasutta (M I 425), etc. Most of these textual elaborations on breath meditation appear in the teacher-to-practitioner form, or as a third person explanation. However, two Pāli Buddhābhiseka (Ba) texts in palm-leaf manuscript present an abbreviated formula in the first person in which the historical Gotama Bodhisatta himself elaborates upon the practice just before the stages of jhānic absorption. The Buddhābhiseka, apparently paraphrases the standard schema on the development of the ānāpānasati meditation as if the historical Gotama Bodhisatta was speaking, which also suggests that the copyist(s) may have potentially intervened in the text critical-editing. In the regular text, the schema includes 16 stages of mindful in-breathing and out-breathing meditation. The Buddhābhiseka schema is concise yet still presents all sixteen stages of breath meditation. This paper attempts to present the Buddhābhiseka version of ānāpānasati meditation development as it appears in the two palm-leaf manuscripts, and compares it with the standard application of mindful in-breathing and out-breathing meditation as handed down in the Pāli Canonical material. The two Buddhābhisekas present the exact same text, except that fact there are some occasional orthographical variations and some accidental text omissions. The paper discusses the editorial intervention in mindful in-breathing and out-breathing meditation textual schema made by Siamese Pāli experts and also discusses briefly the Buddhābhiseka text and intentions of its composition.