The following post is from Lang (cubibobi):
Hi,
The “revival” of this thread prompted me to ask another question. Could somebody please explain the following section from the Rohitassa Sutta:
“Na kho panāhaṃ, āvuso, appatvā lokassa antaṃ dukkhassa antakiriyaṃ vadāmi. Api ca khvāhaṃ, āvuso, imasmiṃyeva byāmamatte kaḷevare sasaññimhi samanake lokañcapaññapemi lokasamudayañca lokanirodhañca lokanirodha-gāminiñca paṭipadanti.”
One translation of it is:
“Friend, I do not say that all suffering will cease without reaching the end of the world, but I say that the world lies within this fathom long body, which possesses mind and perception. I also teach the origin of the world, the cessation of the world, and the way leading to the cessation of the world.”
The above Pali verse and translation are from a book about Mahasi Sayadaw’s vipassana method.
On the Nature of Nibbana
page 67 (of the book)
Below is the context of my question.
I practiced Goenka’s technique for quite some time, and gave a description of a 10-day course earlier in this thread. In brief, the technique takes bodily vedanā as the object of meditation (kammatthāna). The practitioner scans attention from head to toes and note the vedanā that arise and pass away. Seeing this arising and passing of vedanā is seeing the annica nature of vedanā.
They say that the technique has basis in the Satipatthana Sutta but focuses narrowly on just vedanā out of the four: kaya, vedanā, sankharā, dhammā. This is because to observe vedanā is to observe all. The main rationale for this is 2-fold, based on other places outside the Satipatthana Sutta:
(1) The verse “vedanā-samosaraṇā sabbe dhammā”. They translated this as “Everything that arises in the mind starts flowing with a sensation on the body.” Lal already addressed this earlier in the thread, about the real meaning of the verse.
(2) The above verse in the Rohitassa Sutta and they translated it pretty much as above.
Does this Pali section really mean as the translation? This section is actually used quite often in the traditions of body-based meditation techniques, the part about the “fathom-long body”. I don’t know Pali, but as I scan the Pali section I do not see the word “kaya” (body).
Thank you so much. This point was actually much on my mind before and now got the surface again.