Dear Lal,
Let’s set aside rhetorical games about “backing off” or “realizing errors.” Correcting your absolute, mutually exclusive summaries is not backing off; it is maintaining doctrinal precision. My position has not shifted a single millimeter.
Let me address your points directly, because they perfectly highlight the fatal flaw of the “phonetic unpacking” method you are trying to use.
1. The “Meaning” of Breathing You asked: “What is the need to give ‘breathing’ such prominence?” Because the physical breath is the only bodily function that is completely continuous, always present in the “here and now,” and uniquely situated on the border between the autonomic nervous system and conscious will. It is the perfect anchor for developing samādhi. Furthermore, your claim that no one attained magga phala starting with breath meditation is directly refuted by the Buddha himself in the Mahā Rāhulovāda Sutta (MN 62), where he explicitly instructs Rāhula to develop Ānāpānasati to reach the ultimate culmination of insight. The fact that the Dhamma can also be realized through hearing (paratoghosa) does not invalidate the explicit, step-by-step meditative mechanics the Buddha laid out in MN 118 for monks going to the forest.
2. Avoiding Physical Anatomy (Kāyānupassanā) You quoted my paragraph about kesā, lomā, nakhā, dantā, taco (hair, nails, teeth, skin), but noticeably offered zero explanation for it. If, as you claim, Kāyānupassanā has nothing to do with the physical body, how does your system explain the Buddha explicitly instructing monks to contemplate a physical tooth (dantā) or a fingernail (nakhā)? Are you going to “phonetically unpack” a fingernail to mean a mental defilement? The Suttas explicitly describe the physical body; trying to force an abstract, mental definition onto gross physical anatomy breaks the internal consistency of the Tipitaka.
3. The Definition of Assāsa and Passāsa You stated: “The problem is with translating it [Assāsa-passāsa] as: ‘In-breathing and out-breathing’.”
This is the exact moment your phonetic redefinition completely collapses against the wider Tipitaka. If assāsa and passāsa do not mean physical in-breathing and out-breathing, let us look at the Mahāsaccaka Sutta (MN 36).
In MN 36, the ascetic Gotama describes his severe ascetic practices before his awakening. He states that he practiced “breathless meditation” (appāṇakaṃ jhānaṃ):
“I stopped the in-breaths and out-breaths through my mouth and nose.” (So kho ahaṃ, aggivessana, mukhato ca nāsato ca assāsapassāse uparundhiṃ).
When he stopped his assāsapassāse, the Sutta says it caused roaring winds in his head and terrible, agonizing physical pain.
Lal, please answer this directly: If assāsa and passāsa mean taking in good things and discarding bad things (or subduing mental defilements), why did stopping them cause the Buddha physical agony, deafening noise in his ears, and extreme physical suffering? The answer is obvious: Assāsapassāse literally means the physical breath. When you physically hold your breath through your mouth and nose, it causes physical pain. Your non-physical redefinition of these words completely fails in this context, destroying the consistency you claim your system has.
Conclusion: Once again, you rely entirely on saying “the translation is wrong” without objective proof, replacing historical meaning with your own subjective interpretation. When tested against MN 36 (holding the breath) and MN 10 (anatomical parts), your definitions create massive contradictions. I look forward to hearing how you explain the physical pain of holding the assāsapassāse through the mouth and nose in MN 36.
With respect,
Nibbid83