Using SN 36.7, two of these terms receive further treatment:"On that occasion, the bhikkhu dwells contemplating the body in the body, ardent, clearly comprehending, mindful, having removed covetousness and displeasure in regard to the world."
This is only somewhat helpful; with the term 'mindfulness' I get the feeling that I'm trying to look up a word in a dictionary and being sent to another word (which refers back to the first word), whereas researching 'clear comprehension' adds information (although clear comprehension reads like a colloquial English definition of mindfulness, which bears noting in case confusion over these terms arises later)."And how, bhikkhus, is a bhikkhu mindful? Here, a bhikkhu dwells contemplating the body in the body, ardent, clearly comprehending, mindful, having put away covetousness and displeasure in regard to the world... (and so too with feelings in feelings, mind in mind, and phenomena in phenomena).
"And how, bhikkhus, does a bhikkhu exercise clear comprehension? Here, bhikkhus, a bhikkhu is one who acts with clear comprehension when going forward and returning... when defecating and urinating... when walking, standing, sitting, falling asleep, waking up, speaking, and keeping silent."
Of the four preliminary aspects of anapanasati, I understand three ("having folded his legs crosswise" & "straightened his body" & "just mindful...") and one is obscure ("set up mindfulness in front of him"). I have here a small manual entitled The Four Noble Truths by Thanissaro Bhikkhu, and he offers a variation (the one found on ATI):
Bodhi's "set up mindfulness in front of him" is
Thanissaro's "setting mindfulness to the fore [lit: to the front of the chest]".
With this in mind, the preliminaries I have discerned are:
(a) Go to some quiet place
(b) Sit upright
(c) Place mindfulness on the chest/abdomen/diaphragm/musculo-skeletal breathing apparatus? (more on this below)
(d) Just mindful he breathes in, just mindful he breathes out (this phrase precedes the four tetrads)
So here's the first anapanasati tetrad, using Bodhi's SN 54.10:
Prima facie, the last half of this tetrad is obscure to me, as are the remaining tetrads. It becomes more helpful to me to use Thanissaro's preparatory phrase "to the front of the chest" rather than Bodhi's phrase because using the chest/abdomen/diaphragm as the tool for "knowing" per the first four lines clarifies, for me, what "experiencing the whole body" could mean. In fact, Thanissaro translates that phrase as "He trains himself to breathe in sensitive to the entire body..." and in place of "...tranquilizing..." offers instead "He trains himself to breathe in calming bodily fabrications". So here's Tetrad I (with that little bit from earlier for continuity) using Thanissaro's translation:"Breathing in long, he knows 'I breathe in long';
Breathing out long, he knows 'I breathe out long';
Breathing in short, he knows 'I breathe in short';
Breathing out short, he knows 'I breathe out short';
He trains thus: 'Experiencing the whole body, I will breathe in';
He trains thus: 'Experiencing the whole body, I will breathe out';
He trains thus: 'Tranquilizing the bodily formation, I will breathe in';
He trains thus: 'Tranquilizing the bodily formation, I will breathe out';..."
(d) Breathe in/out | just mindful
(1) Breathe in/out | knowing whether long
(2) Breathe in/out | knowing whether short
(3) Breathe in/out | sensitive to the entire body
(4) Breathe in/out | calming bodily fabrications
We started with the breath, and I'm inclined to read (3) in the context of the Buddha describing the breath as a body among bodies, but (4) definitely refers to the whole physical body, doesn't it? If so, (3) seems to make the most sense when it's taken to mean "sensitive to the entire body inhaling and exhaling", meaning mindfulness of the entire physical mechanism of breathing - it seems to be a sort of broadening of mindfulness, collecting the whole body under its purview instead of just some part, such as the chest or abdomen. Therefore, (4) makes sense if interpreted as some sort of "relaxing" injunction. In short, encompass the various bits, then calm them.
The phrase "...sensitive to..." in (3) is replete in Tetrad II:
(5) Breathe in/out | sensitive to rapture
(6) Breathe in/out | sensitive to pleasure
(7) Breathe in/out | sensitive to mental fabrications
(8) Breathe in/out | calming mental fabrications
So, breathing in and out and apparently still aware of it, since the instructions still refer to breathing in and out and training accordingly, I am to become sensitive to rapture. I can only presume that this sensitizing will occur similarly to (3), above, since the word is an instruction and not a description (perhaps the Pali here can be conveyed with the eccentric "sensitizing to rapture"?)
I assume rapture is the rapture spoken of in SN 12.21:
In other words, {...} --> Faith --> Gladness --> Rapture --> Tranquility --> {...}, whence the source of rapture addressed in Tetrad II. "Pleasure" is a strange thing to have in (6), but earlier I was only instructed to set aside covetousness and displeasure in regard to the world, so pleasure is still along for the ride. Perhaps, as in the first tetrad, it's a matter of broadening the horizons? Here's what I wonder:...Happiness too has a proximate cause... tranquility.
Tranquility... rapture.
Rapture... gladness.
Gladness... faith...
Just as (1-2) added a level of detail to (d), and (3) added a level of detail to (1-2), so too here: breathing in and out, long or short is an addition to merely breathing in and out, so too pleasure is in addition to merely rapture. If so, (7) can be read as 'sensitive to the entire pleasant & unpleasant', just as (3) was 'sensitive to the entire body'.
Here are the other Tetrads for reference:
(09) Breathe in/out | sensitive to the mind
(10) Breathe in/out | satisfying the mind
(11) Breathe in/out | steadying the mind
(12) Breathe in/out | releasing the mind
(13) Breathe in/out | focusing on inconstancy
(14) Breathe in/out | focusing on dispassion
(15) Breathe in/out | focusing on cessation
(16) Breathe in/out | focusing on relinquishment
...but you see the direction I'm going here: Meditation instruction that maps precisely onto the anapanasati tetrads and doesn't bring jhana in to explain the difficult bits. If there is any merit to this approach, perhaps we can work out the remaining half.
Thoughts?