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[ Sitting Practice ]
The Place to Pace
It's not the place you place
The Place to Pace
That makes The Place to Pace
The best place to pace,
It's the pace you pace
The Place to Pace
That makes The Place to Pace
The best place
To out-pace all the rest
1. Pa¾c'ime bhikkhave ca¸kame ¤nisa³s¤. Katame pa¾ca?
2. Addh¤nakkhamo hoti, padh¤nakkhamo hoti, app¤b¤dho hoti, asitap¨takh¤yitas¤yitasamm¤pari¼¤maµ gacchati, ca¸kam¤dhigato sam¤dhi ciraÂÂhitiko hoti.
Ime kho bhikkhave pa¾ca ca¸kame ¤nisaµs¤ ti.
Pa¾ca:(Latin: quiinque, Gothic. fimf, Lith. penki, (P > F) (English Pinky, finicky, he picks over his food, finger) Old Irish: coic) Five. Hold up your han. Ciñco. Cinq. Cinque. Funf. PED: "Five" is the number of "comprehensive and yet simple" unity or a set; it is applied in all cases of a natural and handy comprehension of several items into a group, after the 5 fingers of the hand, which later lies at the bottom of all primitive expressions of No.5...The word for 5 itself in its original form is identical with the word for hand.
Ca¸kama: The Place to Pace
Hare: Alley-walk; Warren: Walking Place
£nisamggsa: (¤: to + ni: down + sa¸sa: associated with) praise, i.e. that which is commendable, profit, merit, advantage, good result, blessing in or from.
The Five Advantages to the Virtuous:
1. Great Wealth
2. Good Reputation
3. Self Confidence
4. Meeting Death Unafraid
5. Finding consciousness after death relocated to a happy condition
Addh¤nakkhamo: addh¤na: path, road, journey, time + khama: patient, forgiving 2. enduring, bearing, hardend to fit for
Hare: harden for travel
Padh¤nakkhamo: padh¤na: exertion, energetic, effort, striving, concentration of mind.
The Four:
1. sa¸vara: self control
2. Pah¤na: letting go
3. Bhavana: self improvement
4. Anurakkhan¼a: guard
Hare: good for striving
App¤b¤dho: Appa: little b¤dho: 2 guesses? b¤dhati: to press, weigh on; oppress, hinder, afflict, harm. b¤dhana 2. afffliction, injury, hurting (PED: In Pali there seems to have taken place a confusion of roots b¤dh (opress) and bandh (tie up > bandhana, brand)
Hare: healthy
Asitap¨takh¤yitas¤yitasamm¤pari¼¤maµ gacchati:
Asi tap¨ta: torment, punishment, penance
Kh¤yita: waste, destruction, consumption decay, ruin, loss
S¤yita: tasting >savour
Samm¤ pari¼¤ma gacchati: "bending around" change, alteration 2, alteration of food, digestion, in phrase samm¤-pari¼¤mang gacchati
Hare: tends to good digestion after one has eaten and drunk, munched and crunched
Ca¼kam¤dhigato sam¤dhi ciraÂÂhitiko: cira: long (of time) [Latin: while English: wiloon; German: High Old hveila; Gothic: civis; quiees,] ÂÂhitika: standing thusly, perpetual, lasting long
Hare: the concentration won from (the thought of) an alley-walk lasts long.
Hare footnotes this: At A. iv, 87 the Buddha exhorts Moggallana to concentrate on his alley-walk to get rid of torpor. Comy. here observes: 'By fixing the attentionon the alley-walk, a concentration of the eight attainments (A.iv,410, omitting the last[2]) is won.
This is the passage from the Hare translation "If it pass not (the drowsiness), then, with the senses withdrawn, the mind not outward gone, shouldst thou fix thy thought on the alley-walk, conscious of its front and back; and maybe, as thou abidest so, that drowsiness will pass."
It is unclear to me as to whether this indicates an instruction as to how to actually use the Alley walk, or to simply put one's mind on it (this is in the context, as noted, of instructing Moggallana in techniques for remaining wakeful). My inclination is towards the idea that this is a mental exercise, not a technique for use of the Place to pace. In my experience, while using the place to pace, one does not concentrate on it; one is aware of it (and it certainly becomes associated with good states in the mind), but one uses pacing back and forth as a platform for developing concentration. The pacing back and forth is sufficiently routine that it allows for deep concentration (or the other way around, it requires little attention to keep on pacing...remember the Satipatthana: "This is the way he retains just sufficient conciousness to know: "This is the body".) On the other hand given the same skill at attaining a concentrated state, it is more difficult to do so pacing back and forth than it is sitting and consequently has the benefits of that which is harder-won. My take.
Five, Beggars, are the advantages associated with using the Place to Pace:
1. One stretches and conditions the limbs
2. It rouses energy
3. It is of little harm
3. One is not afflicted by heartburn and indigestion after eating
4. The samadhi gained walking the Place to Pace lasts a long time
Hardness and unevenness;
trees in the midst;
dense underbrush;
excessive narrowness;
excessive width.
[1]Footnote to PTS: Cankama (pron. chankaamaa) Later, it became a cloister or terraced walk; see Vin.ii, 190 (Vin Texts, iii, 103f.); but originally it must have been merely a clearing in the land about a monk's dwelling; see Comy. at J. i, y, which gives the five defects (Buddhism in Translations, see below, note, Warren, p21; cf. Rh. Davids, Bud. Birth-stories, p. 89.)
[2]The 4 Burnings (jh¤na) and the 4 Immaterial Burnings.
[3]Warren, Buddhism in Translations, pp9n1
References:
Anguttara Nikaya, 5. Pancakanipata, Pancangika vagga, III.29
PTS: The Book of the Gradual Sayings or More-Numbered Suttas, III: The Book of the Fives, The Fivefold, ix (#29), The alley-walk, E.M. Hare, trans, pp21
Warren, Buddhism in Translations
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Tuesday, February 25, 2003 8:17 AM
