To be perfectly honest I can't without going to get the commentary which is not here now or his book which is stored away somewhere. It's quite possible that his explanation is in line with the predominant exolanation of the commentary. But I remember that there are different explanations which the speaker I was listening to (joseoh Goldstein) referred to in passing without explaining in the least before saying he was going to go with Ven Analayo's. Again in this one case fair enough and maybe it's the best explanation. But the thing that kind of amazes me is that so far in approximately 13 hours of talks on the sutta that I have listened to he hasn't made a single reference to the classical commentary which would require a subtler, less easily applicable explanation of satipatthana. Now and somebody pointed out earlier in this thread if I expect to find that I am listening in the wrong place since he is speaking to retreatsnts who are practicing a certain kind of insight meditation. But these talks have been published as a book and seeing the respect he receives now they will stand along Ven Anakayo's as important kind of authoratative interpretations of the Satipatthana sutta and the subtleties will be lost. Does it matter? Obviously since I have listen to 13 hours of these talks I am enjoying them and benefiting from them probably at the cost of accurate understanding of how subtle Satipatthana is but the practices pointed at are very beneficial for living life in the wholesome way and that is good enough for me now. But I always keep in mind when listening that it is a rather facile, overly pragmatic presentation. It is always easy to look at the Buddha's teachings and say they are pragmatic and there certainly is a huge pragmatic element but it seems to me that it has been stripped down these days to sheer pragmatism seeking effective methods for change now at the expense of some very subtle depths that might interfere with a pragmatic step by step method of applying it effectively to get results in the precious I -took -time -off- for -this -and -I- -had -better -get -some -results retreat. Anyways enough said, just my opinion. As usual sorry for any typos, on the run.Mkoll wrote:TBH, I don't know the difference between Ven. Analayo's interpretation and the ancient commentarial interpretation of internal/external awareness of feelings/mind.phil wrote:I had a reason to groan re this this evening. Listening to a popular teacher's talk on MN 10, when he got to the section on internal and external awareness of feelings and mind, he noted that there were many explanations about the meaning of this but didn't mention them at all and instead just jumped into a very appealing, easily applicable explanation in terms of inferring the feelings and mind states of others, all of it very emotionally sensible in terms of dealing with people, then when he got to the internal and external and he chose venerable Analayo's explanation, and during all this at no point did he make a reference to what else the ancient commentaries say. And this is always the case as everyone turns to venerable Analayo's book as though it were an authoritative commentary rather then a book written by a modern monk whose understanding has developed in line with a soecific modern tradition of meditation. (Forgive me if I am wrong about that but I recall from reading the book that there were many references to the Mahasi Sayadaw style. Which is fair enough for a book eritten for devotees of that, but not for a book which is now taken to be an authoritative commentary.) Does it matter that modern listeners are being led to rely on neo-commentaries while ignoring the classical commentaries? Again we are responsible for our own understanding so moaning about what's happening to other people's understanding is silly. But I too am silly so I have to do it on occasion.
Phil
Can you briefly explain the difference?
Phil