Thanks for the well informed discussion everyone.
The comments on comments have brought more comments to mind. Go figure.
On the broader question of how to apply the satipatthana practices; until it's been fully perfected in every way this form of satipatthana could not by nature of the practitioner be performed perfectly in some kind of methodical sequential manner.
A capacity for exhaustive insight via satipatthana could be employed as one way of specifying what necessitates a determination of complete mastery towards a full analytical understanding of dhamma supportive of the four analytical knowledges. This may be why great asceticism was employed to that end even by Arahats.
The elimination of all ignorance obscuring the range of knowables from a fully applicable mindful attention to the known does appear to be necessary for full awakening. Does one need to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the knowable and of extant causes and results to enable the full awakening? It is necessary to master this understanding fully in some way but what of this knowing the known is the path and what is the known in the known upon full awakening? There is both the gradual practice processes of training in knowing and the ultimate resultant kinds of the ways of ultimate knowing.
The degree of insight development necessary for further progress on the path of insight at each successive point on the path is always more insight than the degree of insight necessary previously. The insight gained pertains to all of the frames of reference. How much each new development of insight needs to be applied to the whole of experience can vary a lot. One might progress from one nana to another very quickly in one specific frame of reference and then remain in others examining all of these frames of reference for a long period of time.
Until it is perfected satipatthana can be practiced methodically in this specifically sequential way or not. Why not? Once competent in all these forms of mindfulness one could do satipatthana all the time no matter what sequences are experienced. Regardless of how satipatthana mindfulness is applied in practice any improvement in overall understanding supports the development of further progress of insight throughout the moments of practice and experience. I don't think we have to consider this as a rigidly inflexible course of practice only as a whole practice. This Satipatthana Sutta is one sutta presenting a central way of developing understanding among many which present these forms and modes of purifying the process of investigation into the entire nature of lived experience.
These suttas are definitely meditation instructions. I think the complete necessary meditation instructions are comprehensively presented by the Buddha in many ways within the whole of His discourses. A Noble or a learned teacher is always desirable. The greatest of them all has passed but his words have never been so accessible to so many of us as today. It is wonderful what this has done for everyone's understanding. It is like protestants finally getting handed a bible for the first time in a millenia! I'm curious what even more sophisticated questions and comments the Buddha's discourses will attract in the next hundred years. Any knowable yet nearly imponderably deep subjects can be plumbed usefully for a long time before they dry up.
Ven. Analayo's book is great, thanks for posting the extracts Zavk. It is a book, once again, written for the audience of our day and the much larger audience of very learned and accomplished practitioners for whom again english is the first or only accessible language. It would be difficult to try to give the two works a fair comparison. Someone today can read both. Clearly Ven. Analayo's book is more helpful for those of intermediate understanding than Ven. Soma's book while an advanced understanding is less likely to rely on books nearly as much at all.
The better I understand Dhamma, the more fully content I am with the discourses straight up, they encompass so much and are so well put. However my fuller understanding develops, through further study of writings or by further self discipline the details all continue to enhance the same overall picture of the the truth. Any true commentary retains that degree of truthfulness that it truly has. Beyond this, comment is best considered in terms of it's particular intent on the part of the writer and the requirements of the given readership at that time. We might note that the suttas themselves are so rich in potent meaning and importance that they might support nearly limitless commentary dependent upon...conditions. Fortunately there are reasonable limits to useful, helpful or beneficial comment or I would be completely insufferable!
metta and upekkha
But whoever walking, standing, sitting, or lying down overcomes thought, delighting in the stilling of thought: he's capable, a monk like this, of touching superlative self-awakening. § 110. {Iti 4.11; Iti 115}