Actually in many cases, the Non-Classical Theravadins (specially the modern groups) tend to ignore the context while interpreting the words. It is one of the main weaknesses of them that any matured one can easily notice.Dhammanando wrote:Among Bible scholars a popular saying has it that, **“A text without a context is a pretext for a proof text”.** With that in mind, you’ll need to do a little more than just counting occurrences.josephzizys wrote: This strange clustering of the four foundations of mindfulness in the Samyutta however is even more striking than it seems, because if we remove the occurrences in the standard formula listing dhamma subjects known as the 37 factors of awakening, that is the phrase “cattāro satipaṭṭhānā, cattāro sammappadhānā, cattāro iddhipādā, pañcindriyāni, pañca balāni, satta bojjhaṅgā, ariyo aṭṭhaṅgiko maggo” then the Vinaya has no mention of cattāro satipaṭṭhānā at all. This is somewhat troubling, recall that the Vinaya mentions the first jhana 48 times.
Now virtually all of the Vinaya’s mentions of the first jhāna are in the context of the fourth pārājika and eighth pācittiya rules for bhikkhus, along with their corresponding rules for bhikkhunīs. The former prohibits false declarations of any kind of uttarimanussadhamma; the latter prohibits truthful declarations of an uttarimanussadhamma when talking to unordained people.
That being so, your data is readily accounted for by the simple fact that the first jhāna is an uttarimanussadhamma, while the four satipaṭṭhānas are not.
Even the monks who have a Yogacara bent (Bhikkhu Nanananda, Analayo etc.) seems define meanings of the words ignoring the context. For an instance they define the meaning of "Nama" of Pancakkhanda in the same way as in Paticcasamuppada, but the Atthakata defines the meaning depending on the context.
Venerable Nanavira, Buddhadasa etc used to (as I heard) interpret Paticcasamuppada only using "momentary-model" and ignored the "three-life model" in useful contexts.
Many Thai-forest masters used the general meaning of the words Pabbhassara, Vinnana in all cases even when it is not suitable depending on the context.
There are many basics to learn beforehand about how to read the Suttas.
- There are many words that should be interpreted according to the Context.
eg:
Nama
Magga
Sankhara
etc.
- And there are many passages that should be interpreted according to the Context as well.
eg:
Kalama uddesa
etc.
- There are Neyyattha suttas (meaning is to be derived) and Nitattha suttas (meaning is explicit).
- And there are Sappadesa suttas (meaning is taken along with other related suttas) and Nippadesa suttas (meaning is taken alone).