>
>Dear Venerable Kumara and Rett,
>I found the section. The translation of this section of the
>commentary reads
>Vayadhammanupassi va kayasmim viharati = "Or he lives contemplating
>dissolution-things in the body." In whatever way, the air does not
>proceed when the bellows' skin is taken off, the bellows' spout is
>broken, and the appropriate exertion is absent, even in that same
>way, when the body breaks up, the nasal aperture is destroyed, and
>the mind has ceased to function, the respiration-body does not go
>on. Thus through the ending of the coarse body, the nasal aperture
>and the mind there comes to be the ending of the respirations
>[kayadi-nirodha assasapassasa-nirodho]. The person who sees in this
>way, is he who lives contemplating dissolution-things in the body."""

That's Soma Thera's translation right?

>
>To me the commentary is stressing one aspect of dissolutiuon here.
>In other sections of the sutta the commentary explains with regard
>to the arising and passing of phenenoma:

Yes, there seem to be two aspects in the commentary. One is that of
paying attention to the passing away of wind-related sensations in
the body. (such as the last micro-second of a breath or a burp or
fart)

The second is more of an intellectual reflection, where one takes
this passing away of immediate sensations and visualizes it in
connection with the long term decay of the body. It's as though
immediate sensations become harbingers or symbols of concepts within
the teachings. The moment of dissolution of any sensation speaks
"anicca". Things like that.

I've long been curious about these two kinds of contemplation, since
they are both comprised under the idea of mindfulness, yet they seem
to exclude each other. While focussed on raw sensations it's hard to
reflect in wider philosophical terms, yet while drawing those wider
lessons it's hard to pay attention to raw physical sensations, at
least for me.

It seems to me that the commentary has come into being in an
agglutinative way: that any new interpretation of a passage has been
admitted, as long as it's judged to fit with the teachings as a
whole. This could explain the impression described by Bhante Kumara,
that the interpreters seem to stretch the interpretation beyond the
most simple and obvious reading. Two or more different practices seem
at times to have been catalogued under one heading. This makes the
commentary more of a storehouse of teachings at times than an
elucidation of the original text.

best regards,

/Rett