on what the Buddha taught
Sitting cross-legged has never been that clear to me. Is it about the full lotus position? Or that position where you sit with your knees up high? And doesn't this automatically devalue the half lotus position, or the position where you lay your legs bent in front of you, or sitting on a chair, basically by putting down this part of the instruction? My advise was not to worry about it and just sit stable. But now, while working on a translation, I had to deal with it. So far all the translations I have seen say the same thing. But lets see if an "alternative" without the instruction to sit cross-legged can be made.
'Idha, bhikkhave, bhikkhu araññagato vā rukkhamūlagato vā suññāgāragato vā nisīdati pallaṅkaṃ ābhujitvā...'
This usually gets translated into something like:
'Here, almsmen, an almsman gone to a forest, or gone to the foot of a tree, or gone to an empty home, sits down having bent the legs crosswise...'
To avoid sitting crosswise I need to look at the phrase 'pallaṅkaṃ ābhujitvā'. Pallaṅkaṃ is said to mean sitting cross-legged. It also means divan, sofa, couch, seat and it is used this way. To keep things consequent and uncomplicated lets try that here too then. And ābhujitvā is the aor.ger. of ābhujati and ābhujati = 3pers. of 'ā' + 'bhuja'. Bhuja can mean bend, with ābhujitvā then as 'having bent' or 'having folded'.
A quick peek (including outside the four Nikayā) learns that pallaṅka:
Is used as something to sit on. So far I have not yet seen a conclusion it must be a manner in which to sit. Just like that in this context there is not spoken of a manner to keep your hands or eyes. There is spoken of a manner to sit as in aspiring, directing, the body straight, which could then thus be followed even if your body isn't straight.
Is used by those travelling in the air. It is a strong image, flying through the air sitting crosswise but here I am reminded of the story of the flying carpet; it isn't that a rug or carpet would here then not make sense. And in this scenario the pāḷi uses the instrumental form.
Shelters the knees from the rain. Sitting crosswise would then have to protect the knees from getting wet. The knees are a weak spot and having them protected from rain and cold by means of folding some cloth to tuck them in would seem to make sense. The covering function reminds me of sermon AN3.63 where the exalted one collected some grasses and leaves into a pile and then "sat down on it folding his legs crosswise", which can also be read as having folded a cover (over that pile) in order to make a cushion to sit on.
More and more pallaṅka seems to me as if it could be related to some kind of mat, rug, cover. It is found in a combination with animal skin (e.g. hair vāla removed from a pallaṅka). Yet a spread, rug, mat is santhata, a sitting cloth. Then again, a sitting cloth functions as a cover. There is an example of a body covered with veins and also a pallaṅka covered with a woollen rug, thus the sitting cloth as cover (santhata) fits well. Suppose you don't have a sitting cloth but a friend lends your one so you both can have your own seats. Then when asked if that is your seat, you could answer this by saying that it is your seat but not your sitting cloth. And if you would clean it and hang it to dry, it is the sitting cloth (santhata) that hangs and not the seat (pallaṅka). It is in this way that I look at their relation.
Thus a cloth can be folded to also protect the knees, it can be spread over a pile of leaves to fold a cushion, it can be folded to get some difference in height for hips and knees. All in all I think that 'folding a seat' could make sense. Then, putting it grammatically in the same form as it is used in pāḷi and without using sitting cross-legged we could get:
'Here, almsmen, an almsman gone to a forest, or gone to the foot of a tree, or gone to an empty home, having folded a seat he sits down...'
In this way the instruction doesn't need to say you must sit cross-wise. Which doesn't mean you can't sit 'cross-wise' but if you do perhaps do so for the right reasons. Perhaps you don't need to damage your legs thinking you must sit in a certain way, perhaps you don't need to train to sit this way to impress or take it as a measurement of improvement and perhaps you don't need to feel unable to follow 'that sitting instruction'; what if you even don't have two legs to begin with.
So, I think an alternative, without the instruction to sit cross-legged, can be made. This doesn't mean the translation as cross-legged is wrong, I have no way of knowing, but as I see some benefit with the use of this version I'll, for the time being, be using this one instead.