Pāḷi English Dictionary
Sutta Search
Bon Moz Buddhismo
Including inspiring passages
from the Buddha, and
other authors
BuddhaDust
Bits and scraps, crumbs, fine
Particles that drift down to
Walkers of The Walk.
Then: Thanks for that, Far-Seer!
Great 'Getter-of-the-Get'n!
Caution! While is is often very helpful for understanding a term to know the translations of that term in another language, many translations of the Suttas in languages other than English are not translations from the Pāḷi at all, but are translations from English language translations. Consequently there is the possiblity of error being propagated across languages. So both those reading about Buddhism for the first time from a language other than English, and those English-speakers consulting other languages for insight should be careful to check the source! Your refuge is the Pāḷi.
Five Unreliable Ways of Determing the Truth
Five things that cannot be relied upon for concluding that a thing is true because they can be seen to be sometimes true and sometimes not and the reverses of each are similarly sometimes true and sometimes not.
For example: Something held to be true because it is agreeable can be incorrect; something held to be false because it is disagreeable can be true.
| Pāli | Olds | Horner | Bhks. Nanamoli/Bodhi | Bhk. Thanissaro |
| Saddhā | Faith | Faith | Faith | Conviction |
| Ruci | Delight | Inclination | Approval | Liking |
| Anussava | Hear-say | Report | Oral Tradition | Unbroken Tradition |
| Ākāra-parivitakka | Formulating through reasoning | Consideration of Reasons | Reasoned Cogitation | Reasoning by Analogy |
| Diṭṭhi-nijjhānakkhan | Acceptance or satisfaction with an insight arising from a point of view | Reflection on and approval of Opinion | Reflective Acceptance of a View | Agreement through Pondering Views |
These same five things, however are the ways truth may be preserved down through time.
How to Awaken to the Truth
Examine the teacher as to bodily and verbal behavior with regard to states of Lust, Anger and Delusion.
Is he in the contol of these states such that he might, not knowing, not seeing, say: "I know" or "I see"?
Is he in the control of these states such that he might urge others to act to their detriment?
Does the Doctrine of this teacher lead to dispassion, giving up, letting go, detachment and freedom? A Doctrine that is profound, hard to see and hard to understand, peaceful and sublime, unattainable by mere reasoning, subtle, to be experience by the wise each for himself here in this visible state, for such Doctrine is not easily taught by one in the control of lust, anger and delusion.
After determining that this teacher is in control of these states such that he would not, not knowing, not seeing, say: "I know' or "I see," and would not urge others to act to their detriment, then only:
| Pāli | Olds | Horner | Bhks. Nanamoli/Bodhi | Bhk. Thanissaro |
| saddhaɱ Niveseti | Repose Faith Upon | Reposes Faith in | Places Faith | Places Conviction |
| upasaṇkamanto payirupāsati | Reposing Faith, approach respectfully near | Draws close and sits down near by | Visits and pays respect | Visits and grows close |
| payirupāsanto sotaɱ odahati | Respectfully give ear | Lends Ear | Gives Ear | Lends Ear |
| dhammaɱ suṇāti | Giving Ear, Listen to Dhamma | Hears Dhamma | Hears Dhamma | Hears Dhamma |
| sutvā Dhammaɱ dhāreti | Having Listened, Retain Heard Dhamma | Remembers | Memorizes | Remembers |
| dhāritānaɱ dhammānaɱ atthaɱ upaparikkhati | Having Retained, Grasp the Profit in the Retained as Heard | Tests the Meaning | Examines the Meaning | Penetrates the Meaning |
| dhammā nijjhānaɱ khamanti | Having Grasped the Profit, repose satisfaction with or acceptance of the insight arising from this Dhamma | Approves | Reflectively Accepts | Comes to Agreement through Pondering |
| dhamma-nijjhānakkhantiyā sati chando jāyati | There Being Satisfaction with the insight arising from this Dhamma, Wish is born | Desire is born | Zeal Springs Up | Desire Arises |
| ussahati | Wish Born, there is daring to do | Makes an Effort | Applies Will | Becomes Willing |
| tulayati | Daring to Do there is Taking Measures | Weighs Up | Scrutinizes | Contemplates, Weighs Up |
| pahadati | Taking Measures there is Taking Steps | Strives | Strives | Makes Exertion |
| pahitatto samāno kāyena c'eva paramasaccaɱ sacchikaroti,|| paññāya ca taɱ ativijjha passati |
Having taken steps, the shaman, bodily embraces the truth and thus wisely, with his very own vision, sees. | being self-resolute he realizes with his person the highest truth itself; and penetrating it by means of intuitive wisdom, he sees. | Resolutely striving, he realizes with the body the ultimate truth and sees it by penetrting it with wisdom. | Exerting himself, he both realizes the ultimate meaning of the truth with his body and sees by penetrating it with discernment. |
Securing Truth
The above practice brings one to the state of having wakened to the truth. To secure that awakening one must repeat this practice again and again.
"People never cease to change place in relation to ourselves. In the imperceptible but eternal march of the world, we regard them as motionless, in a moment of vision too brief for us to perceive the motion that is sweeping them on. But we have only to select in our memory two pictures taken of them at different moments, close enough together however for them not to have altered in themselves - perceptibly, that is to say - and the difference between the two pictures is a measure of the displacement that they have undergone in relation to us."
- Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past, Volume II: Cities of the Plain, pg 1054. The definitive French Pleiade edition translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin.
'Nidāna'. Nidana = Down-bound. The 'nidana' is the first knot beginning the weaving process (kamma — pun certainly intended). Too often inappropriately translated 'cause'. In casual English, 'cause' is understood less as the force of creation than as simply something that happens co-insidentally: 'just because'; in precise English, 'cause' is always an imprecise concept. To make a cup of tea what is required is a cup, water, tea-leaves, a heat source, the effort of an individual and a thousand other things that are necessary for these things to exist. Which of these is the 'cause' of a cup of tea? Or a disease? Or Pain? At best one should always use 'proximate cause' or 'economic cause' but better would be to forget this idea altogether and train your thinking to understanding the idea of 'dependence'. Nidana means more like 'tied up in/to' involved with, but also 'beginning' which is the basis for the other often used translation 'foundation', 'basis.' It is also the first 'condition' necessary to begin weaving. Here what is indicated by the context is a way to say "factors based on which" "tied to which" "dependent upon which" "tied-up with," "bound-up in" "tied down to".
The Buddha speaks about his ability to teach in brief or in detail or both ways and the rarity of those who understand.
In brief, do I set forth Dhamma;
In detail, do I set forth Dhamma;
In brief and in detail set forth Dhamma —
Yet those who understand are hard to find.
In [AN.3.32] Ānanda asks the Buddha whether or not there is a state of samādhi in which there is no I-making or My-Making and yet there is liberation of the heart by wisdom. The Buddha replies that this state is attained thinking:
"This is sanity,
this is the pinnacle,
that is,
the calming of all own-making,
the forsaking of upkeep,
the destruction of thirst,
dispassion,
ending,
Nibbāna."
I don't know what better case I could make for the translation of 'saṇkāra' as 'own-making' than this sutta where the ideas "I-making" ahaṇkāra and "my-making" mamaṇkāra and "own-making" saṇkāra are set side by side. If you wanted to say "I-making" and "my-making" in one word what would you say if not "own-making"?
The Buddha characterizes three sorts of speech: The one who gives false testimony is like dung; the one who gives true testimony is like flowers; the one who having abandoned harsh speech, abstains from harsh speech, speaks such words as are gentle, pleasing to the ear, and lovable, as go to the heart, are courteous, desired by many, and agreeable to many is like honey.
Advice for selecting one's companions and teachers: except out of compassion and consideration avoid persons less advanced in ethical standards, serenity, and wisdom; associate with those who are equal to one in these things; venerate and follow those who are more advanced.
Three sorts of individuals are found in the world, one with a mind like an open sore, one with lightning-like insight, and one with the diamond's ability to cut through even the hardest matters.
By identification with intentional deviant, non-deviant or mixed deeds one creates personal experience of deviant, non-deviant or mixed worlds.
The reader should keep in mind that this word is very much like and almost a synonym of 'kamma' and needs to accommodate both the act of creation and the thing that results. The differentiation between this term and kamma is essentially the emphasis put on the personal nature of the creating and the results. To 'saṇkhāra' one identifies with the intent to create personal experience by way of thought, word or deed. The result is personal experience formed by the nature of the intent when creating. The word, properly translated must convey this dual nature and this personalizing process. I have suggested 'own-making' Saṇ = own; + khāra = make. and 'the own-made'. What is is not is just 'activities' or 'mental formations' or 'fabrications' or anything else without the sense of those activities etc being the means of constructing one's own personal world. But 'activities' although sankharing is activity, does not relate etymologically with the word at all, and 'mental ... and volitionl' are also 'explanations' unrelated to the word. Sticking closely to the Pāḷi we could get: 'con-struction', 'con-fection,' 'con-juration,' 'co-formation,' 'self-formation' 'own-making' etc. But where we have elsewhere the terms 'I-making' and 'My-making' why not also 'Own-making?' What it absolutely is not (and the way it is most frequently translated!) is 'conditioning' ... which translation leads into major misunderstanding of Dhamma. [see: Is Nibbāna Conditioned?]
Providing medical treatment to three types of persons is likened to teaching Dhamma to three types of persons. One sort of person will not recover whether he receives treatment or not; one will recover whether he receives treatment or not; and one will recover if he receives treatment, but not if he does not. Similarly one sort of person will not gain the path whether he hears Dhamma or not; one will gain the path whether he hears Dhamma or not; and one will gain the path if he hears Dhamma and not if he does not. It is for the sake of the sick man who will recover if he receives medical treatment that providing medical treatment for the sick is not useless. Similarly it is for the sake of the one who will gain the path if he hears Dhamma that teaching Dhamma is not useless.
Three sorts of attainments: Kāya-sakkhī, the 'body-with-eyes' one who has seen the true nature of body with his own eyes, so at least provisionally: 'body-knower'; diṭṭha-p-patto, the 'view-secured' (bowled, in-the-bowl, bagged); and Saddhā-vimutto, the 'faith-freed'. The Buddha makes it clear that these are modes or types of practice that have lead to stream-entry, they are not levels in a hierarchy. Any one of the three may be working for arahantship, or non-returning or once-returning. The body witness is one who has made jhāna practice his main focus. The view-attainer has made perception of the truth of the teachings the main focus of his practice. The faith-freed has made faith in the Buddha, Dhamma, and Saṇgha the main focus of his practice.
The logic behind the difference between the Buddhist proclaiming faith in the Buddha, Dhamma and Saṇgha and those of other beliefs proclaiming faith in their teacher, teachings and fellow-believers is in the perception that the Buddha's system works or ought to work in accomplishing what is in effect the goal of all seekers — that there is nothing left unexplained — and that since this is not the case in other faiths, that the faith of those who follow such is never, can never be fully vested. The inference is that faith is not fully vested by a Buddhist until such time as he has perceived that the system works, or ought to work.
One cannot over-emphasisize the importance of perfecting ethical behavior, internal tranquillity of heart, not dispising jhāna practice, penetrating insight, and the seeking out of empty places for the gaining of every stage in this system from the very most elementary to the most advanced.
In its expanded form (found in my translation) it is certainly a hypnotic spell, and will, as if by magic, take one back to the very origins of the world. It builds up from that by way of fundamental concepts at the root of all things, verbal and physical and beyond to Nibbāna. It is an excellent sutta, by the way, for learning the Pāḷi language. In the myth that isn't told, this sutta, prior to Gotama was a magic spell used with the idea that it would, by guiding focus onto fundamentals, generate wealth (mula > moola = remuneration). Hense the otherwise mysterious name for the suttas as 'The One Up Passed the Mulapariyaya.'
Limitless, Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish and Robert De Niro
Director: Neil Burger
Take a pill, experience great super-normal powers, murder, steal, write a best-seller, have lots of sex, get rich, become President of the U.S. Relevance to Buddhism: dangers of supernormal powers for the untrained.
In this system one must not mistake fame, or achievement of ethical culture, or attainment of serenity, or attainment of knowledge and vision for attainment of unshakable freedom of heart which is its goal.
Unshakable Freedom
There is release (or deliverance) (vimokkha) and there is freedom (vimutti).
Release is the having been released from something. The having been set free.
Freedom is the state attained subsequent to having been released.
There is release relating to things 'of Time' (samaya)
and there is release relating to things 'not of Time' (asamaya).
There is freedom relating to things 'of Time' (samaya)
and there is freedom relating to things 'not of Time' (asamaya).
Things of time are things that have come into existence,
have been own-made;
this includes the five support-compounds (khandha); the six sense spheres (salayatana) and such mental states as the four jhānas, the four arūpa-jhānas, and even the state perceiving ending sense experience. Or, in other words, every existing thing.
Things not of time are things that have not come into existence, have not been own-made.
There are 3 releases and there are 8 releases. The three are:
attaining a state empty (suññata), of lust, hate and blindness;
attaining a state without signs (animitta), of lust, hate and blindness;
attaining a state without ambitions regarding (intentions aimed at getting) (appaṇihita) things involving lust, hate and blindness.
The eight are:
coming to know and see shape (rūpa) as it really is (that is, as compounded of the properties: solidity, liquidity, heat and motion; or, ultimately as aspects of light);
attaining a state of formlessness (arūpa) while recognizing forms;
attaining the perception 'How Pure!";
attaining the four arūpa jhānas:
the Sphere of Space,
the Sphere of Consciousness,
the Sphere of Nothing is to be Had,
the Sphere of Neither-perception-nor-non-perception;
and attaining the state where perception of sense-experience ends.
The three releases and the eight releases are releases from things of Time.
The states themselves are not the release;
release is the freedom resulting from attaining these states.
The eight releases are a hierarchy only in one dimension;
in terms of their being vehicles of release, each is of an equality.
Focused on the release mechanism
one is only freed from the thing that came before,
a relative freedom,
which is called:
"Freedom as to things of Time".
Attaining the topmost mechanism,
the state where perception of sense-experience ends,
is not freedom
and is not the goal
and the freedom attained by way of release from that is a matter of an intellectual comprehension that the state was own-made and that to attempt to construct higher mental states would only lead to getting more bound up than before.
In other words, it is an arbitrary end point to the process.
One could have stopped anywhere earlier to the same effect.
Release from that freedom —
that is that freedom attained by release from things of Time —
is release from something not of time.
Things of Time > Release from Things of Time > Unstable Freedom from Things of Time (A Thing Itself Free from things of Time, but temporary because relative to things of Time) > Release from Things Not of Time > Stable Freedom from Things Not of Time.
If that freedom that resulted from release from things 'of Time' were not a thing itself 'not of Time', it would not be freedom from things 'of Time'.
Once again: Focus on the fact of being free from X and that is 'freedom as to a thing of Time'; focus on the freedom itself and that is 'freedom as to a thing 'not of Time.'
Think of it like this: 'focus' is a detachment (an awareness of awareness; a being one step beyond) which is another way of saying 'freedom'.
The Buddha is saying that if you can do this, the resulting freedom is unshakable or is what is also also known as 'the unshakable freedom of heart and freedom of wisdom'.
This is having been released from things of time,
and having recognized in the resulting freedom,
that this freedom
is freedom from the corrupting influences āsavas:
(sensual pleasure, existence, blindness, points of view)
with such clarity
that it is known and seen
that this state is of such a nature as to guarantee
rebirth is left behind,
lived is the best of lives,
duty's doing is done,
and that there is no more being any kind of an 'it' at any place of 'atness' left
that could cause one to again own-make (saṇkhārā) this world
or any other 'thing of time'.
The freedom is too sweet;
the pain of the alternative too obvious.
There is nothing missing from or incorrect about the PTS version of the Pāḷi.
In fact I suggest that the versions of the Pāḷi that differ are efforts to 'correct' this version and are themselves in error. The alteration requires slightly more than the simple addition of 'a' before two words. There is enough there to say that the change is conscious.
In the first portion of the last case the seeker has attained release from things of Time with the resultant freedom being freedom based on things of Time. Such freedom is not stable because the base is not stable.
This is the man searching for heartwood who has found heartwood and has taken it away with him seeing that it will be useful for things requiring heartwood.
In the second portion, (which in other similes in other suttas is usually a repetition of the first portion) using the same method, one attains release from things of Time then release from things not of Time (the freedom attained by release from the freedom based on things of Time).
The key is seeing the distinction between release, relative freedom and absolute freedom. The first man becomes the second man by using the heartwood.
The problem seen by the translators, (that the first half of the sequence does not match the second half) is not a problem, it is intentional. It points to the otherwise missing (unstated) path to the freedom based on things 'not of time' resulting from release from things 'not of time.'
As long as the seeker is thinking that there is something there which is giving him his freedom (something released from which he attains this freedom); his freedom is temporary because that 'something' has been own-made and is unstable. When he lets go of that, (not thinking 'This is the real me', 'I have attained this') there is no longer an unstable basis for his freedom and that freedom is absolute.
The only thing that has changed between the two situations (the first portion and the second portion of this case) is the perception of the situation. It doesn't need to be re-stated in an additional case, it just needs to be seen differently.
The first, temporary release, will be noted because the seeker is after permanent release, but he also knows he has the right method because temporary or not it is freedom, so he focuses on that and discovers ultimate freedom.
This business of consciousness being able to be conscious of consciousness and of consciousness being able to be conscious of not being consciouss of things is an essential skill needed to realize Nibbāna.
Presenting the issue in the combined way we have it presents a problem (the problem the translators are reacting to) which when focused on with the idea 'how can this be understood to be correct' rather than 'this does not follow the usual pattern and so must be a mistake' results in insight. It is a pedagogical technique, not a mistake. This sort of shift in the use of a frequently-used pattern is not unique in the suttas. Keep'nja onjatoz.
Warning: There is frequent inconsistency in the terms used to translate vimokkha and vimutti with the terms 'Release' and 'Freedom' being used for both. Ms Horner speculates where she should be able to see the certainty: Vimokkha is an objective reference to the things one is freed from; while vimutti is the subjective experience of (mental) freedom.