Thanks, Karl.
I’m guessing there are many. I’m not ready to communicate publicly about the one I’m specifically referring to. I would say that regarding the body simile, in this context, leaving Dhamma untranslated seems more meaningful. This is because “Dhamma” includes both the teaching and the Dhamma itself, which is present regardless of whether there’s a Buddha’s “Teaching” present in the world.
The way I understand this is the Teaching is like the map and the Dhamma is the path (of course one of the definitions of Dhamma is the teaching, but it’s not the only definition). The path is always there regardless of whether there’s a map or not. So, it doesn’t make complete sense to me to call both the map and the path, “the map”, which is what calling the Dhamma simply “the Teaching” seems like at times. However, I digressed into a translation topic I suppose:-) And I’m sure there are issues with reducing Dhamma to only the path and the teaching. Perhaps we can start a new topic on this sometime if you’re interested.
That said, thanks for the inspiration on your sutta study/walk. I just downloaded AN 3.70 from voice, and my wife and I are going to do our Sunday(Sabbath) Sutta study by listening to it on a morning walk.
@karl_lew, while just listening to AN 3.70, another quality of the similes emerged. If we look at similes 1-5: head/Buddha, body/Dhamma, cloth/Sangha, mirror/ethics, gold/deities, the Buddha takes us from the more subtle to the gross. For example, the head is finer than gold. This could have other layers of meaning, too.
For example, when our mind is gross (in a less refined state), perhaps the less subtle similes might be more helpful. Perhaps this would be similar to how the Buddha seems to teach starting with generosity and/or ethics for someone just starting on the path.
Another layer of meaning that the Buddha could be conveying is that recollecting the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha would have a more refined effect on the mind than recollecting virtue or deities. These similes almost seem like looking at a prism – it can be seen from so many different angles:-)