By the way, John, per your coment yesterday about getting hacked…
I’ve used the Waiting Room method for years (well,ever since we all got on Zoom in 2020) – both professionally and personally. If you are comfortable making someone else co-host, they can monitor the room to let people in. The only downside is the co-host may be letting in a troll, but I can’t imagine anyone trolling a Pali class!
This is great. So @johnk, do you know how to assign someone as a co-host?
If no:
Start the meeting
Hover cursor over Stephen’s name in the “Participants” feature at the bottom of the screen
Choose “More” (options)
Select “Make co-host”
That way, Stephen will allow people to enter the room.
1 (Q): I’m sure this is a frequent inquiry among students:
In the Dutiyanidānasutta (AN 3.111) (Further Reading #1), the sanskrit root of dosa is √dviṣ … isn’t this rendered hate and not really anger?
And yet I hear it sometimes as “greed, anger, delusion”. I see a distinction, from a translation perspective, between hate and anger. I don’t see these two English translations as the same at all.
2 Bhante Sujato gives a translation for the second part of this sutta that helps me make sense of it, apart from the literal translation (only click on the blurred-out text below if you’re ready … I don’t want to be a spoiler ):
Any deed that emerges from contentment, love, or understanding—born, sourced, and originated from contentment, love, or understanding—is skillful, blameless, results in happiness, and leads to the cessation of more deeds, not their creation. These are three sources that give rise to deeds.”
Ah, OK…well, it’s one of the three/four humours as spoilt by weeds (dosa1) or the variance of dosa2. I suppose either of which, to the receiving end, = ready to be discarded immediately
Sujato’s translation: a meditation subject as a foundation of immersion
Bodhi: an object of concentration
Culavedallasutta MN44 :
“Yā kho, āvuso visākha, cittassa ekaggatā ayaṃ samādhi;
“Unification of the mind is immersion.
cattāro satipaṭṭhānā samādhinimittā;
The four kinds of mindfulness meditation are the foundations of immersion.”
Based on MN 44, I think of samādhinimitta as: “the foundations for unification of mind”
In relation to the phrase in MN44, here is Analayo’s comment:
On considering these instances it is indubitably clear that sati has a crucial role to fulfill in the realm of samatha. This might be why the Cūḷavedalla Sutta speaks of satipaṭṭhāna as the “cause” of concentration (samādhinimitta). On the other hand, however, to consider satipaṭṭhāna purely as a concentration exercise goes too far and misses the important difference between what can become a basis for the development of concentration and what belongs to the realm of calmness meditation proper. In fact, the characteristic functions of sati and concentration (samādhi) are quite distinct. While concentration corresponds to an enhancement of the selective function of the mind, by way of restricting the breadth of attention, sati on its own represents an enhancement of the recollective function, by way of expanding the breadth of attention. These two modes of mental functioning correspond to two different cortical control mechanisms in the brain. This difference, however, does not imply that the two are incompatible, since during absorption attainment both are present. But during absorption sati becomes mainly presence of the mind, when it to some extent loses its natural breadth owing to the strong focusing power of concentration.”
― Anālayo, Satipaṭṭhāna: The Direct Path to Realization
Here is Piya Tan’s comment:
“The Basis of samādhi. Here nimitta is best taken in the sense of “means,” since it refers to conditions for mental focus. — Piya Tan, Nimitta Sutta
Homework for next week, which I didn’t get time to inform you about during the class, is shown in the last slide here and in the new thread I just created for Class 6.
Considering the Nimittasutta, may it also be possible to use “signpost of concentration”?
That takes in the literalness of a nimitta as a sign “seen” in the flow of immersion as well as the solidity of a knowable step , a post, in the process, as per the goldsmith simile.
Which brings me to the broader question of when, in the DPD there are so many possible English translations, and one is trying to pull together meaning in a compound word, what steps do you suggest for building the proper context? Finding the word as used in multiple sutta citations, reading multiple translations of these is the most open-ended - and the most rewarding - dare I ask, is there anything more efficient?
Not really, Rachel. As you say, one just has to use context, common sense, other sutta citations, and reading other translations, if possible. There can sometimes be help through the fact that the first meaning cited in a dictionary entry is generally the most common/likely rendering.
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