He says it rather well himself, here:
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The mark of a proficient dhamma communicator is that they are able to convey across the entirety of the dhamma using the language syntax native to them.
If one has 1) a genuine need to uproot suffering 2) urgency 3) a resolve to live a life at peace and one is earnest in their pursuit, diligently striving and making company with the wise whilst putting forth effort to understand (working to experientially realise instead of hoarding information) - then it is only amount of time before one comes to full awakening and cultivates total insight into the intricacies of the ariya-magga (the noble path). These prior mentions are what Siddhartha experienced many moons ago - the prerequisites of awakening.
Chanting can be fun. Amaravati publications offers a free PDF and the Pali chants have their English equivalents. Trying to ‘code break’ certain terms and make sense of them can also be a helpful exercise as well as insightful. One can see how in ‘dukkha’ - ‘pain, stress, worry, dissatisfaction and suffering’ can all fit in. Dhamma: ‘the way it is, a teaching, the means that lead to the ends, that which is actual, a phenomenon or the way a phenomena is’. Why stop at adopting a single rigid definition? This shows how terms can be multimodal. It is worth exploring all avenues and then comparing to find that gold heart vein that all we seek.
Best of wishes to you on your journey. You’re on the right path. I enjoy chanting in Pali and English. Having the understanding of what one is chanting about is even better.
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You are indeed right. dhamma can mean many things, and in particular in Buddhism we generally associate it with the Buddha’s teachings.
But that is not the sense that dhamma is used in the Uppādāsutta (AN 3.136), as I explained in my translation.
Dhamma is used in the phrase dhammaṭṭhitatā dhammaniyāmatā where it is referring to the regularity and invariance of natural principles or “laws of nature.”
Therefore we need to interpret Sabbe dhammā anattā with that in mind. Here dhamma is still referring to the laws of nature, but now more specifically the Vedic principles relating to the ātman or Vedic conception of the Eternal Self. By this statement, the Buddha shows the laws are incorrect because there is “no ātman” (anatta).
If you insert the other definitions of dhamma, they don’t make sense or denote something that is trivially true.
For example, if we translate Sabbe dhammā anattā as “All the Buddha’s teaching is not the self” it is technically true but a somewhat meaningless statement. Here it is clear the Buddha was not referring to his teachings but to Vedic beliefs.
Hope that helps. I also stated:
As can be seen from the quote above, I have acknowledged that dhamma is “multi-modal” as you described it.
Hi. Its read as though “Sabbe dhammā anattā” is the law of nature (instead of “Sabbe dhammā anattā” means “all laws of nature are anatta”).
I am not sure I understand you. Here is a word for word translation, complete with grammatical analysis:
Sabbe dhammā anattā
①⨂(sabba) ①⨂(dhamma) ①⨂(anatta)
all/every | “law of nature” | not self
Note that all words are masculine, nominative, plural nouns, so the sentence translates to “All laws of nature are not self.”
Strictly speaking, the above is meaningful only if the “laws of nature” are interpreted as “laws of nature pertaining to the Eternal Self”, otherwise the sentence is also a bit meaningless.
Note we could adopt alternative definitions for anatta as “impersonal; not oneself; non-subjective; not suitable to identify with; coreless; essenceless” but in Buddhism “not self” is generally regarded as the meaning.
Of course, we could twist the translation to mean “All of Buddha’s teachings are essenceless” but I am sure the Buddha would never have said that!
Yes. This does not sound correct. It is too limited. Mostly I have read it simply means “all things are not self”.
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“all things are not self” is a self-evident truism that is not worth stating, and certainly not worth devoting a whole paragraph to.
“All things are not-self” seems a good translation of Dhp 279.
A very deep teaching indeed.
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“All things are not-self” seems a good translation of Dhp 279.
I don’t really see that.
“All things are not self” is a meaningless self evident statement. You are not my self, this forum is not my self, … In fact, it’s hard to pinpoint just what is the self, and some people say it may not even exist.
You are certainly entitled to your opinion on the Dhamma. If you take it as ‘meaningless’ it’s your loss.
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Are you suggesting "“All things are not-self” is actually meaningful? That there are beings that would consider this to be not self-evident? I can imagine Brahmā (the Creator God) might think so, but even he created other entities and things that were not his self.
The -ānaṁ in tathāgatānaṁ isn’t a taddhita (secondary derivative). It’s just a plain old nāmavibhatti (noun inflectional ending) showing that tathāgata is in the dative or genitive plural.
Moreover, if the āna in tathāgatānaṁ were a taddhita it wouldn’t yield the translation “realisation”. Secondary derivatives formed with āna are patronymical, as in:
Kacca > Kaccāna: son of Kacca.
Cora > corāna: son of a thief.
See Duroiselle for a handy list of taddhitas and their meanings.
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I wasn’t referring to the case ending, which just reflects the case usage in the text. Taddhita nouns are inflected just like normal nouns, so you can’t distinguish them from plain nouns that way.
However, the usage of the word in the text reflects a “taddhita” meaning, eg. “one who …” which is common for a lot of taddhita nouns, as per the taddhita chapter in Kaccayana.
Interestingly, Kaccayana gives some examples of taddhita nouns which are exactly like their non taddhita counterpart, as the taddhita affix somehow gets elided by morphological rules. So it’s not always possible to recognise taddhita nouns just by their affixes. The PED shows that one of the meanings of tathāgatā is a taddhita type meaning ie. “one who realises”
From whence do you get the “therefore”? I mean it’s hardly self-evident that dhamma has to bear an identical meaning in both clauses.
How do you know that it is?
Well, it seems logical to me (by a process of elimination of “self-evident” or trivial interpretations). But as I mentioned before, Gombrich essentially makes the same analysis.
That doesn’t suffice to show that tathāgata is a taddhitanāma, for kitanāmas can also bear the meaning “one who does such and such”. Indeed most words of this kind are kitanāmas.
Since the āgata in tathāgata seems not to derive from any noun, but directly from the verbal root √gam and the kita suffix -ta, I should prefer to class tathāgata as a samāsanāma in which the āgata component is a primary rather than a secondary derivative.
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Yes, you are correct, tathāgata is normally derived as a compound. Gombrich actually suggests the derivation as “tathā” (meaning “thus”) plus “gata” (meaning “gone”).
However, as I said before, the usage in the text as well as PED suggests a taddhita type meaning. Kita or kicca affixed verbal nouns can also have “one who …” meanings but these words typically suggest action whereas the taddhita ones suggest state, condition or characteristic (as per Kaccayana).
In the sense of taddhita, talking about the “arising” or “non-arising” of “realisation” provides a straight forward translation, whereas talking about whether or not the tathāgata (in the sense of “the Buddha”) has arisen or not does not make sense in the context of this sutta. So once again, by a process of elimination we can discard meanings that don’t make sense.
BTW as an aside, it seems it is possible for a Pali word to be a proper noun, a taddhita affixed noun AND a kita/kicca affixed noun. Based on various morphological rules, the affixes can sometimes be elided resulting in a word identical to the base noun.
For example, the word “Buddho” (masculine nominative singular of “Buddha”). Kaccayana lists this as a taddhita noun (meaning “the one who understood”), but it can also be an epithet referring to the Buddha, and also as a past participle (and hence by definition a kita/kicca affixed noun) meaning “understood.”
So the phrase “Buddho buddho buddho” is a legitimate Pali sentence which translates to “The Buddha, the One Who Understood, understood.”
In English we have “building a building”, “construction of a construction” etc. So someone building a building called “Building” could say they were “building Building building” 
Those looking for more information on taddhita and kita nouns can have a look at the following chapters from my Pali textbook:
@christie just my two sents and may not be relevant: the meaning of the word ‘Buddha’ is ‘one who knows, one who is awake, one who understands’. The term describes a title of a being who has attained to knowing of the Noble Path and Noble Law (ariya-magga & ariya-dhamma).
Thanasirro Bhikkus article ‘self or not self?’ is very helpful in understanding the nature of self. The historical Buddha did not deny or affirm of a self but encourages one to actively investigate what this idea of ‘self’ is and what the sense of self which the idea is born of is premised/originated by.
The historical Buddha did speak about the basis by which ‘I-making’ comes to be.
I argue that the fixation on self or soul and whether or not there is one or not is a semantic issue based on not matching the word to the phenomenon & by realising what mechanism a phenomenon is named as well as the difference between name + the phenomenon in itself! The mind is what gives rise to mental abstractions which the idea of a ‘self’ arises in dependence on. This mind or mental fabricating capacity of ones being is what gives rise to the idea of a self. This is what is endowed with the capacity for ‘knowing’ and that which is aware of the breath. That which knows or is aware is also that which answers to a name! Whether it is a self or not?
Although there is indeed a Buddha named Siddhartha: there is also the etymological understanding of the term where it is not ascribed to a person but a capacity of your own mind.
Thanks.
For future reference, please note the following, at the beginning of this thread:
And further:
The translation of the sutta that I attempted in this thread is an exercise forming part of a class learning Pali. Otherwise, I do not post my translations on this forum for others to comment (I have done in the past, but also in the context of learning Pali).
In the future, I may post translations of suttas on my website if you are interested in them. One of my goals is to eventually summarise (a curated collection of) the Buddha’s teachings. I hope to do this before I die.
I know you mean well, and I wish you the best in your path towards enlightenment.