I Googled to find the meaning of Upadana and end up here!
Why did Buddha not say Thanha Paccya Bhava?
What is the difference between Thanha and Upadana?
Say if I want to drink some water for thurst (Thanha) how it becomes a Upadana?
Thirst, the need to drink water , as is being hungry, is a physical sensation.
Craving for a certain type of drink or food is felt more in the mind, rather than in the abdomen. This is how cravings differ from real thirst or hunger. Craving asks for a special type of food or drink, while hunger or thirst doesn’t make specific requests. Mindfulness of the body, and mind is required to differentiate one from the other.
Upadana is attachment or clinging. If the feeling (vedana) is strong enough and this generates strong cravings, it can lead to becoming attached or cling to wanting this feeling repeatedly, so much so, that it might influence your next birth. If someone keeps repeatedly thinking and pining for the same sensation there is attachment there. Craving is more about wanting something in the present moment. I might crave for something once, only. Addictions would be an examples of attachment. Obsession would be attachment. Habits maybe latent tendencies (anusaya).
With metta
I posted this question in Stack Exchange as well.
Suppose there was a woman or man who was young, youthful, and fond of adornments, and they check their own reflection in a clean bright mirror or a clear bowl of water. They’d look because of grasping, not by not grasping.
Seyyathāpi, āvuso ānanda, itthī vā puriso vā daharo yuvā maṇḍanakajātiko ādāse vā parisuddhe pariyodāte acche vā udakapatte sakaṃ mukhanimittaṃ paccavekkhamāno upādāya passeyya, no anupādāya
SN22.83
@Sunyo bhante, doesn’t ‘upādāya’ in the above simile refer to the concept of ‘dependance’?
Some thing like; it’s only depending on a mirror that the youth is able to see his face not without depending on anything.
Also, in the following simile
It’s like a fire which only burns with fuel, not without fuel.
Seyyathāpi, vaccha, aggi saupādāno jalati, no anupādāno
SN44.9
‘Depending(on something) a fire burns not independently’ ? It also has the added benefit of giving an explanation for bhava. Due to there being a dependance(fuel) their is existence (of the flame in this case). Also it could provide an explanation for the following,
api ca yo tattha chandarāgo taṃ tattha upādānan”ti.
SN22.82
Something like the following;
‘the desire and greed is the dependence there’ ?
Also, I think some one showed obove that in sanskrit ‘ādāna’ can have the meaning of binding or fettering. Is it also the case with pali ?
Would love to hear your thoughts!
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It also agrees completely with the most common Chinese translation (受), which means “to accept, acquire, experience” in most usages. I’ve always been a bit stumped by this because the Pali is usually translated to mean “clinging.” Another term (取) preferred by later translations does mean something closer to “grasp,” but it can mean “obtain, appropriate.”
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A post-Buddha reference from the Manu-Smrti has upadana as straight ‘taking’ in the context of bad karma: adattānām upādānaṃ, i.e. the ‘not-given taking’, stealing. In the suttas this is often expressed by adinna-ādāyino.
So here it doesn’t even signify the more complex amassing but a simple taking.
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From Ajahn Buddhadasa… (I forget which book exactly 
)
Tanha is the aspiring to an object/ conditioned state one has not yet reached, like a thief stretching out his hand in the dark through the window.
Upadana is grasping the object/ state one has reached, like a thief tightly holding on to what he has found.
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I think i have heard a version of this simile. It’s about a monkey trap made from a whole coconut shell with a small hole just large enough for a monkey’s unclenched hand to pass through. Some dainty, monkeys like is put inside the shell. When a monkey sees and smell the treat it puts its hand inside and grasps, clenching its hand and is unable to pull it out. It never occurs it to let go even while the hunter comes and spears it. 
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Wow! That’s pretty amazing, I never half believed it. 
The mirror similie is also found in SA 261, as was explored here Translation of a mirror analogy for clinging/grasping (upādāna) in SN 22.83 and SA 261.
According to Ven. Sujato in this post, the commentary says the following:
Upādāyāti āgamma ārabbha sandhāya paṭicca
Upādāya means relying on, resting on, supported by, depending on
My own opinion is that the mirror simile itself work bests with ‘dependence’ rather than grasping or clinging.
Would you mind posting an example of how a Chinese passage would look with acquisition instead of clinging? (For example SA 261, which has the mirror analogy and lots of 受s).
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A very interesting verse in the Theragathas;
Though the meaning has a hundred facets,
and bears a hundred characteristics,
the fool sees only one factor,
while the sage sees a hundred.“Sataliṅgassa atthassa,
satalakkhaṇadhārino;
Ekaṅgadassī dummedho,
satadassī ca paṇḍito”ti.
Thag1.106
Probably, the meaning of upādāna has a number of facets.
SA 261 isn’t a good example. 受 is a multi-purpose word used to translate many Indic terms like vedana in addition to upadana. In SA 261, it’s translating vedana in the list of skandhas.
Looking at SA 261, the term that appears to translate upadana is actually 生, which means “to give rise, to arise, to be born.” To be honest, I’m not sure how Analayo arrives at “clinging” as an English translation of the Chinese in that particular case. He must have decided the Chinese translator was mistaken and chose to assume upadana was in the original. Perhaps there’s a Sanskrit version that exists. Personally, I wouldn’t translate the passage that way.
What I had in mind are cases like 五受陰 which mean “the five received aggregates.” It occurs, eg, in SA 33. Smith translates like it’s Pali “clinging,” but the Chinese doesn’t really mean that literally.
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If you don’t mind, how would you translate it?
I’m sure Ven. Analayo has good reasons for his choice of translation, nonetheless it’s nice to see how different choices of translation play out.
Could it mean “the five acquired aggregates”?
Perhaps the distinction between “the acquired aggregates” and “the aggregates” is that the first refers to one’s own aggregates and the second to the aggregates in general.
I.e. my acquired vedana is the pain, neutrality and pleasure that I personally identify with and experience, but I could also want to talk about vedana in general.
Just speculating…
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The Chinese texts are difficult to deal with as a translator. I mean, I can’t criticize other translators simply for choosing to translate the assumed original, because I do it myself for some common terms. For example, I just translated 陰 as “aggregate,” but that’s actually yin from the yin and yang in Chinese philosophy. Literally, it means “cloudy, vague, dark,” and came to stand for the feminine in Chinese thought. How that ended up as a translation of skandha, I’m not sure. It was one of the early terms chosen, though.
So, a literal translation of SA 261’s simile of the mirror to me reads like this:
時，尊者阿難告諸比丘：「尊者富留那彌多羅尼子年少初出家時，常說深法，作如是言：『阿難！生法計是我，非不生。阿難！云何於生法計是我，非不生？色生，生是我，非不生。受、想、行、識生，生是我，非不生。
Ven. Ananda then addressed the monks, "When Ven. Puṇṇa Mantāniputta was young and had first left home, he always discussed the profound Dharma, speaking thus: 'Ananda, an arisen dharma is imagined to be self, not [one that’s] not arisen. Ananda, how is an arisen dharma imagined to be self but not [one that’s] not arisen? Form arises and gives rise to self, not [when it] doesn’t arise. Feeling, perception, volition, and consciousness arise and give rise to self, not [when they] don’t arise.
譬如士夫手執明鏡及淨水鏡，自見面生，生故見，非不生。是故，阿難！色生，生故計是我，非不生。如是受、想、行、識生，生故計是我，非不生。云何？阿難！色是常耶？為無常耶？』答曰：『無常。』
‘It’s like a man holding in hand a clear mirror or a mirror of pure water. Sight of his own face arises. He sees it because it arose, not [because it] didn’t arise. Therefore, Ananda, form arises, and it’s imagined to be self because it arose, not [because it] didn’t arise. Thus feeling, perception, volition, and consciousness arise, and they are imagined to be self because they arise, not [because they] don’t arise.’"
Yes. 受 is a very general verb, like English “to get.” It’s used in all kinds of ways. It’s used for taking the precepts, accepting a teaching, being subject to some experience like pleasure or pain (hence, it translates vedana). But like “get” the subject of the verb is usually on the receiving end of the transaction.
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Hi Child of the island!
As to how I understand the first passage, the thought “I am” does not occur because of “depending” on something. It happens because you take something to be yourself. See how a similar idiom is used in English (‘take to be me/mine’)? The idea is not that the identification needs something (depends on something), but that there is this ‘thing’ (for example the body) “out there”, doing its own thing, as it were. The mind goes and identify with it, taking it as “me” or “mine”. The identification is always a sort of afterthought which happens after a thing has come into consciousness. For example, first there is seeing through the eyes, then the mind registers the sight, and only then it adds the layer of “I see”.
The mirror simile I find difficult to translate properly into English. The specific verb form upādāya (called a ‘gerund’) is often used idiomatically, often not directly translatable into English. I suspect some idiom here too, but the exact idea seems lost. There is little information in the passage to go by, and I find all the translations I know to be a bit clumsy. But ‘dependent on’ also isn’t the solution, in my opinion.
Then the other two passages. First of all, thanks for pointing out something I glossed over in my initial post, which is the meaning of upadana of ‘fuel’. I treated that very briefly, hoping to keep the post as simple and to the point as possible. But I regret this now, as I’m convinced ‘fuel’ is the main meaning of upadana in dependent origination. It seems that whenever the noun (upadana) is used, it almost always means ‘fuel’, while only the verb forms (upadiyati, upadaya, etc) generally mean ‘taking up’. I may add some specifics on this later. (Unfortunately, it seems I can no longer edit my first post. If any moderator reads this and can enable that for me somehow, that would be great.)
So in these passages, where we have the noun upadana, I also see no reason to translate it as ‘dependence’. This is simply not the meaning of the word. In both passages it means ‘fuel’. In SN44.9 it is literal fuel, the kind that a fire burns, which is “taken up” or used up by fire. As I pointed out before, you can compare it to the English noun ‘uptake’ which means absorbing nutriment (“fuel”) by an orgamism. In SN22.82 it is metaphorical fuel: the fuel for rebirth, being desire.
And as to your last comment, I don’t know any place where ādāna would mean ‘binding’. If such a passage would exist, it would be a rare idiom–one which I think shouldn’t influence the interpretation of other passages, because the general meaning of ādāna is already clear enough.
Hope this helps!
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Thank you Bhante for replying!
I was thinking about the following verse in the Parayana Vagga,
Ādānataṇhaṃ vinayetha sabbaṃ,
Uddhaṃ adho tiriyañcāpi majjhe;
Yaṃ yañhi lokasmimupādiyanti,
Teneva māro anveti jantuṃ.
Snp5.13
Could ‘Ādānataṇhaṃ’ be read as ‘craving that binds’ ?
(BTW, I enjoyed reading all your ramblings)
Thank you. As a gardener, this makes total “AHA” sense to me and adds a new dimension to grasping. To take up nutrition is to appropriate for oneself. The word “grasping” provides instant recognition, but misses the subtlety of “taking up”. However, the subtlety of “taking up” would have confused me at first and “grasping” was a better initial fit.
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