Korpo

Ever wondered about the wonderfully complex terms the Pali and Sanskrit languages have for states of consciousness? Pali, an ancient Indo-European language, can construct new words by stringing them together, something we also do nowadays for example in German. The original teachings of the Buddha are contained in a collection called the "Pali Canon." Sanskrit eventually succeeded Pali so that even by the 3rd century Pali had become more of an academic language of Buddhist monks.

While some of these terms seem outright monsters almost impossible to remember (Kurt likes to use terms like ativahika ("going onward or beyond") and adhibhautika ("composed of the elements of")), but they are carefully constructed. And this can be used to construct really subtle distinctions.

Distinctions arise from discernment. If one is too imprecise, everything sounds the same. This results in treating phenomena similarly that are of different nature, or arriving at illegitimate conclusions. By adding more descriptive information one can partially avoid misunderstandings, but this tends to become very verbose.

One example is for example that graduating from the mental plane of existence means transcending thought and belief. This is imprecise enough to warrant discussion, as sure there are some who would translate this as "abandon thought and belief," supplying their own expectations where there is a lack of information.

On the other hand, imagine how one could convey the missing information. Sure one could explain at length the concept, but if the concept is referred to many times, a single term is more handy. Imagine the Pali and Sanskrit approach, and what you would get would be essentially a monster construct like this: transcending-the-notion-that-thoughts-and-beliefs-constitute-a-self. You could say then that graduating from the mental plane essentially means to achieve a state of transcending-the-notion-that-thoughts-and-beliefs-constitute-a-self.

Or acceptance. Often we hear that acceptance is a necessary step in spiritual development, but some might translate this as "approving of whatever happens," no matter how bad it was, or even "stopping to care." How about accepting-past-events-have-happened-to-move-on-and-consider-the-situation-at-hand-as-neutrally-as-possible? The latter one would not imply that we have to approve of misdeeds done by us, just accept that they have happened. This concept would be more like freeing us from the influence of past tendencies dominating our minds, freeing ourselves from the disturbances they have caused and keep on causing, breaking the cycle of trauma.

Precision comes at a price and can become very tedious. But without looking at subtle distinctions you cannot tell one thing from another and come to valid conclusions. Many students of Buddhism delve into a dead language to do this, just as students of medicine do with another dead tongue: Latin. Latin and Greek have been the tools of the academic communities to coin compound terms that succinctly describe subtle differences.

But the use of Latin, Greek, Pali and Sanskrit also erects a barrier between the knower and those who are willing to learn. Mostly they remain obscure terms that we take into our vocabulary without knowing what they really mean. Kundalini means "corporeal energy" or "coiled." Chakra means "wheel" or "turning" - describing the chakra visually basically. Karma means "action." By looking into the origin of words we may learn about what we are talking about, surely something any discussion about karma, kundalini or chakras can benefit from.

I welcome attempts to make these things more accessible like introducing terms like "energy body", "primary energy centers", etc. It both demystifies what we're talking about and makes sharing of information easier. We have a tendency to use the same old terms over and over with ever more connotations or our own individual interpretations thereof. Sometimes it pays to be more precise than that.