If nama-rupa really means mind-and-body...

[retrofuturist]

... then why isn't it called mano-kaya or kaya-mano?



Should there be an 'and' in there, or is an 'and' implied? Or could it be that one term is actually being defined in relation to the other?

Metta,
Retro.

[altar]

I don't know retro but one possibility is that name and form is a better translation, because...
perhaps...
matter or earth or body does not arise from ignorance etc... it is merely the form we perceive that arises from ignorance (and consciousness).

[jcsuperstar]

i thought it referred to concepts (nama) and concrete things (rupa)
name and form?

[PeterB]

Name and form is my understanding...the thing in itself at any given point in "its" process of anicca ..form. The names we give it and associated qualities we ascribe to it..name.

[retrofuturist]

Greetings,

As for nama, I think what ever definition we have needs to take account of the following...

Vedanā saññā cetanā phasso manasikāro, idam vuccat'āvuso nāmam; cattāri ca mahābhūtāni catunnañ ca mahābhūtānam upādāya rūpam, idam vuccat'āvuso rūpam; iti idañ ca nāmam idañ ca rūpam, idam vuccat'āvuso nāmarūpam.

Feeling, perception, intention, contact, attention,—this, friends, is called name; the four great entities and matter held (i.e. taken up by craving) from the four great entities,—this, friends, is called matter; thus, this name and this matter,—this, friends, is called name-&-matter.

As for rupa, I believe it generally means form... but is it necessarily "form" in a physical sense? Is a visual form rupa? Is an auditory form rupa? etc.

Metta,
Retro.

[Ben]

Hi Retro

You might find Vism Ch XVIII helpful.

A tasty morsel from XVIII n.4:

Name-and-form has many advantages over 'mentality-materiality' if only because it preserves the integrity of nama and excludes any metaphysical assumption of matter existing as a substance behind apparent forms.

kind regards

Ben

[acinteyyo]

... then why isn't it called mano-kaya or kaya-mano?

Hi retro,

because namarupa doesn't really mean mind-and-body.

best wishes, acinteyyo

[dhamma_spoon]

Hello Retro, Altar, Jcsuperstar, PeterB, Ben, Acinteyyo -

Just wanna add this one-cent to your cooking pot :

The term 'nama-rupa' originates from 'vinnana' (consciousness) and vice versa.
The two terms 'mano' (a synonym for vinnana) and 'kaya' (body) together are equivalent to (nama + rupa + vinnana) and they are the same as the 5 khandhas (rupa, vedana, sanna, sankhara, vinnana).
The term materiality is the 'maha-bhuta rupa' plus its derivatives.
The term mentality is (nama + vinnana). Nama, as defined in MN 9, does not include vinnana.
Then there is the so-called consciousness-concomitants that are the sankhata dhammas, excluding vedana and 'sankhara khandha'.

So, I admit, it is confusing.

Thanks.

Tep
-----

[acinteyyo]

Hello Retro, Altar, Jcsuperstar, PeterB, Ben, Acinteyyo -

Just wanna add this one-cent to your cooking pot :

The term 'nama-rupa' originates from 'vinnana' (consciousness) and vice versa.
The two terms 'mano' (a synonym for vinnana) and 'kaya' (body) together are equivalent to (nama + rupa + vinnana) and they are the same as the 5 khandhas (rupa, vedana, sanna, sankhara, vinnana).
The term materiality is the 'maha-bhuta rupa' plus its derivatives.
The term mentality is (nama + vinnana). Nama, as defined in MN 9, does not include vinnana.
Then there is the so-called consciousness-concomitants that are the sankhata dhammas, excluding vedana and 'sankhara khandha'.

So, I admit, it is confusing.

Seems quite clear to me.

[Moggalana]

http://theravadin.wordpress.com/2008/05 ... -and-rupa/

[dhamma_spoon]

Hi, Moggallana -

Please comment on the following extract that I took from your recommended online article.

Do you agree/disagree with the author, "Theravadin" ?

The world II – concept and reality
May 12, 2008 by theravadin

Nama-rupa is a compound, a noun, made up of two words. They are really easy to translate. “Nama” is “name” in English and many other indo-european languages as well, and rupa is form or picture, as in “the form on a canvas”.

Well, if that is so easy, why do we nowadays seem to find this term almost exclusively translated as “mind-matter”??
... In fact, if the Buddha would have meant “mind and matter” in his language it would have been something like “mana-kaya” or “cittakaya”.

However, as it happens, Buddha had something very important “in mind” when he used the term “nama-rupa” not in this conventional materialistic connotation. [End of quote]

How can he tell anyway what the Buddha had "in mind" ??


Sincerely,

Tep
-----

[Moggalana]

Hi, Moggallana -

Please comment on the following extract that I took from your recommended online article.

Do you agree/disagree with the author, "Theravadin" ?

The world II – concept and reality
May 12, 2008 by theravadin

Nama-rupa is a compound, a noun, made up of two words. They are really easy to translate. “Nama” is “name” in English and many other indo-european languages as well, and rupa is form or picture, as in “the form on a canvas”.

Well, if that is so easy, why do we nowadays seem to find this term almost exclusively translated as “mind-matter”??
... In fact, if the Buddha would have meant “mind and matter” in his language it would have been something like “mana-kaya” or “cittakaya”.

However, as it happens, Buddha had something very important “in mind” when he used the term “nama-rupa” not in this conventional materialistic connotation. [End of quote]

How can he tell anyway what the Buddha had "in mind" ??


Sincerely,

Tep
-----

Hello Tep,

I'm no Pali scholar, so I don't know for sure what nama and rupa really mean, but the explanation as to why name and form or concept and reality or representation and reality are better translations than mind and matter seems valid to me.

from the link:

Nama or “Name/Concept” stands for a number of mental phenomena which are all necessary to fabricate and generate mental concepts which are then perceived as “reality” by our mind. It is a tricky process, and a quick one as well, but bare attention can shed some real light into this.
...
Rupa or “form” is the physical counterpart on which our sixfold sense consciousness bases it concept-creation. The basic objective for our samsaric thirst for continuity is getting a “picture” or “representation” of the physical reality so that we can go on feeding the whirlpool. But the “physicalness” of the world is very evasive, as we can only interpret and infer it. And if we do a good job doing that, we end up with quantum physics pointing the finger back at the finger who is pointing.
...
There could not be any liberation from a “mind created by matter”. But there very well can be a liberation from “concepts and forms”.

[tiltbillings]

It bears repeating, again:

Recall that from the perspective of the Buddha’s teachings in the Pali, the ‘All’ {SN IV 15} is composed entirely of phassa, contact between sense base and sense object. We can only directly know phenomena within this ‘world of experience’, so from the Theravadin perspective, we cannot know whether there really exists a ‘brain’ or a ‘body’ apart from moments of intellectual consciousness, of seeing (the image of a brain), and so on. The discourses of the Pali describe an individual world of experience as composed of various mental and physical factors, nama and rupa. These two are not the separate, independent worlds that Rene Descartes envisioned.

"…the Buddha spoke of the human person as a psychophysical personality (namarupa). Yet the psychic and the physical were never discussed in isolation, nor were they viewed as self-subsistent entities. For him, there was neither a ‘material-stuff’ nor a ‘mental-stuff’, because both are results of reductive analyses that go beyond experience."53

The physical and mental aspects of human experience are continually arising together, intimately dependent on one another.

53 Kalupahana 1976: 73, refers to D.15{II,62}, where the Buddha speaks of both
physicality and mentality mutually dependent forms of contact (phassa).
Physicality is described as contact with resistance (pat.ighasamphassa),
mentality as contact with concepts (adhivacanasamphassa).

STRONG ROOTS by Jake Davis, page 190-1. http://www.dharma.org/bcbs/Pages/docume ... gRoots.pdf

[Alex123]

I'm no Pali scholar, so I don't know for sure what nama and rupa really mean, but the explanation as to why name and form or concept and reality or representation and reality are better translations than mind and matter seems valid to me.

Hello Moggalana, all.


Rūpa, at least on some occasions, means visible form.

"Dependent on eye and form, eye-consciousness arises."
Cakkhuñca paṭicca rūpe ca uppajjati cakkhuviññāṇaṃ MN148

So form (as in visible form) seems to be a possible translation. Since word Rūpa is always used with nāma in D.O., it probably signifies something. Form as percieved or known form with the help of name, nāma.

ekaṃ samayaṃ bhagavā sakkesu viharati devadahaṃ nāma sakyānaṃ nigamo. PTS M 2.214 MN101
On one ocasion the Blessed one abided in Sakyan market town NAMED Devadaha.

nāma = name
nāmaka or nāmato= by name
nāmakaraṇa = naming.
nāmapada= a noun.




For "body with consciosness" (mind & matter?) there seems to be another pali phrase "saviññāṇake kāye" ex: M 3,18 S 3,80 S3,170



With best wishes,


Alex

[dhamma_spoon]

Hello Retro, Altar, Jcsuperstar, PeterB, Ben, Acinteyyo -

Just wanna add this one-cent to your cooking pot :

The term 'nama-rupa' originates from 'vinnana' (consciousness) and vice versa.
The two terms 'mano' (a synonym for vinnana) and 'kaya' (body) together are equivalent to (nama + rupa + vinnana) and they are the same as the 5 khandhas (rupa, vedana, sanna, sankhara, vinnana).
The term materiality is the 'maha-bhuta rupa' plus its derivatives.
The term mentality is (nama + vinnana). Nama, as defined in MN 9, does not include vinnana.
Then there is the so-called consciousness-concomitants that are the sankhata dhammas, excluding vedana and 'sankhara khandha'.

So, I admit, it is confusing.

Seems quite clear to me.

Do you not find the exclusion of consciousness from the definition of nama in MN 9 contradicting with the other sources that include consciousness within the name-group?
Don't you find the definition of sankhara confusing and inconsistent when you compare the suttas to the Abhidhamma literature?

If you answer "No" to both questions, then you are among the minority of all the Buddhists I know.

Tep
-----

[mikenz66]

There are some interesting comments in Bhikkhu Bodhi's introduction to his SN translation, where he points out that the term was in current use, but, as with several other technical terms, like kamma, sati, etc, his meaning was a modification.

I don't have the text with me, so the following may be slightly garbled:
Another point, which is connected with the older use of the term, but makes some logical sense in the Buddhist context, was that the mental aggregates under "nama" (feeling, perception, sankhara) have to do with "processing" information about the object that the arisen consciousness is aware of, which, roughly, is "naming" it.

Mike

[dhamma_spoon]

There are some interesting comments in Bhikkhu Bodhi's introduction to his SN translation, where he points out that the term was in current use, but, as with several other technical terms, like kamma, sati, etc, his meaning was a modification.

I don't have the text with me, so the following may be slightly garbled:
Another point, which is connected with the older use of the term, but makes some logical sense in the Buddhist context, was that the mental aggregates under "nama" (feeling, perception, sankhara) have to do with "processing" information about the object that the arisen consciousness is aware of, which, roughly, is "naming" it.

Mike

You reminded me the following.

"Feeling, perception, & consciousness are conjoined, friend, not disjoined. It is not possible, having separated them one from another, to delineate the difference among them. For what one feels, that one perceives. What one perceives, that one cognizes. ..." [MN 43]


Tep
----

[Sylvester]

Do you not find the exclusion of consciousness from the definition of nama in MN 9 contradicting with the other sources that include consciousness within the name-group?
Don't you find the definition of sankhara confusing and inconsistent when you compare the suttas to the Abhidhamma literature?

If you answer "No" to both questions, then you are among the minority of all the Buddhists I know.

Tep
-----

Hi Tep

The definition of Nama in MN 9 has also been troubling me. Not because vinnana is not included, but because phassa/contact is included. As you doubtless know, phassa is the meeting of the object with the sense base with the corresponding consciousness.

This makes the "vortex" or the reed sheaves description of Nama-Rupa with vinnana difficult to visualise, if vinnana already has one foot in Nama via contact.

With metta

[dhamma_spoon]

Hi, Moggallana -

Thank you very much. I think your explanation makes lots of good sense :


Hello Tep,

I'm no Pali scholar, so I don't know for sure what nama and rupa really mean, but the explanation as to why name and form or concept and reality or representation and reality are better translations than mind and matter seems valid to me.

from the link:
Nama or “Name/Concept” stands for a number of mental phenomena which are all necessary to fabricate and generate mental concepts which are then perceived as “reality” by our mind. It is a tricky process, and a quick one as well, but bare attention can shed some real light into this.
...
Rupa or “form” is the physical counterpart on which our sixfold sense consciousness bases it concept-creation. The basic objective for our samsaric thirst for continuity is getting a “picture” or “representation” of the physical reality so that we can go on feeding the whirlpool. But the “physicalness” of the world is very evasive, as we can only interpret and infer it. And if we do a good job doing that, we end up with quantum physics pointing the finger back at the finger who is pointing.
...
There could not be any liberation from a “mind created by matter”. But there very well can be a liberation from “concepts and forms”.

T: I can see the message of 'not-self' in the “concepts and forms” in your explanation.

With appreciation,


Tep
-----

[BlackBird]

It bears repeating, again:

Recall that from the perspective of the Buddha’s teachings in the Pali, the ‘All’ {SN IV 15} is composed entirely of phassa, contact between sense base and sense object....

Call: 1 Nanavira

This interpretation of phassa is not invited by the Mahānidānasuttanta (Dīgha ii,2 <D.ii,62>[9]), where nāmarūpapaccayā phasso is discussed without reference to salāyatana, and in terms of adhivacanasamphassa and patighasamphassa. These terms are more easily comprehensible when phassa is understood as 'contact between subject and object'. (It is an elementary mistake to equate patighasamphassa ['resistance-contact'] with five-base-contact [cakkhusamphassa &c.] and adhivacanasamphassa ['designation-contact'] with mind-contact [manosamphassa]. Adhivacana and patigha correspond to nāma and rūpa respectively, and it is clear from Majjhima iii,8 <M.i,190-1>[10] that both nāma and rūpa are conditions for each of the six kinds of contact.

- source

metta
Jack