Unnecessary use of h's in the romanised Pali of some Sinhalese

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arkaprava
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Unnecessary use of h's in the romanised Pali of some Sinhalese

Post by arkaprava »

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viewtopic.php?f=13&t=39939

Dhammanando

Pulsar wrote: Thu Apr 22, 2021 4:36 pm Dearest frank k. I read part of what you posted on Reddit...
From Sujatho what you posted...
And in just the same way, the body is not a physical body, but a metaphor for the wholeness and directness of experience. As if this were not obvious enough from the context, notice that the things to be realized with the body are the eight liberations, which include the four formless attainments. These are by definition beyond any kind of physical reality. Elsewhere, the Buddha says that even Nibbana is to be realized with the body.

The body is not the body, the eye is not the eye, and thought is not thought. These are all words, inadequate, struggling, messy words, creeping up from the evolutionary slime, groping and grasping towards the light. As long as we keep them weighed down by the mundane, we can never speak of higher things. And since these higher things are things of the mind, if we cannot speak of them, we cannot imagine them. And if we cannot imagine them, we cannot realize them. And that is rather a sad state of affairs.
Sujatho is rightly speaking of the
  • the wholeness and directness of experience
He even says if if we cannot imagine them, we cannot realize them. And that is rather a sad state of affairs.
Many engage in discussions of jhana, without having a clue, of its soteriological significance. I feel folks think of jhana an an experience independent of the rest of the rest of the 8-fold path. It comes in a package. Is it not?
The 8-fold path does not require anything more than the 4 buddhist jhanas as Samma Samadhi, even though some suttas refer to meditations other than the 4 buddhist jhanas. I try not to dwell on what is unnecessary. I've noticed that you are a proponent of Arupa Samapathis.
Can you explain how those help the reversal of Dependent origination of suffering?
Should not this be our main concern?
Nama rupa helps propagate the worldly consciousness. If we can stop the process of creating rupa, (mental proliferation) the problem is solved.
4th Jhana can accomplish this. Why progress on to Arupa Samapatthis?
It is far better to rightly understand Paticca samuppada and educate folks on that, than to criticize Ven. Sujatho. He is merely discussing the weakness of language in communicating spiritual concepts.
Here is what someone else wrote on DW on the poverty of language in communicating spiritual concepts.
One time there was a question on why there is no sutta that explains awakening?
It is because they cannot explain what awakening actually is, to the puthujjana
Vinasp wrote. This is not Ven. Sujatho's fault.
It is not fair to misrepresent Ven. Sujatho.
With love :candle:
Why do people from Sri Lanka add an extra 'h' ?
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Dhammanando
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Re: B. Sujato third jhāna, "The body as metaphor", more like out of context, out of his body, out of his mind

Post by Dhammanando »

arkaprava wrote: Thu Apr 22, 2021 8:46 pm Why do people from Sri Lanka add an extra 'h' ?
It's the result of orthographic hypercorrection. In Pali phonology there are ten aspirated stops, while in modern Sinhala there are none at all. Consequently....

Sinhalese who know English but have no indological learning will typically spell Pali words exactly as they pronounce them: budda, damma, sangga, metta, upekka, dukka, samudaya, niroda, magga, Sujato, Kapilavattu.

Indologically well-educated Sinhalese will spell them correctly: buddha, dhamma, saṅgha, mettā, upekkhā, dukkha, samudaya, nirodha, magga, Sujāto, Kapilavatthu.

Indologically semi-educated Sinhalese will tend to hypercorrect. With their smattering of indological learning they know that some Pali stops need to be written with an 'h' in English, but they often forget which ones they are and find themselves inserting an 'h' in places where it's not needed. And so in trying too hard to get things right, they end up getting things wrong: buddha, dhamma, saṅgha, metthā, upekkhā, dukkha, samudhaya, nirodha, maggha, Sujātho, Kapilavatthu.

Edit:

I should add that a number of these hypercorrections are of long standing and widely accepted (e.g., mettha for mettā and numerous Pali proper nouns). Consequently one will sometimes find them being used even by Sinhalese who know better.
Yena yena hi maññanti,
tato taṃ hoti aññathā.


In whatever way they conceive it,
It turns out otherwise.
(Sn. 588)
Pulsar
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Re: B. Sujato third jhāna, "The body as metaphor", more like out of context, out of his body, out of his mind

Post by Pulsar »

Dearest arkapava, why do you create a distraction in a thread on Jhana? Why does the extra "h" bother you? Now there are words like Budda with a missing h, or present like Aṭṭhakatha, Guhathaka, Aṭṭhakavagga. I am not a linguist, letters misplaced or replaced don't bother me, but ill-will towards others and fault finding irritates me. Think of Metta sutta, can
we stay on topic?
instead of a missing 'h' leading us on a journey of mental proliferation, can you answer the question I asked, or if you are unable to answer it, it is best not to disrupt the discussion.

On Jan 16/2021 when Coconut wrote elsewhere 
Coming to this forum, and any general buddhist community,
you will find a lot of dishonest insincere people who wish to suck up all your time and energy. Best to stay away from communities such as these, and if you do stick around, find out the time wasters and block them, and focus on those who are sincere.
You responded  
Exactly this.
you agreed with him.
link viewtopic.php?f=13&t=39027&p=601503#p601503
Based on your own impression, are you not wasting my time? Should i block you?
On Frank's thread you show up  "sucking up my time and energy"
by copying and pasting my entire comment and going on a rant regarding a typo, by writing 
Why do people from Sri Lanka add an extra 'h' ?
The subject matter on this thread is jhana not Sri lanka.
Let me repeat my question, if the misspelling distracted you.
I asked Frank to explain how the Arupas can help reverse dependent origination of suffering?
Frank has not answered so far, perhaps you know the answer.
If so, please reply, but stay on topic. I am not interested in people in Sri Lanka. If you like to discuss the matter, create another thread and call it so, for instance "People in Sri Lanka are idiots, are obsessed with "h".
The main thrust of this thread is OP's criticism of Sujato, (h removed). The concern is a passage Frank introduced in the OP. I was defending the monk's position, because I strongly felt
  • he  was using body as a metaphor for the wholeness or the directness of experience.
I am sure Ven. Dhammanando will support me here.
Dearest Ven. Dhammanando, Is Frank right in his criticism?
Dearest Arkapava: Do you have anything to add to the subject matter of the discussion instead of merely substracting an 'h' from Sujato?
Confusion on threads regarding buddhist jhana, is because people misinterpret the buddhist word consciousness. Some think it is an inherent quality of the individual.
The multiple definitions provided by Abhidhamma, complicate matters.
Dearest Ven. Dhammanando,  can you clarify for all of us what Buddha meant by consciousness? not the pre-buddhist definition of consciousness.
We are still on topic since the discussion is on jhana, and understanding Jhana and DO are essential to an understanding of jhana.
With love :candle:
arkaprava
Posts: 129
Joined: Thu Jul 18, 2019 12:13 pm

Re: B. Sujato third jhāna, "The body as metaphor", more like out of context, out of his body, out of his mind

Post by arkaprava »

Pulsar wrote: Fri Apr 23, 2021 2:54 pm Dearest arkapava, why do you create a distraction in a thread on Jhana? Why does the extra "h" bother you? Now there are words like Budda with a missing h, or present like Aṭṭhakatha, Guhathaka, Aṭṭhakavagga. I am not a linguist, letters misplaced or replaced don't bother me, but ill-will towards others and fault finding irritates me. Think of Metta sutta, can
we stay on topic?
instead of a missing 'h' leading us on a journey of mental proliferation, can you answer the question I asked, or if you are unable to answer it, it is best not to disrupt the discussion.

On Jan 16/2021 when Coconut wrote elsewhere 
Coming to this forum, and any general buddhist community,
you will find a lot of dishonest insincere people who wish to suck up all your time and energy. Best to stay away from communities such as these, and if you do stick around, find out the time wasters and block them, and focus on those who are sincere.
You responded  
Exactly this.
you agreed with him.
link viewtopic.php?f=13&t=39027&p=601503#p601503
Based on your own impression, are you not wasting my time? Should i block you?
On Frank's thread you show up  "sucking up my time and energy"
by copying and pasting my entire comment and going on a rant regarding a typo, by writing 
Why do people from Sri Lanka add an extra 'h' ?
The subject matter on this thread is jhana not Sri lanka.
Let me repeat my question, if the misspelling distracted you.
I asked Frank to explain how the Arupas can help reverse dependent origination of suffering?
Frank has not answered so far, perhaps you know the answer.
If so, please reply, but stay on topic. I am not interested in people in Sri Lanka. If you like to discuss the matter, create another thread and call it so, for instance "People in Sri Lanka are idiots, are obsessed with "h".
The main thrust of this thread is OP's criticism of Sujato, (h removed). The concern is a passage Frank introduced in the OP. I was defending the monk's position, because I strongly felt
  • he  was using body as a metaphor for the wholeness or the directness of experience.
I am sure Ven. Dhammanando will support me here.
Dearest Ven. Dhammanando, Is Frank right in his criticism?
Dearest Arkapava: Do you have anything to add to the subject matter of the discussion instead of merely substracting an 'h' from Sujato?
Confusion on threads regarding buddhist jhana, is because people misinterpret the buddhist word consciousness. Some think it is an inherent quality of the individual.
The multiple definitions provided by Abhidhamma, complicate matters.
Dearest Ven. Dhammanando,  can you clarify for all of us what Buddha meant by consciousness? not the pre-buddhist definition of consciousness.
We are still on topic since the discussion is on jhana, and understanding Jhana and DO are essential to an understanding of jhana.
With love :candle:
It bothers me because due to my familiarity with languages like Hindi and Bengali, where the corresponding Pali words or even Sanskrit words don't seem to add an extra 'h'.

As far as I can remember there is a Sri Lankan monk, who mentioned that anatta is actually anattha.

BTW you don't need to copy and paste, you can click on the option Reply with quote for a particular comment, it does the same.
Last edited by arkaprava on Fri Apr 23, 2021 3:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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