Assaji wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 2:49 pm
...
Fortunately, "teaching" and "conduct" are much more straightforward.
yes, but how will they know which pali word you mean by 'teaching'?
'dhamma' is a like a smart bomb, it often straddles many meanings simultaneously.
most people translate the dhamme dhamma anupassana of samma sati as 'contemplate phenomena among many kinds of phenomena.'
That misses the most important point. Dhamma is a nirvana compass. The primary purpose of dhamma anupassana is to take 4th jhana samadhi and moment by moment apply Dhamma that leads to nirvana, also verifying that one is seeing a genuine Dhamma (4th satipatthana overlaps with Dhamma vicaya), not the distorted or unclear version of an unawakened being.
Dhamma anupassana prime purpose is to realize nirvana, not investigate arbitrary phenomena.
Investigating phenomena is what scientists do, what Abhidharma gets side tracked into mapping out irrelevant aspects of samsara.
So leaving 'dhamma' untranslated it preserves this important meaning, at least for those unpolluted by Theravada wrong views on dhamma anupassana.