Philogical Odds & Ends VI - Meditation Words

MANY WORDS HAVE INTERESTING STORIES associated with them. This is a sixth set of terms which have caught my eye as having some interest, but which did not rate a whole post on their own. There is a list of other terms I've written about at the bottom of this post.

In this post I cover words related to meditation: dhyāna, anusmṛti, bhāvanā, yoga, samādhi, sādhana, and meditation.


Dhyāna

Most of us will be familiar, I think, with the notion that the Japanese word Zen is in fact the Japanese pronunciation of a Chinese pronunciation of the Sanskrit word dhyāna, most often translated as 'meditation'. Here I will go over that ground but in some detail, then go one step further and look at the Proto-Indo-European origins, before considering the translation as 'meditation'. Beginning with East Asia we find the following:

禪 or 禪 chán - traditional Chinese.
禅 chán - simplified Chinese.
禅 zen, ぜん - Japanese.
禪 sŏn, 선 - Korean
thiền - Vietnamese.

I'm using the Pinyin transliteration system for Chinese where diacritics indicate tone. In the other most common system - Wade-Giles - 禪 is spelled ch'an. These forms all stem from an original Chinese 禪那 (chán nā), which is a transliteration, not a translation - i.e. it is an attempt to capture the sound, not the meaning - of the Sanskrit word dhyāna. It was probably pronounced something like /ʥanːa/ (using the International Phonetic Alphabet). My friend Maitiu tells me:

"this character 禪 has the phonetic element dān 單 which has two small boxes at the top and wherever this character is used with simplified characters in Chinese these two boxes are are replaced with two strokes 单. In the Japanese version of this character the boxes are replaced with three strokes 単. The radical can also be written two ways - 礻and 示 - hence the two different characters 禪 and 禪. Of these 示 is the older form, and also an independent character meaning 'to show or instruct'. Originally 示 was a pictograph of a sacrificial altar and it's used as the radical in lots of characters with meanings associated with sacrifice, ritual and religion. Originally 禪 meant a sacrifice to the earth made by the the King or the ritual of abdication, though in these meanings it has the alternate reading shàn."

Note: Some fonts seem to default older forms to newer ones and even traditional to simplified. Getting the various characters to display correctly is quite difficult - but at time of publishing I see them in the text.  

The Pāli spelling resolves the conjunct dhyā as jhā, i.e. jhāna, while Gāndārī is jaṇa. This made me wonder if the Chinese had decided on the sound chán because they were hearing a central Asian pronunciation with /j/ or /jh/ sound instead of Sanskrit /dhy/. Most of the early Buddhist contact with China was by Central Asians (from cities like Khotan on the Silk Road), or from Gandhāra and other western regions of India. I asked about this and Maitiu replied:

"禪那 is also used in the transcription of the place names Ujjayini and Nairañjanā which supports a reading of jana. Having a quick search the earliest uses of the transcription 禪那 seem to be by Kumārajīva [344 CE – 413 CE] and Dharmarakṣa [4^th century] who were both central Asian."

From China, most likely through Central Asia, we come back to India and Sanskrit. Authorities differ on the root of dhyāna. MW lists it under √dhyai. PED points to √dhī as the root. Whitney has √dhyā and distinguishes this from √dhī; he simplifies the meaning as 'think'. The word forms listed under each root are different: √dhī: 'dhīmahi, dīdhayas' vs √dhyā 'dhyāyati, dhyāti' (3rd person singular present indicative forms). However √dhyā and √dhī are evidently related.

The noun dhyāna is formed by adding the primary suffix (kṛt-pratyaya) -ana (known as lyuṬ in the Pāṇinian code) to the root. 

The PIE root is *dheiǝ 'to see, to look, to show', and according to AHD this has a variant *dhyā which is where our words come from. A suffixed form *dhyā-mṇ (where ṇ is called a 'sonant' form, a sort of nasal vowel) gives us the Greek sēmeion and sēma 'a sign' from which we get our words semantic, semiotic, semaphore, etc. The Indo-European Lexicon lists dhī as a variant form of dheiǝ. The word dhyāna then from it's etymology means something like 'to observe mentally'.

Rather than transliterate, the Tibetans translate dhyāna as bsam gtan (བསམ་གཏན), pronounced 'samten', meaning 'mental focus'. It is made up from bsam 'thought, intention'; and gtan, an intensifier, also meaning 'order, system'. Clearly there is only a semantic, and no etymological or phonological connection. Tibetan translations were standardised quite early one, meaning that one can almost always reconstruct the original Sanskrit terminology.

Anusmṛti

There are a series of meditation practices referred to as anusmṛti (Pāli anussati). The root is √smṛ 'to remember', and with the prefix anu- we get 'to recollect, or bring to mind' and anusmṛti is an action noun meaning "recollecting". These are practices therefore of recollection, remembrance and reflection. In Pāli there are six anussati meditations: recollections of the Three Jewels (buddhānussati, dhammānussati, and sanghānussati), reflection on ethics (sīlānusati), generosity (cāgānussati), and on [the merit of] the devas (devānussati); or ten with the addition of four (three with only sati instead of anussati) reflection on death (maraṇasati), on being embodied (kāyagatāsati), on the breath (ānāpānasati), and on peace (upasamānussati).

Bhāvanā

Bhāvanā is from the Sanskrit root √bhū 'to be' in the causative form (bhū and be are cognate). It therefore means 'development, cultivation'. This is the word most commonly translated as 'meditation' (see below). There are two types of bhāvanā: śamatha and vipaśyanā. The cultivation of śamatha 'calming, tranquillity' is more or less synonymous with dhyānabhāvanā in early Buddhism. Also mettābhāvanā - the development of loving kindness. The word vipaśyanā means 'seeing' (paśyanā) through (vi-). The anusmṛti meditations are vipaśyanā-bhāvanā. If we were to create a Latinate neologism to translate vipaśyanā it might be 'diavision'.

Yoga

Yoga means 'connection, joining; application, meditation, spiritual practice' from the root √yuj ‘to yoke’ originally the act of yoking animals esp horses together, or to a chariot or plough. PIE *√yeug ‘join’ > Greek. zygon > Eng. –zygous, syzygy; Latin jugum ‘yoke’ > Eng. jugular, conjugate, & Latin jungere > E. join, junction, junta, etc; cf Welsh iou ‘yoke’; Old English geoc ‘yoke’; also S. yuga ‘eon, era’. [definition from my book Nāmapada]. Buddhaghosa's usual term for a meditator is yogāvacara 'devoted to yoga', but this and the related term yogin 'one who practices yoga' do not occur in the Nikāyas.

Samādhi

This word means 'concentration, focus'. The Pāli commentators consider it to be synonymous with 'one-pointedness of mind' (cittass'ekagatā). The root is √dhā 'to place' with a double suffix sam- + ā; c.f. śraddhā 'to place the heart'. Samādhi is a morally neutral state - one can be focussed on good or evil. In the Abdhidhamma it is one of seven mental states which are always present - i.e. for their to be consciousness at all we must be focussed on something. Samyak-samādhi (Pāli sammāsamādhi) is the 8^th limb of the eight-fold path. With respect to meditation samādhi has three degrees (in Pāli) parikamma-samādhi 'preparation focus'; upacāra-samādhi 'access concentration'; and appanā-samādhi 'attainment concentration;, i.e. the dhyānas.

Sādhana

Sādhana is an action noun from the root √sādh ‘to succeed’, meaning 'leading to the goal, effective, efficient'. This word is not used in this sense in Pāli, and is more particularly associated with tantric practice. Someone who does spiritual practice is a sādhaka. √sādh is most likely related to the root √sidh which also means 'to succeed' and gives us the words siddha 'an adept, accomplished, one who has succeeded', and siddhi 'accomplishment, success'.

Meditation

By contrast the English word meditation comes from a PIE root meaning 'to measure': *med. Through Greek metron, we get the English cognates meter, measure, symmetry ('with measure'), and via Latin medērī 'to look after, to heal' (i.e. to take appropriate measures) words such as medical, medicine, remedy. Other words from Latin variants include modest, moderate; mode, model, modern. A Germanic compound *ē-mōt-ja is the source of the word empty. The word meditate, comes from L. meditārī 'to think about, consider, reflect'. I see a definite semantic cross-over with vipaśyanā-bhāvanā style meditations which generally do involve reflection, but not with śamatha-bhāvanā style meditations. Some people have opted to translate dhyāna as 'trance' but this seems to miss the point completely; 'absorption' will just about do; though I think now that 'concentration' is more common, though again I wonder whether concentration really capture the expansiveness and openness of the experience of dhyāna.

~~oOo~~

See other Philological Odds & Ends posts:

• I: tathāgata, sūtra, śramaṇa, loka, gahapati/gṛhapati.
• II: cakravartin, cintāmaṇi, yoniso manasikara, pāramitā, etymology.
• III: bodhisattva, anagārikā, samyak/mithyā.
• IV: vrata, mitra, kavi.
• V: megha, mañju, saṅgha.

Buddhist Atheism and Darwin

Since being contacted by Ted Meissner of The Secular Buddhist podcast for an interview (an enjoyable experience), I've been taking more interest in the theme of non-religious Buddhism as an adaptation of Buddhism to Western Culture. I've watched a Stephen Batchelor video on YouTube, and read various articles. Batchelor is a voice of reason and I appreciate his contribution. At the same time I've discovered that I very much enjoy Richard Dawkins' polemical approach to religion.

Not long ago I changed my strap-line for this blog to "Western Buddhism... the Buddhist Enlightenment colliding with the European Enlightenment" which reflects my growing interest in how we adapt Buddhism to Western culture in a way that honours both. Though now a Buddhist and writer, I grew up secular and focussed by education on science. I have a B.Sc in chemistry from Waikato University, NZ. However, during my studies I realised that a detailed knowledge of the theory and practice of science was not enough. I was still largely unhappy, even depressed, most of the time, despite getting good grades in my chemistry classes. I did some shopping around before becoming a Buddhist and joining in with the Triratna Community. Buddhism seemed to offer what I was missing, and a large part of that was a community of people with coherent, well articulated, but also lived values. I found at the Auckland Buddhist Centre back in 1994.

In this post I want to look at one kind of rhetoric used by religions adapting to new cultural surroundings, and contrast that with how Charles Darwin changed the Christian Church forever. In the Hindu tradition there is a popular narrative about Gautama the Wake. He was in fact the ninth avatara of Viṣṇu, and he manifested in order to stop Hindu's from carrying out animal sacrifices, to reform the Hindu class system so as to allow the śudra class to be liberated. Hindu's therefore see Gautama the Wake as a reformer from within. I have met people, both in the West and in India, who hold this view in all seriousness and who tried to convince me of it. Of course no Buddhist takes this seriously. The lie is so great and so bold that we hardly know where to begin to refute it. However the avatara story is not rhetoric intended to convince Buddhists that really they are Hindus. No, the rhetoric has a primarily internal audience. This is a story that is mainly told by Hindus for Hindus.

Buddhists have used precisely this tactic. I've already pointed out that despite the efforts of many scholars (with K. R. Norman and Richard Gombrich at the forefront) to find parallels and echoes of the Upaniṣads in early Buddhist texts, that the early Buddhist portrayal of Brahmins suggests a slim and superficial knowledge - a second-hand caricature - rather than a true critique (See especially Early Buddhism and Ātman/Brahman). It might make sense to see the Buddhist critique of Brahmins as similarly intended for an internal audience, especially in light of the historical failure to convince many Brahmins. Later on we see other aspects of Indian religion being absorbed by Buddhists: Sarasvatī and Śrī in the Golden Light Sūtra; Śiva in the Karaṇḍavyūha Sūtra, and again in the Sarvatathāgata-tattvasaṃgraha where Śiva is converted to Buddhism and becomes a dharmapāla (often the form of Mahākāla). Indeed if you look at the periphery of the early Tantric Buddhist maṇḍalas you will find all manner of deities from the Vedas and Pūraṇas, some of whom like the ḍākiṇī who go on to become quintessentially Buddhist! So Buddhists have long employed this same kind of rhetoric, critiquing other religions for an internal audience. I think it helps to strengthen group coherence, and faith in one's chosen path, especially perhaps under adverse circumstances.

I've noticed this same tactic on the Secular Buddhist Facebook page where there is a running critique of traditional Buddhism in terms of what it gets wrong: basically traditional Buddhism contains some superstition and some untestable metaphysical beliefs, such as, and perhaps especially, a belief in karma & rebirth. In my Secular Buddhist interview, Ted and I talked about rebirth & karma and the difficulties they pose for contemporary Buddhists. I am personally very sceptical about rebirth (see Rebirth and the Scientific Method), but I have argued that a belief in karma linked with rebirth might have pragmatic value when seen in the right light as a motivation to be ethical (see Hierarchies of Values). Mind you, I see beliefs per se as rather secondary to practical matters - what motivates someone to be ethical is less important than the fact that they are ethical. Motivations get refined by practice.

Buddhist Atheists, or secular Buddhists, or whatever we call them, have a problem not unlike the problem of 'Christian Atheists' (people whose belief system is defined by not believing in the Christian God). I suppose most Christian Atheists would claim that they don't believe in any god, but the fact is that the most of the public dialogue revolves around the existence or non-existence of the Christian God. Christians still set the agenda. One of the things I see as vitally important for modern discourse (over which I have almost no influence; but, hey, everyone has an opinion) is that we who are atheists need to find some positive content and start talking about incessantly. We need to stop defining ourselves in terms of what we do not believe, in terms of opposition to the mainstream. God is irrelevant.

One of the reasons that Charles Darwin has been so successful is that he did not set out to criticise the Church or its members. He set out to observe nature, and presented positive evidence of what he found. He did not invent the evolution meme, but he decisively showed that it was the über-meme of biology. Of course it had massive theological implications, but he more or less left it to the Church to work them out. Ironically the Darwin Correspondence Project draws out the fact that Darwin had not intended to attack church doctrine:

"But Darwin was very reticent about his personal beliefs, and reluctant to pronounce on matters of belief for others. His published writings are particularly reserved or altogether silent on religion." - What Did Darwin Believe?

Darwin is a model for anyone who thinks a paradigm needs overturning. He didn't, as far as I know, complain about the lack of a level playing field, or the lack of political influence amongst the intelligentsia (as Richard Dawkins does in his 2007 TED presentation); and he did not directly attack church doctrine - he didn't need to. Though we still argue about implications of his finding, we cannot ignore them. Darwin destroyed the church doctrine of creation by merely presenting his evidence to the Royal Society and the world.

In a sense I'm not interested in reading that traditional Buddhism is getting it all wrong. I agree that an Iron Age tradition, whose most recent innovations are medieval, is unlikely to sit well in our Information Age. It's a given that ancient traditions are failing to live up to the present situation, because we who live in these times, who invented these times, can barely understand and cope with them. On the other hand traditional Buddhism clearly helps many people to lead more meaningful and fulfilling and ethical lives - just as Christianity still appeals to many good people.

On the other hand the idea that Buddhism is inherently in tune with a scientific worldview is not true either - it is rooted in old-world ideas that no longer make sense. Many of those responsible for presenting Buddhism to the Western audience since the 19^th century have been passionate about the European Enlightenment rationalist legacy, and they have edited Buddhism to suit Western tastes. Aspects of Buddhism distasteful to the Western mind are often simply left out, glossed over, or explained away; and it's not until a closer association that we find that they are indubitably and perhaps indelibly present. It's not necessarily an intention to deceive, more like a strategy to attract people with what we already know attracts them, but to some extent it is a deception. One consequence is that some Buddhists still claim that the historical Buddha did not believe in any gods, but our own scriptures show him, on almost every page, conversing with gods from various religions. If he did not believe in gods, then who was he talking to?

What I want to see is evidence that leads to conclusions that change the way we think about life in general, from which we can work out the implications for Buddhism. I don't see this coming from Cosmology or Quantum Mechanics or any branch of physics. I think the parallels drawn to these disciplines are either prosaic or spurious. Probably we will find interesting results from ecologists, and evolutionary biologists - especially the followers of James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis, and if I had more time I would go back to Lovelock, and read Margulis (who argues that symbiosis and cooperation are more important drivers of evolution than specialisation and competition). For my money I think we will find compelling evidence to change the way we Buddhists think in the work of neuroscientists such as Oliver Sacks, Antonio Demasio, V. S. Ramachandran, Joseph LeDoux; and their colleagues such as Thomas Metzinger (philosopher), and Martin Seligman (psychologist). I had not read anything in this area for some years, but have been working through Metzingers's recent book The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self. It's not always a joy to read, but the book has some very interesting things to say (more to come on Metzinger!). Clearly those who study consciousness and the mind are much closer to our interests than those who study matter.

Rather than railing against rebirth, karma, or any traditional beliefs (which I think will convert very few people) we would be better off to focus on talking about the implications neuroscience research. One fascinating instance of this is the unfolding discovery of just how intimately connected are consciousness and the brain - this area of study is surging ahead at the moment. The conclusion that mind and brain are inseparable seems increasingly obvious; and the idea of disembodied consciousness increasingly unlikely. I predict that actual rebirth won't survive as a viable meme for much longer except in marginal, fundamentalist sects. However symbolic rebirth as a myth (in the Joseph Campbell sense) may well continue to inform our lives. And we will understand the difference more clearly. The challenge will be presenting what is in fact a highly technical body of knowledge to a readership already overwhelmed by information, with a decreasing attention span, and not trained in the kinds of thinking required to truly grasp the implication of science.

The Darwinian approach of presenting a mass of positive evidence and allowing people to come to their own conclusions can change the world. Although an oppositional rhetoric (as described above) for an internal audience must have some value (or it would not survive), it won't reach beyond the borders of the converted - it is not useful for proselytising. In order to make changes in society, even in Buddhist society, one has to be clear that there is a better alternative, and I'm not sure that Buddhist atheists (or perhaps anyone who identifies with the label atheist) have found what that is yet - they know what they're against, but not what they are for. Or at least what they are for is actually part of the background of modern life (secularism, rationalism, materialism etc).