Some Pali terms carry a weight of associations which can’t be borne by single English equivalents. In some such cases, where the terms form the connecting thread in the discussion (e.g., sammati, arammana), I have used a single equivalent throughout the text, and have given a variety of readings here which — if the reader feels inclined — can be read into the text in place of the equivalents used. In other cases (e.g., sati, nirodha) I have used a number of different equivalents in the text, as called for by the context, all of which have been gathered here so that the reader will see that they are meant to be related.

In choosing English equivalents for the Pali terms used in the book, I have been guided primarily by the meanings Ajaan Lee himself gives to those terms — either directly, through the way he explains and defines them; or indirectly, through the way he uses them. Some of these meanings differ from those generally accepted at present, in which cases it is up to the reader to discover which interpretations are best by experimenting to see which is most useful in practice.

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abhiñña: Intuitive powers which come from the practice of concentration: the ability to display psychic powers, clairvoyance, clairaudience, the ability to know the thoughts of others, recollection of past lifetimes, and the knowledge which does away with mental effluents (see asava).

anatta: Not-self; ownerless.

anicca(m): Inconstant, unstable, impermanent.

anussati: Recollection as a meditation exercise. Strictly speaking, there are seven themes recommended for recollection: the virtues of the Buddha, of the Dhamma, and of the Sangha; moral virtue; generosity; the qualities which lead to rebirth as a heavenly being; and the peace of nibbana. (This last topic is for those who have already experienced a glimpse of nibbana, but have not yet attained arahantship.) In addition, the following practices are also sometimes classified as "anussati": mindfulness of death, mindfulness of breathing, and mindfulness immersed in the body.

apaya-bhumi: Realms of deprivation; the four lower states of existence: rebirth in hell, as a hungry shade, as an angry demon, or as a common animal. In Buddhism, none of these states is regarded as an eternal condition.

arahant: A person who has abandoned all ten of the fetters which bind the mind to the cycle of rebirth (see sanyojana), whose heart is free of mental effluents (see asava), and is thus not destined for future rebirth. As this word bears a resemblance to the Pali word for "distant" (ara), it is sometimes translated as "one far from evil." An epithet for the Buddha and the highest of his Noble Disciples.

arammana: Preoccupation; object or issue of the will; anything the mind takes as a theme or prop for its activity.

asava: Mental effluent or pollutant — sensuality, becoming, views, and unawareness.

avijja: Unawareness; ignorance; counterfeit knowledge; delusion about the nature of the mind.

ayatana: Sense medium. The inner sense media are the sense organs — eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and intellect. The outer sense media are their respective objects.

brahma: "Great One" — an inhabitant of the heavens of form or formlessness.

buddho (buddha): Awake; enlightened.

dhamma (dharma): Event; phenomenon; the way things are in and of themselves; their inherent qualities; the basic principles underlying their behavior. Also, principles of behavior which human beings should follow so as to fit in with the right natural order of things; qualities of mind they should develop so as to realize the inherent quality of the mind in and of itself. By extension, "dhamma" is used to refer also to any doctrine which teaches such things. Thus the Dhamma of the Buddha refers to his teachings, their practice, and to the direct experience of the quality of nibbana at which they are aimed.

dhatu: Element; property; potential. In the Pali Canon this word occurs primarily in discussions of the causes of activity, in which it forms the ultimate precondition underlying the causal chain leading to the activity in question. The arousal or irritation of the dhatu is what causes the activity to take place. Thus on the psychological level, the properties of sensuality, anger, or delusion in a person’s mind are the basic conditions underlying unwise action on his or her part. On the level of nature at large, phenomena such as windstorms, fires, floods, and earthquakes are explained as resulting from the arousal of the properties of wind, fire, and water. Such disorders cease when the disturbed property grows calm. Thus, for instance, when the fire property runs out of sustenance to cling to, it grows calm and the individual fire goes out. On the level of the human body, diseases are explained as resulting from the aggravation of any of these properties, all of which permeate the entire body. For example, in Thai medicine, belching, fainting, cramps, convulsions, and paralysis are associated with disorders of the internal wind element.

All of this explanation may make the notion of dhatu seem rather foreign, but when used as an object of meditation, the four physical dhatu are simply a way of viewing the body in impersonal, purely physical terms. they are experienced as the elementary sensations and potentials — warmth, movement, etc. — which permeate and make up the internal sense of the body (see rupa). Thus the meditation exercise of spreading the breath throughout the body is simply the feeling of linking the sensations of the in-and-out breath with the subtle sense of motion that permeates the body at all times. The six dhatu — the four physical dhatu plus space and consciousness — constitute the elementary properties or potentials which underlie the experience of physical and mental phenomena.

dukkha(m): Stress; suffering; pain; discontent.

jhana: Meditative absorption in a single object, notion or sensation (see rupa).

kamma (karma): Acts of intention which result in states of being and birth. The law of kamma is the principle that a person’s own intentional acts form the power which determines the good and evil that he or she meets with.

kasina: An object which is stared at with the purpose of fixing an image of it in one’s consciousness and then manipulating the image to make it fill the totality of one’s awareness.

khandha: Component parts of sensory perception; physical and mental phenomena as they are directly experienced: rupa (see below); vedana — feelings of pleasure, pain, or indifference which result from the mind’s interaction with its objects; sañña — labels, concepts, allusions; sankhara (see below); and viññana — consciousness, the acting of taking note of sense data and ideas as they occur.

lokadhamma: Worldly phenomena — fortune, loss of fortune, status, loss of status, praise, censure, pleasure, and pain.

mara: Temptation; mortality. The five forms in which temptation appears, deflecting the practitioner from the path, are as: defilement, the vicissitudes of the khandha, fear of death, urges & habitual tendencies, and as deities.

nibbana (nirvana): Liberation; the unbinding of the mind from greed, anger, and delusion, from physical sensations and mental acts. As the term is used to refer also to the extinguishing of a fire, it carries connotations of stilling, cooling, and peace. (According to the physics taught at the time of the Buddha, the property of fire exists in a latent state to a greater or lesser degree in all objects. When activated, it seizes and sticks to its fuel. As long as it remains latent or is extinguished, it is "unbound.")

nimitta: Mental sign or image. Uggaha nimitta refers to any image which arises in the course of meditation. Paribhaga nimitta refers to the mental manipulation of the image.

nirodha: Disbanding; cessation; dispersal; stopping (of stress and its causes).

pañña: Discernment; insight; wisdom; common sense; ingenuity.

rupa: The basic meaning of this word is "appearance" or "form." It is used, however, in a number of different contexts, taking on different shades of meaning in each. In lists of the objects of the senses, it is given as the object of the sense of sight. As one of the khandha, it refers to physical phenomena or sensations (visible appearance or form being the defining characteristics of what is physical). This is also the meaning it carries when opposed to nama, or mental phenomena. The act of focusing on the level of physical and mental phenomena (literally, form and name) means focusing on the primary sensation of such phenomena in and of themselves, before the mind elaborates on them further. In the list, "kama, rupa, arupa" — the types of object which the mind can take as its preoccupation and the states of being which result — kama refers to images derived from the external senses, rupa refers to the internal sense of the form of the body, and arupa to strictly mental phenomena. This last sense of rupa is also what is meant in the term "rupa jhana."

samadhi: Concentration; the act of centering the mind on a single object.

sammati: In Thai, the primary meaning of this word is "supposing," which is how it is translated here, but it also conveys the meaning of convention (i.e., usages which are commonly designated or agreed upon), make-believe and conjuring into being with the mind.

sankhara: Fashioning — the forces and factors which fashion things, the process of fashioning, and the fashioned things which result; all things conditioned, compounded or concocted by nature, whether on the physical or the mental level. In some contexts this word is used as a blanket term for all five khandha. As the fourth khandha, it refers specifically to the fashioning or forming of urges, thoughts, etc., within the mind.

sanyojana: Fetters which bind the mind to the cycle of rebirth — self-identification views, uncertainty, grasping at precepts and practices; sensual passion, irritability; passion for form, passion for formless phenomena, conceit, restlessness and unawareness.

sati: Powers of reference and retention; mindfulness; composure. In Thai, this word can also mean "restraint."

satipatthana: Frame of reference; foundation of mindfulness — body, feelings, mind, and mental qualities.

upadana: Clinging; attachment; sustenance for becoming and birth — attachment to sensuality, to views, to precepts & practices, and to theories of the self.

uposatha: Observance day, corresponding to the phases of the moon, on which Buddhist laypeople gather to listen to the Dhamma and observe the eight precepts.

vicara: Evaluation; investigation. A factor of rupa jhana.

vimutti: Release; freedom from the suppositions and fabrications of the mind.

vipassana: Liberating insight; clear intuitive understanding of how physical and mental phenomena are caused and experienced, seeing them as they are, in and of themselves, arising and passing away, in terms of the four Noble Truths and the characteristics of inconstancy, stress, and lack of self.

vitakka: Thinking about an object; keeping an object in mind. A factor of rupa jhana.

yoni: Mode of generation. In the Pali Canon, four modes of generation are listed: birth from a womb, birth from an egg, birth from moisture, and spontaneous appearance (this last refers to the birth of heavenly beings).

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If anything in this translation is inaccurate or misleading, I ask forgiveness of the author and reader for having unwittingly stood in their way. As for whatever may be accurate, I hope the reader will make the best use of it, translating it a few steps further, into the heart, so as to attain the truth at which it points.

The translator

Sabbe satta sada hontu
avera sukha-jivino
katam puñña-phalam mayham
sabbe bhagi bhavantu te

May all beings always live happily,
free from enmity.
May all share in the blessings
springing from the good I have done.