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An interesting site of resources for learning Pali with downloadable PDF textbooks:
http://www.pali.pratyeka.org/

Could you elucidate a bit on “this sometimes borrows from Dhamma in a clever but self-serving way”?

Here is a non-meditation example. I'm preparing for a 3-month retreat, which requires some attention to both my regular life infrastructure (such that I can be away for so long) and to the retreat itself (what to bring, etc). There are ample opportunities to slide into greed- or aversion-driven behavior, all in the name of "wise preparation." For instance, IMS is clear about what they offer in terms of food, blankets, and supplies; and retreatants are encouraged to bring anything else they need (shading into want) to have. So how much energy should I put into buying a box of my favorite tea, and some kind of supplemental protein? Should I send a box containing my favorite blanket to make sure I'm warm enough? In some sense, I am wisely putting in effort now so that my retreat time can be smoother, more conducive to concentration, blah blah blah. But the reality is that I'm putting effort into minimizing unpleasant experience and increasing pleasant experience. This is not the way! So the trick is to find the balance where I'm looking out for my own health in some appropriate way, but not grasping onto trying to have the best possible material conditions.

My mind makes up stories about improving my meditation by making sure I have the right food, warmth, etc. After all, the Buddha does say that meditation is best practiced by those with good digestion. (Thanks, mind, for injecting that bit of Dhamma...)

The irony, of course, is that once I'm on retreat, I really don't care about this stuff. I know from experience that I have pretty strong equanimity about the physical, and even roommate- or people-related, conditions on retreat. I can handle a lot without agitation! So that's a clue that what is happening now is really just anxiety.

Ah, the mind.

(on Kim’s investigations of vedana and complications, consequences…)

Thank you for sharing some detailed reflections. I could follow most of it, but not sure about a couple of places.

Could you elucidate a bit on “this sometimes borrows from Dhamma in a clever but self-serving way”?

(A bit further down) “trying to apply a … label”. This technique proves tricky when specifically analyzing some common rudimentary event (vedana), because, as you show, the resulting mind-door cittas can generate their own vedana moments, which overshadow the original object.

Another sense of “trying to apply…” (also in Sheila's suggestions during the Abhidhamma study) seems less tricky because it comes at the other end, the beginning of the process. That would be getting the mind clear and calm, and then “inclining” it to one of the hindrances (or fetter or defilement), to tease it out in a relatively controlled situation for deconstructive investigation. But once that invocation succeeds, we’re right back at the problems in the aftermath stages that you are pointing to, watching Mara take over.

The paragraph with “more and more experience becomes neutral” is nicely fashioned and cogent. Brings to mind a different sense of uppekkha used in the Abhidhamma (more local and immediate than the BrahamVirara sense), meaning simply indifference, neutrality towards vedana. Reminds me of one fascinating citta called the “Smile-producing consciousness” (#30), a a citta that’s rootless (no lobha, dosa, moha), functional (non-kammic, neither by cause nor in result), associated with joy (somanassa), and peculiar to Arahants when they encounter any sense-based phenomenon. A nice motivational thought!

That paragraph touches on the issue of words also, in so far as they are not the ultimate currency of the real work. But we use them, mostly as blindly conditioned, assuming we “know” what they mean. For a “Pacceka Buddha” words are not an issue – they awake without the help of external teachings, and are not capable of teaching, it is said. For the rest of us, words form a bridge between the inner work and the guidance from texts and teachers. So find the need to work on them, make them luminous to well-understood, even “established” meaning.

The immensity of the full Abhidhamma system is daunting; perhaps only tolerable, approachable from a, so to speak, enneagram-type-five frame of mind. Consolation is found in encouraging teachings like Than-Geof’s take one step at a time, and trust (non-doubt) the system/teacher.

A nice image also (for musicians) was sketched by Jagara Sayadaw (who was then still “U Jagara”) during the Jhana retreat he led with Sheila last Fall: He mentioned that “samma-“ (translated as “Right-“ in name prefix to the 8 Noble Path phases) also has a musical sense of evenness, intuneness. He compared the whole path to a symphony orchestra – any one instrument out of tune, too loud, or off-beat, and then the whole sound is askew. So finely working one instrument at a time, then each sub-ensemble one at a time, and with luck (kamma?), some day (One Good Night?), the whole sonority will come together.

A survey of PTS Pali-English Dictionary discussion of meanings and uses of the common words for or related to "mind" is now posted, but in the forum thread "Pali-English – Sources, Tools, Interpretations", so as not to clutter this thread with something probably only of interest to a few people.

[Contents]

Here are summary extracts from the articles in the PTS Pali-English Dictionary (1925) on four of the major terms commonly translated as “mind”. I’ve selected passages a) that appear to relate to their usage in this way, and b) that may help in differentiating them. At various places in the articles there are comparisons with the other terms; for instance, the article on “mano” contains a comparative differentiation of mano, vinnana, and citta.

These articles are large chunks of information (the size of each article, in columns is given for each, where a full column is about 600-700 words). A lot of this size comes with the text supplying lists of locations in the Pali Cannon where a particular meaning is used, and definitions and citations for longer words compounded with the main word.

For comparison, the definitions from on-line (modern) dictionaries is appended at the end.

Contents:
I. Nama
II. Mano
III. Vinnana
IV. Citta
Appendix: definitions from the Buddhist Publication Society’s dictionary

I. Nama (about a full column of text in size)

Literally is used like the English word “name”. Shares also the basic root with Greek and Latin forms [European languages and Indian languages are all related under the heading “Indo-European”]

Specifically, as metaphysical term opposed to “rupa”… the noetic principle combined with the material principle to make up the individual as it is distinguished by “name” from other individuals. [This seems to relate to the usage as the 4th of the 12 links of dependant arising]

It is also noted, BTW, that “namarupa” is synonymous with “namakaya”, or name/mentality-“body”

II. Mano & Mana(s) (about a 4 full columns of text in size)

Means mind, thought
Mano represents the intellectual functioning of consciousness, while vinnana represents the field of sense and sense-reaction (“perception”), and citta the subjective aspect of consciousness.

It is discussed in detail as the 6th sense, and in the ayatani, summarized as “the mind fits the world as the eye fits the light”. Mano is the subjective counterpart of Dhamma (in its meaning as the rationality of the Universe, Natural Low). Manas is the receiver of the rationality of phenomena in their abstract meaning, it is the abstract sense, so to speak.

“The position of manas among the 6 ayatanas (or indriyas) is one of control over the other 5  (pure and simple senses).” [As we see in the Abhidhamma where the 5 sense-door moments of cognitive process all pass through the mind-door moment.]

“As regards the relation of manas to citta, it may be stated, that citta is more substantial (as indicated by translation “heart”), more elemental as the seat of emotion, whereas manas is the finer element, a subtler feeling or thinking as such.” [a bit further on:] “…the same relation (citta as instrument or manifestation of mano)…”

III. Vinnana (2+ columns in size)

“(As special term in Buddhist metaphysics [Abhidhamma?]) a mental quality as a constituent of individuality, the bearer of (individual) life, life-force (as extending also over rebirths), … mind as transmigrant, as transforming (according to individual kamma) one individual life (after death) into the next. In this (fundamental) application it may be characterized as the sensory and perceptive activity commonly expressed by ‘mind’. It is difficult to give any one word for vinnana, because there is much difference between the old Buddhist and our modern points of view, and there is a varying use of the term in the Canon itself. In what may be a very old Sutta S 11.95 vinnana is given as a synonym of citta and mano, in opposition to kaya used to mean body…”

“Vinnana was justly conceived more as ‘minding’ than ‘mind.’ It form is participial.” [the word-ending “-ana” is like English “-ing”]

“It is in no wise as a condition, or a climax of the other incorporeal khandhas. It is just one phase among others of mental life. In mediaeval [Abhidhamma or commentarial?] it appears rather as bare phenomenon of aroused attention, the other khandhas having been reduced to adjuncts or concomitants brought to pass by the arousing of vinnana, and as such classed under cetasika, the older sanhkarakkhandha.”

“As one of the four aharas [nutriments] vinnana is considered as the material, food or cause, through which comes rebirth. As such it is likened to seed in the field of action (kamma).” [Than-Geof uses this point as a taking-off point in his book “The Paradox of Becoming”]

“(In the Vissudhimagga and Vibhanga commentary) the vinnana here is said to be located in the heart [hadya-vatthu – heart-base], is made out, at bodily death, ‘to quit its former ‘support’’ and proceed to another by way of its mental object and other conditions.’”

“Another scholastic expression, both early and late, is abhisankhara-vinnana, or ‘endowment consciousness.’ viz. [namely?] the individual transmigrant or transmitted function (vinnana) which supplies the next life with the accumulation of individual merit or demerit or indifference…. We find abhisankhara-vinnana with reference to sotapatti-stage [stream-entry], i.e. the beginning of salvation [?!], where it is said that by the gradual disappearance of abhisankhara-vinnana there are still 7 existences left before nama-rupa (inviduality) entirely disappears…”

IV. Citta (4.5 columns in size)

“Meaning: the heart (psychologically). i.e. the centre and focus of man’s emotional nature as well as that intellectual element which inheres in and accompanies its manifestation; i.e. thought. In this wise citta denotes both the agent and that which is enacted, for in Indian Psychology citta is the seat and organ of thought… The meaning of citta is best understood when explaining it by expressions familiar to us, as: with all my heart; heart and soul; I have no heart to do it;… all of which emphasize the emotional and cognitive side or ‘thought’ more than the mental and rational side (for which see manas and vinnana). It may therefore be rendered by intention, impulse, design; mood, disposition, state of mind, reaction to impressions. It is only in later scholastic [Abhidhamma & commentaries] that we are justified in applying the term ‘thought’ in its technical sense….”

“Citta in its relation to other terms referring to mental processes:
1) citta approximating hadaya, the heart as incorporating man’s personality…
2) citta as mental status, contrasted to (a) physical status: citta > kaya… (b) intellectual status: citta > manas and vinnana (mind and thought and understanding).
3) citta as emotional habitus:
  a) active: contrasted or compared with (i) will, citta as one of the four samadhis, i.e. chanda, viriya, citta, vimansa… (ii) action, citta as the source of kamma…
  b) passive = mood, feelings, emotion…”

“Citta in its range of semantical applications:…”
[2.5 columns of text listing citta in combination with many other terms, looking a lot like its going through many of the “cetasikas” or modifying qualities that the Abhidhamma uses to differentiate its cittas.]

Appendix: definitions from the Buddhist Publication Society’s dictionary, “translated by Nyanatiloka Mahathera” (This data appears identical in three of the on-line sources, namely:
the UPD-BPSDict from Leigh Basington’s website;
the PaliKanon dictionary at: http://www.palikanon.com/english/wtb/dic_idx.html
the BuddhaNet dictionary at: http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/palidict.pdf)

nāma
(lit. 'name'): 'mind', mentality. This term is generally used as a collective name for the 4 mental groups (arūpino khandha)

mano
'mind', is in the Abhidhamma used as synonym of viññāna (consciousness) and citta (state of consciousness, mind). According to the Com. to Vis.M., it sometimes means sub-consciousness (s. bhavanga-sota).

viññāna
'consciousness', is one of the 5 groups of existence (aggregates; khandha); one of the 4 nutriments (āhāra); the 3rd link of the dependent origination (paticcasamuppāda); the 5th in the sixfold division of elements (dhātu).

Viewed as one of the 5 groups (khandha), it is inseparably linked with the 3 other mental groups (feeling, perception and formations) and furnishes the bare cognition of the object, while the other 3 contribute more specific functions.

citta
'mind', 'consciousness', 'state of consciousness', is a synonym of mano and viññāna
[Curious no mention of “heart” – was that a sentimental bias of the Victorian PTS scholars?]

Thanks for framing the issue so clearly in the Abhidhamma context, Chris. And for the example exercises from Shaila.

I have been investigating feeling tone and the amoeba-like reaction of the mind toward or away from. It is interesting how quickly some conceptual justification can arise -- for instance, a story about why it's actually OK to retreat from Stimulus X. It is most humbling to see that this sometimes borrows from Dhamma in a clever but clearly self-serving way! Oh, the mind is tricky. Also, the neutral feeling tone gives rise to "I don't know how to react to this," which is actually fine in the initial moment -- even potentially skillful, because the mind remains open -- but then there is a moment when it can collapse into either confusion or doubt-driven over-analysis (trying to apply a pleasant or painful label by trying one, then the other... of course it's too late by then!). I guess that's when the hook goes in and there is clinging. When I catch the moment, it is like solidification or a shifting from the bare phenomenon to something that includes the self.

I am also coming to understand that this is related to how the noting method must shift (and eventually begins to fail). As more and more of experience becomes neutral, it is harder and harder to apply much of a label, because most words have some feeling tone associated with them. Simple labels like "thought" or "sound" continue to work... until even thoughts and sounds are not so different - it all becomes "sense impression" and it causes agitation to figure out what type. Non-verbal labels are nice. Or just a mental nod when each event passes through. After all, they are eventually arising far faster than the process that can create a word!

But when I read really detailed descriptions of analysis -- knowing very precisely each of the sense bases, their objects, their forms of consciousness, etc, or finely differentiating each of the 89 different cittas -- there is doubt about the seemingly fuzzier process that happens in my mind. I observe that things become LESS differentiated - indeed, all simply flashes of light that get distinguished by later processes of mind (sanna and sankhara?). Perhaps I am driving toward the "bare experience" and would see the differentiation if I backed up and was willing to let the mental processes unfold a bit...

Anyway, all good stuff. Great discussion.

I've spent the last week trying to investigate this in my daily practice by trying to focus my awareness toward the source of mind objects and mental reactions to them.  Normally, in a noting practice, it feels to me like noting more the content of what the mind is doing (planning, feeling, thinking) and I tried to turn my perception toward the nature and source - here is a mental feeling arising from a physical feeling of discomfort and there an emotion arising from the mental feeling.  It's odd because I'm trying to perceive without analyzing and the inquiry makes my mind want to analyze.  So far I find myself taking the simplistic perspective that citta is the mind sense organ and nama refers mind objects - all the stuff the mind encounters, including all the stuff the mind manufactures.  A mind object arises, either from contact of sense organ and sense object or just the mind playing with itself, and then the mind engages the object and that contact results in another layer of mind objects and it all spins out of control.  When I try to let go of all the mind objects and allow my perception to float toward their source it feels gray and indistinct.  It is like the wizard behind a curtain: I can sense the curtain and I know the wizard is there and I can surely experience all the effects of the wizard's magic, but I can't perceive the wizard in any way.  Maybe a better way is to say it is like standing in a large meadow on a very foggy morning.  There is a strong sense of an expanse and occasional bits of noise ensure me that it is not a void, but I can't see anything and only feel the cold damp of the air.

Anyway, it is an interesting exercise and I thank you for prompting it.  Maybe in a few years...   

During the Abhidhamma class the multiple Pali words relating to “mind”, and the apparent looseness with which they are translated concerned me (gave rise to restlessness, doubt). Especially since the Abhidhamma focuses on a rather precise rendering of mental factors and processes. So I took some effort to sort out the terms and their usage, and take this opportunity to air out findings in response to Kim’s topics. (In another reply I will present a survey of the articles in the PTS Dictionary on the major terms (mano, nama, vinnana and citta) for “mind”, to help distinguish them.)

I. Kim first questioned as to “the difference between citta and nama”

There are no doubt many possible answers, depending on what context in the Pali Canon is considered. Only someone on the level of, say, Bhikkhu Bodhi or Thanissaro Bhikkhu would be able to address that generally. In the context of the Abhidhamma, though, some relevant particulars came to light from the recent study group.

Beginning with the core list (matika) from the Abhidhammamatha Sangaha:
   The four ultimate (irreducible) realities are:
      1. Citta
      2. Cetasika
      3. Rupa
      4. Nibbana

This is interpreted as mapping into the five khandas of the Suttas:
      Citta = 5th khanda (vinnana)
      Cetasika = 2nd, 3rd, 4th khandas (vedana, sanna, sankhara), i.e. variegated vinnana
      Rupa = 1st khanda
(And these all being conditioned realities, the list is made comprehensive with the addition of the unconditioned Reality, Nibbana.)

Comparing this mapping to the structure of nama-rupa in terms of the khandas:
      rupa = 1st khanda
      nama = 2nd – 5th khandas

So, at least in Abhidhamma terms, nama is a more inclusive term, and citta, as well as cetasika, are subcategories of nama. In khanda terms, nama (as “mentality”, literally “naming”) subsumes citta/vinnana (cognition of an object), vedana (feeling-tone…), sanna (perception…), and sankhara (formations/fabrications on an object).

The Abhidhamma analysis, however, seems to focus in more detail on citta than nama, listing  89 different cittas as the possible states of mind/cognition (a spectrum beginning with the citta ‘rooted in greed, with pleasure, associated with wrong view, unprompted’, and ending with the citta ‘fruition of Arahantship’), and 52 different cetasikas as all the different constituent qualities that make up and differentiate the cittas. (The Adhidhamma goes further into other dimensions such as conditional relationships between cittas, and the functioning of cittas in cognitive processes, but the cittas seem to be the basic common element or building block.)

II. Later Kin asked “what sort of contemplation gets one in touch with the form of mind called "citta" (or mano, or vinanna), and what does it feel like experientially?”

(Sticking with the context of the Abhidhamma…)

According to Noa Ronkin, the purpose of Abhidhamma analysis (as tedious and cerebral as it may at times seem) is to support meditation, to provide the material and an organized path for the kind of detailed and intensive insight (vipassana) that leads to the purification of discernment (panna).

The logic can lead to an interesting conclusion here also: if ‘nama’ is a higher order concept, and “citta” is more a particular, immediate phenomenon, which would make a better object for meditative practice – the abstract or the concrete? Answer: the concrete – the cittas and their cetasikas as the basic building blocks of cognition.

Also a tentative answer here (“what sort of contemplation gets one in touch with the [various forms of mind]”), in terms of methodology, would be, to use an expression from Than-Geoff (from a teaching of the Buddha): “to assert a fabrication” in meditation. That is, to use these citta and cetasika definitions (and other elements of the analysis) as mental fabrications to help invoke and experientially explore the mind’s workings down to the ultimate discernible details.

This is how Shaila guided us with suggested meditations to accompany the weekly Abhidhamma readings: “to investigate dhammas [cittas, etc] by looking carefully into your experience”. Paraphrasing from her instructions: (weeks 1 & 2) observe/explore the 5 aggregates as they occur with experience at the 6 sense doors; (week 3) examining the 5 hindrances by discerning their presence, absence, conditions for arising, for cessation, and for preventing future arising; (week 4) observing and reflecting on how causal conditions affect each moment of experience… whichever elements in the 12 links of dependent arising that you can discern.

“…and what does it feel like experientially?”

As Than-Geof points out, that’s for each of us to find out for ourselves. According to him, the Buddha gave hints and guidelines, but didn’t spell out all the details. We have to discover the experience individually to authentically establish the path.

Similes and parables are used extensively in the Pali Canon to depict experiences; such as the Buddha’s images for the Jhanas: kneading soap, welling water, suspended lotuses, enveloping white cloth. As far as I have read, the Abhidhamma texts and the commentaries tend to repeat such images from the Suttas, and add illustrative anecdotes about various legendary “Noble Ones” (ayiras). But there seems to be a certain convention to the discourse toward using traditional examples, rather than personal anecdotal illustration. This may reflect an effort to avoid asserting overly personal “views” in communicating the Dhamma.

(Thanks for posing excellent questions, providing an opportunity to synthesis recent experiences gleaned from teachings from Noa, Than-Geof and Shaila.)

from Greg Macdonald (August 01, 2010 in Question on “mind” thread)
      
There are actually a number of online and paper Pali dictionaries available.

The PTS Pali-English dictionary is available online at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/pali/

Also see BuddhaNet's "Buddhist Dictionary" available as a pdf file at http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/palidict.pdf

Checking the source code at palikanon.com, they do use page-relative links, so it must be the tool or process your are using to download the pages that is converting them to absolute url's. I know there are tools for "ripping" web sites, but cannot suggest one. But if you do a Google search on "web page downlaod", you will see a bunch of products that might work for you.

I believe the same dictionary you see at palikanon is on the Vipassana web site at http://www.vipassana.info/dic_idx.html

I find Access To Insight to be much more convenient than palikanon.com.  I think it has more material, including a nice little glossary, and is also in English. In addition to much of the canon being there, often with multiple translations for a sutta, there are a lot of works by monks and other authors who are well versed or well practiced in Buddhism. Plus the entire site can be downloaded as a zip file for off-line viewing and a special iPhone app lets you put the web site on an iPhone also for off-line viewing.

BTW, in addition to buying from PTS you can buy directly from Buddhist Publication Society if you just become a member first. Also check out the Buddhist Cultural Center and their online bookstore.

I. Some ONLINE (Internet) sources for Pali-English dictionaries/glossaries:

1) An on-line English dictionary, part of that huge German site (www.palikanon.com) that has large parts of the Pali Canon in German translation. is at:
http://www.palikanon.com/english/wtb/dic_idx.html

There is also a dictionary of Pali proper names, at:
http://www.palikanon.com/english/pali_names/dic_idx.html

Links from the dictionary of terms also link into the dictionary of names, and vice-versa.

(Thanks to Noa Ronkin for letting us (the recent Abdhidhamma study group) know about this dictionary.)

2) A couple of dictionaries/glossaries from Leigh Brasington’s web site, at http://www.leighb.com/
To download for local use (but only in Windows)

click link under the Tibetan picture at the left, on the text:
   “Free Unicode
    Document
    Processor”

When that’s downloaded and installed, one has then to get the dictionary and glossary files to plug into it for use. Leigh’s website has all the necessary information and detailed instructions.

(Thanks to Gil Fronsdal for leading me to Leigh Brasington's site and dictionary.)

3) The Rhys Davids / Stede P.T.S. Dictionary (see below in printed form) is on-line at GoogleBooks; not the complete book, just a “preview”; it can be hard to read the small reproduction.

Also the PTS Dictionary of Proper Pali Names is also in Googlebooks, but "preview", not all pages.

II. Search methods

Google search is useful. In “previews” in Googlebooks (e.g. the PTS Dictionary, or Noa Ronkin’s book on the Abhidhamma) Google has indexed words by scanning them from the facsimile texts, so one can find terms embedded there. Top-level google search can also come up with such references, but less specifically.

The “previews” in GoogleBooks are only partial (in the ones I’ve perused), e.g. the 1st 140 pages or so (of 278) of Noa’s book, and in the PTS Dictionary one can find things on page numbers into the 700’s, but then pages in between are missing.

With some patience in learning these techniques, one can find interesting things, especially in terms of comparing where various terms show up, and how various translators and interpreters deal with them.

The UDP Processor setup (from Leigh Brasington’s website) has the useful feature of searching for a word or part of a word, which finds items embedded in definitions which may not be main items themselves. For example, Pali “pamujja” (aka “pamojja”) can be found this way as a word for “gladness” (for which this dictionary otherwise uses the term “somanassa”), where one won’t find “pamujja” as a main item under “p”.

III. Some PRINTED sources:

1) the P.T.S. Dictionary, that Drew and Ed have a copy of, by Rhys Davids and Stede, from 1925. To use this it helps if one is an accomplished linguistic scholar.

2) also, several books have there own, smaller glossary or dictionary at the end. E.g. Bhikku Bodhi’s translation of the Abhidammamathasangahe, and the Namamoli translation of the Vissudhimagga. Of course, different translators use different English words for a given Pali word. (Thanissaro Bhikku would do well to make a dictionary of his usage some day. His choice of meanings, as far as I have seen, is often more sensitive and revealing.)

IV. Caveat: Pali Dictionaries and the Pali/Sanskrit Alphabet

Pali dictionaries and glossaries tend to order words by a different alphabetical order than the English order. The PTS dictionary, and the glossaries in Bhikku Bodhi’s “Ahbidhammamatha Sangaha” and Nanamoli’s “Vissudhimagga” all use this s/w strange ordering. By my reckoning, it’s something like:
     a i u e o k g c j n t d n p b m y r l v s h
(Drew and Ed have a neatly printed sheet with the exact Pali/Sanskrit alphabet.)

It’s quite different because Pali/Sanskrit uses different letters than our Roman/European system. Some distinct but related P/S letters are reduced to representation by a single English letter, e.g. “a”, “n”. And there’s a spate of “diacritical” marks above and below the English letters to denote P/S variants.

The difficulty is compounded in that not only are words so listed by their first letter, but also sub-ordering (by second, third etc. letters) follows the same system.

(Sigh! Yet another learning curve. Yet another occasion for developing and applying “viriya”.)