Dear Dimitry and friends,

thanks for the sample passages. I am not defending the older
translations, but I think the use of "mental states" was because the
word 'state' may not have such a limited definition. But, I can't be
sure about that. Nevertheless, I agree with you that "mental quality"
is a better alternative, since today we usually understand 'state' as
an uncompromising mode, such as solid/liquid state or on/off state. I
think the recent choice of "mental quality" is influenced by modern
psychology, which is good and progressive, and give a better
presentation of mental (psycho-) analysis. In fact, I understand that
Piya and Suan are into this area too. This does put Buddhism with
mainstream psychology and that is great.

I think there are major changes to the verse needed to be done. I am
still waiting Nina's reply on mano-pubba'n-gamma. Then, I will repost
the entire verse again for everyone to go through.

metta,
Yong Peng

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Dimitry A. Ivakhnenko wrote:
In my opinion calling these factors and hindrances "states" isn't
correct, since they can be present simultaneously, and can be
manifested only in specific occasions. A person with greed doesn't
walk around in a "state" of greed: greed is manifested in specific
occasions.

Secondly, calling these "mind-objects" is too wide a definition,
since here we are talking exactly about factors of Awakening and
hindrances.