Dear Suan, Stephen, Dimitri, and all,
Thank you Suan.
Just now I came across this word in a sutta I study with commentary:
Vitakka-Santhana Sutta; Majjhima Nikaya No. 20
The Removal of Distracting Thoughts.
I study the Co in Thai. Ven. Bodhi translates nimitta here as object. The
Bhikkhu has akusala vitakka and the Buddha suggests five other nimittas,
objects of thought, to help the bhikkhu to have kusala vitakka instead of
akusala vitakka. The Co. elaborates and I am deeeply impressed. This is just
one context in which nimitta is used. Suan, if you know another translation,
I am very interested. Thank you. Asubha nimitta was used in the above sutta.
And Connie has here in her transl. subha nimitta. The P.T.S. has: the
feature of beauty in things. Difficult to find a good translation. The
meaning is: one becomes attracted to what one sees as beautiful. But in fact
it is foul. It is a vippallasa.
Another example: when there is no awareness, one is absorbed and entranced
by the nimitta and the anuvyañcana, the details. The image of the whole, of
a person, and all the details one thinks about. But when there is
vipassanapaññaa there are just naama and ruupa.
Nina.
op 14-08-2004 18:05 schreef abhidhammika op suanluzaw@...:

>
> Aakaara and Nimitta are important terms in Pali, but they carry many
> meanings varying from context to context.