Dear Nina and friends,

thanks, Nina. You are right that 'lingers' would imply a lasting
citta. But, 'persists' can have the same meaning too. I am just
trying to be as close to the Pali as possible. The meaning that is to
be conveyed takes a higher priority always. There is no point losing
the meaning just to make it looks close to Pali.

This is a description of the attraction of opposite sexes, and I
think the Buddha did it very well in five short sentences. How the
sights, sounds, smells, touch and taste(?) of a woman can so dominate
over other sights, sounds, smells, touch and tastes. And how just one
of the five is sufficient to make a man lose his mind.

You are right that it is about obsession, I think it is also about
strong sexual inclination/tendency. I read a research paper that men
on average think about sex every 30 seconds.

Thoughts are electrical signals in our brains, so they come and go,
and do not last. I think here the Buddha is comparing between two
situations where a man is in contact with, say, the sight of a woman
and the sight of something else, and how the mind reacts more
strongly to the first.

Is my analysis right? If there are no other suggestions, we shall
keep "persists in overwhelming".


metta,
Yong Peng.

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Nina van Gorkom wrote:

I personally prefer what we had at first, since it suggests more an
obsession, but, it depends on one's personal preference: Does
persistently overwhelm. If we say: lingers, it seems that cittas can
last. But in conventional sense we can use linger, it means: arising
again and again.

> I am thinking if we can write "(citta.m) pariyaadaaya ti.t.thati"
as "overwhelms (the mind) and lingers". What do you think?