Dear Alan, John, Nina, Ole, Piya and friends,

I agree with John that nibbidaa is a term free of negative
connotations, which is very hard to find an English equivalent. It is
a state of mind which gives rise to viraaga (detachment), not hatred
or other negative thoughts.

Furthermore, I think nibbidaa is not necessarily a /strong/ word, so
words like repulsion and revulsion are too strong, besides carrying
negative connotations.

The term only denotes /strong/ mental state when used with the
adjective ekanta. So, if we choose disenchantment, then

ekantanibbidaa = strong disenchantment

What do you think?

The idea of a sequence is my personal opinion. I may be wrong about
it. They may all arise simultaneously.

metta,
Yong Peng.

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Piya Tan wrote:

I remember Ajahn Brahm strongly suggesting "repulsion," which also
fits.

> I like disenchantment for nibbidaa too. Discontent isn't strong
enough, and aversion has negative connotations in Buddhism (e.g., we
are to dig up the roots of greed, aversion, and delusion), whereas
nibbidaa is a strong turning away from something, because we see the
danger in it, and is a positive concept. Have a look at Bhikkhu
Bodhi's comment on the word in the last paragraph on p.53 of his
translation of the Samyutta Nikaya. He used disenchantment in his
MLDB translation, then switched to revulsion for this. Now, I know
that he has changed his mind and uses disenchantment again, since he
thinks that revulsion is too strong and has too many negative
connotations in English.


>>--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, nina van gorkom wrote:
>>> nibbidaa -- I am thinking of discontentment.
>>
>> Ole has: ekantanibbidaa = complete, absolute, total aversion.
>> I like this, ekanta is strong. Instead of aversion, I prefer:
>> disenchantment. Aversion often stands for dosa. This ekanta may
>> point to: complete detachment of the arahat. On the other hand,
>> if we see a sequence, there is not yet arahatship with
>> ekantanibbidaa.