Thank you Nina, James, DC, for the illuminating discussion. I'm learning
and enjoying.
On a related note, I have another beginner question.
What's up with compounding in the pali suttas?

I ask that from the perspective of using the DPR (digital pali reader)
that gets stuck not recognizing compound pali words, or doing google
searches for both "anapana sati" and "anapanassati" (other pali
beginners, note the two "SS" in anapanassati).

Since the pali suttas were an oral tradition originally, not written,
and the fact that it exists now in thai script, roman script, and
whatever other localized script, I wonder if there is some reason why we
can not adopt a convention of compounding that allows the exploitation
and ease in digital processing/searching. For example, if compound words
were written as anapana-sati instead of anapanaSSati,
dhamma-vicaya-sambojjhanga, etc, wouldn't that lend clarity, structure,
ease in understanding and communicating as well as instant dictionary
lookup capability? Am I missing something? Is there a good reason for
"anapanaSSati" instead of "anapana-sati"?


-Frank