Re: Meaning of "Buddha"?

Dear Ven. Bodhi,
You have made a lot of points and it is not possible to respond to them all.

> There are two ways (at least) of determining the effective meaning of
> a word in a body of literature. One is by tracing it back to its
> etymological roots; the other is by looking at its contextual usage.
> When the second procedure is followed through for such words as
> sambodhi, bodhi, buddha, etc., we can see that while these words have
> no etymological connection with "light" or "radiance," the Buddha's
> attainment is repeatedly and consistently connected with images,
> similes, and metaphors of light and radiance, and his teaching mission
> with the shedding and emanation of light.
I wouldn't dispute the role of light and seeing in descriptions of
insight and awakening. In origin the English word 'enlightenment' is
connected with the idea of light, but I wouldn't understand it as having
such an association in actual usage. And the dictionary definitions you
cited don't emphasize that.
> The other images--of the body as foam, feelings as like bubbles,
> etc.--have to be taken with caution. They don't imply that emerging
> from these illusions occurs "abruptly" as awakening does, according to
> the dictionary. In fact, they don't even establish the unreal or
> illusory nature of life, which (as I interpret the texts) is not the
> position of the Nikayas at all. Rather, as I read them, the world
> according to the Nikayas is quite real. Our problems arise, not
> because we mistakenly take a world that is sheer illusion to be real,
> but because on the foundation of the concrete reality of the world,
> the mind constructs illusory pictures of things as permanent,
> genuinely pleasurable, substantial (populated by real selves), and
> attractive. The ball of foam is there, but the man on the bank takes
> it to be substantial, when it is without essence. The same with the
> similes for the other four aggregates, even for the vinnana-khandha.
> The Indian magician make a pile of twigs and grass, and then with a
> wave of the wand gets his audience to perceive the pile as an
> elephant--the twigs and grass are there, but the elephant is the
> illusion. The emerging from these illusory pictures, moreover, occurs
> through a *sequential, graduated process of acquiring understanding
> and insight*--not abruptly. This, I believe, is better conveyed by
> "enlightenment"--"the state of having knowledge or
> understanding"--than by "awakening," which again suggests a sudden or
> abrupt arising of awareness, which is a fairly superficial experience.
I wonder if this is the root of our disagreement. I would envisage what
is meant as referring precisely to a sudden arising of a combination of
mental states, in other words the sudden coming together as the
culmination of a long process of development. I think that would be the
traditional view too.
> I hope I'm not straining your patience with these arguments against
> "awakening," which I do use in my translations to render the verb
> forms such as abhisambujjhati since "to become enlightened to" sounds
> too awkward. But while I recognize that we have to choose the
> rendering that matches our own understanding, I can express hope that
> the European scholars will reconsider "awakening" as a rendering for
> sambodhi. If "enlightenment" is found unsatisfactory (though I
> disagree) let's find another more satisfactory rendering.
Well, I do tend to use both enlightenment and awakening fairly
interchangeably, in practice.

Lance Cousins