--- ai_generation_date: '2026-07-28' ai_model: gemini-3-pro-preview audiodharma: talks: - date: '2022-03-29' mp3_url: https://audiodharma.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/talks/15295/20220329-Santikaro-sati-seeing_with_eye_of_dhamma.mp3 speakers: - speaker_name: Santikaro speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/129 talk_start_time_seconds: 0 title: Seeing with Eye of Dhamma url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/15295 video_unavailable: false location_city: Redwood City, CA video_unavailable: false youtube: id: GB1YDvo4xwo imprecise_upload_date: '2022-05-04' title: '"Seeing with Eye of Dhamma" with Santikaro' upload_date: null uploader_str: The Sati Center uploader_url: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSatiCenter youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB1YDvo4xwo --- # Seeing with Eye of Dhamma - [Santikaro](https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/129) _This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers._ ## [Seeing with Eye of Dhamma](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/15295) The general idea tonight is I will talk about a new book that came out this January. I don't know, it looks backwards on my screen, but _Seeing with the Eye of Dhamma_, published by Shambhala. So that will be the extent of the overt sales pitch. I'd like to start—well, I've been thinking of calling this the blessings of translation practice. I'll be talking about the book's contents, but also a bit of the practice of translating and what a blessing it can be. Because I had been in the Peace Corps in Thailand for about four and a half years before arriving at Suan Mokkh[^1], which is Ajahn Buddhadasa's[^2] monastery; he founded it with support from his family. And most things there happened in Thai, and I spoke decent enough Thai to have a pretty good understanding of what was going on and being said, and that rapidly improved over the next few years. Although I must say, I was editing an old translation a few years back, and I was embarrassed by how much I hadn't quite got right. And so was the person who originally translated it. We had a good laugh about our younger translator selves, and then after years of increasing familiarity, but even more so increasing practice, because one can't translate this stuff just because one knows the two languages. There's the crucial ingredient with such works of basically taking this stuff to heart and digesting it. When I first arrived, I had to translate for myself. Some monks, including Ajahn Buddhadasa, could speak in English, but he was quite old, and his health was poor. I could learn much more from him listening to the regular talks in Thai. And I could benefit others because dozens of non-Thais were coming through, and few of them knew Thai. In fact, I met Gil there. I had the advantage of knowing Thai, but we were Americans, so we could speak in English, of course. And so from the start, part of my practice has been translating. That works in multiple ways, translating for the sake of my own study and practice, also helping others, and then over time this becoming a service I can offer to Buddha, dharma, and sangha. I didn't always appreciate that sometimes. It was hard work. There were certain people who were always trying to get me to translate something. And some of it I didn't want to translate; everyone had their favorite book, "Oh, you got to translate this one." I did need some time to meditate, eat, and bathe as well. So it could be annoying being seen primarily as a translation machine. But mostly, I received a lot of kindness and support. And again, something that took time to dawn on me, as I was in my late 20s back then, is that stepping into a need is dharma. One of the core meanings of dharma or dhamma is duty. Ajahn Buddhadasa emphasizes this. And to step into the needs of circumstances—one's own needs, the needs of others, the needs of the community—that's dhamma. As I learned to relax and step into that, it brought a broad satisfaction, which is something that still nurtures me, and was a big part of this book project. Also, my ability to translate, which is not only knowing Thai but having adequate linguistic skills in English—my undergrad degree was in creative writing. I've never made it as a novelist, like I fantasized back then, but things I learned as an English major were helpful in this. And that provided an opportunity for a relationship that has guided my life ever since. As I said, there was a need. And I showed up with certain skills, curiosity, interest, and a bit of young American male arrogance, maybe more than a bit, which caused hiccups with the culture. Let's call that overconfidence. That allowed me to have regular interactions with Ajahn Buddhadasa, which at his age was a special blessing. So being a translator has meant a lot to me over the years, and in various ways, it's still a big part of my life, whether translating from Thai to English, or studying the Pāli suttas and trying to convey what they say to people who struggle with reading the original teachings or for whatever reason are uninterested. But then, the bigger translation for me is taking these teachings, whether the suttas or Ajahn Buddhadasa, or others, and even if reading in English—I mostly read suttas in English, my Pāli is not very good—but the real translation is into practice. And as I touched on earlier, that's crucial for translating dharma books. I met someone a few years ago who was wanting me to produce a lot more. I'm a very slow, meticulous translator and writer. He was telling me of software that you can train on existing translations, and then it will produce rough drafts, which I can then edit. I looked into that for about 45 minutes, but it never grabbed me and probably never will. Because, speaking especially for _Seeing with the Eye of Dhamma_, it was by the painstaking, slow, meticulous digesting of the manuscript. Going through the Thai manuscript many, many times, going through the original translator's work. And then polishing, editing, refining, re-translating. Working mostly in two languages, occasionally quite a bit of Pāli terminology as well. And turning that into my own practice. I was fortunate in a way, or at least for me, COVID was a silver lining. Just before COVID really hit here, I was in Brazil, leading a retreat, doing other stuff, and at the time finalizing the agreements about my role with this book, which had shifted from just doing some polishing to doing a complete workover of the manuscript. Then I came home in early March 2020. And for the first time in many years, I had a sustained period of time to work with a text. Fortunately, I had one that was quite meaningful to me. In the past, because I travel a lot teaching, I would do this kind of work in chunks. And that, for me, was quite disruptive. Now, although I was doing some online retreats in 2020 into 2021, I had the benefit... And it's weird, because for many COVID was, as you know, quite hard and disruptive. And for me, it was in certain ways, like financially. For me, my wife, and Kevala Retreat, it was pretty scary on that side. But on the dharma side, it opened up all this space. And so for weeks and months, over a year, I was working with this book, and translating it into my own practice. I came to see the book as a contemplative journey, and that was based on my own experience of it, chapter by chapter. As I said, I'm slow. Plus, there are things to do around our center, animals to take care of, chores, things like that. And each day working with the themes and teachings of Ajahn Buddhadasa's book... I'd love to share some of the highlights that were particularly meaningful for me. And if you've seen the book or are inspired to pick up a copy, you'll find these highlights having a prominent place. ## Elements of Experience One that really got me was his repeated and extended exploration of _dhatus_[^3]. Dhatus is a Pāli word in some ways similar in meaning to dhammas, phenomena. But it's usually translated as elements. It's a teaching I've struggled to fully take in. And I think that's because I grew up learning chemistry where the elements are in the periodic table. Plus, I grew up in a materialistic culture, capitalism all over the place, consumerism. I've worked with the elements teaching—four elements, six elements, gazillions of elements. For Ajahn Buddhadasa, following the Buddha, everything's an element. But they're not elements in the periodic table. The way I finally got this was elements of experience. If we pay attention to physical experience, we will find the elements of solidity and taking up space. I'm using Ajahn Buddhadasa's explanations of the earth element: cohesion, holding together. Water element: temperature and combustion. Fire element: movement, including all change, which is the wind element[^4]. And these require the space element, and there's no awareness of them without the consciousness element. These six are kind of the fundamental elements of experience. Feelings are an element of experience. Perception, thought, greed, hatred, delusion, kindness, and compassion. All these are elements of experience. And if we practice with this teaching, which I enjoy doing, particularly in the chapters where I really needed to take this in and find words that conveyed Ajahn Buddhadasa's meaning, and hopefully the Buddha's meaning... if we start paying attention to elements of experience, we notice that they keep happening in combination with other elements. If we keep watching the combinations, we'll notice how this keeps changing. I don't want to throw big Pāli terms at you like impermanence, or _anicca_[^5]. Because that's not the point. It was contemplating this. I think Ajahn Buddhadasa was pretty good at not telling us what we're supposed to see. Not giving us the answers, but saying, "Look, look, look," which was his understanding of _vipassanā_[^6]. Looking is contemplation. If we keep looking, there's seeing, which is the meaning of vipassanā, or insight. So, that's, for me, a major highlight of the book, and one of the bonuses for me as translator. Coming to terms with a teaching that I've taught to others, but feeling a much, much deeper connection right now. Elements of experience: sound, visuals, recognitions, memories, words, and then words with meanings. Elements combining, shifting, changing. On one level, that's all life is—this ever-changing combining and uncombining of elements of experience. And I'm not talking about some external reality, I'm sure that's got its elements too. Which kind of leads me to another highlight of the book: worlds. ## Worlds of the Senses Like with the elements of the periodic table, it seems most often if we speak of the world, we might mean the planet, we might mean society. Sometimes the Buddha seems to use the word world as society, people in general in the area where he lived. But in a number of important ways, the worlds that we contemplate—and this is the contemplation I continue to work with—are the worlds of the senses. The Buddha spoke of various worlds of the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind, or if you prefer, heart. Some of these are heavens, are paradises. Some of them are hells, places of torment. And there are direct quotes from the Buddha of these worlds arising with the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind, our awareness or consciousness. Worlds of memory, worlds of emotion. Worlds of opinion. Some people are very curious about how the world formed. How many billion years ago was it, and the Big Bang even more billions, the so-called universe. That's interesting stuff. But in dhamma practice, the worlds that Ajahn Buddhadasa, probably in line with the Buddha, kept encouraging through this book is to pay attention to the worlds of the senses. And, again, there are some things he told us about what to see, but one of the primary ones is: it's just so. So instead of laying on the official Buddha's line of what insight is about—there's some of that, because he's a loyal Buddhist in many respects. But often, he would use his translation of the Pāli _tathāgata_[^7], which is often translated as thusness: "just so." Just like this. Which actually says nothing. It just says there's this. And the rest is for consciousness, mind to pay attention with enough focus, calm, and clarity to see. I think this is brilliant stuff. Rather than telling us what to believe, or programming ourselves to be good Buddhists. Much of his original audience had already picked up all these Buddhist teachings. What he's trying to do in _Seeing with the Eye of Dhamma_ is to use these eyes of dhamma to look and see. Whether it's looking in terms of elements of experience, or looking at the worlds, watching the worlds of the senses. I must say, I find this really helpful. I continue to be concerned about climate change, habitat destruction, ongoing wars in the world, wars that my own country has done far too much to encourage, or the wars the United States initiated. And, of course, those were "just wars," unlike the war in Ukraine. Those are things that don't sit well with me. And it's really easy to feel overwhelmed by all this stuff. To put it simplistically, bad stuff going on in the world. I have no interest in denying stuff like climate change, or brutality in Ukraine, or Yemen, or factory farms in rural Wisconsin or California. But what we're actually experiencing are the worlds of the senses. And a lesson for me that was a highlight of working on this book, is that by being mindful of the worlds of the senses, we're in better shape to respond to the worlds out there. I hope that's coherent. Part of it is watching how worlds are created, and how worlds pass away. It's constantly playing, and that may be true of galaxies way out wherever. But it's totally true of eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind, or memory, or imagination, or thought, right here. And again, the contemplation is to look, observe, watch, have enough focus or _samādhi_[^8], which is another big theme in the book, to see clearly, without bias, without opinions, without ideology, and so on. ## Samsāra as Recycling Another aspect of the book that I had lots of fun with is: everything is _samsāra_[^9]. To go back in my own history with the Buddha's teachings and practice, when I first heard often dogmatically about traditional notions of rebirth, they never appealed to me. And regrettably, I had a certain aversion to traditional rebirth teachings, whether in Theravada forms, Tibet, or Chinese, or whatever. These were common in Thailand and around the Buddhist world. And so I got used to samsāra as a way of talking about rebirth. And samsāra, in the popular understanding as I understood it back in the 80s and 90s, was, "Oh, samsāra is you're born, you die, you get born again, and you die again. And it's just suffering over and over again, until you get enlightened and somehow escape from all that." In short, I had a certain bias, an aversion bias, and tended to just disregard this teaching. But I couldn't disregard it when there was a major chapter in this book about samsāra, at least half a chapter. And so I had to bite the bullet and digest this, which was healthy, because aversion and biases regarding teachings, even if they turn out to be not what the Buddha actually said—although it's hard to prove. We don't have to form opinions one way or the other, at least on certain things where the evidence is murky. But the aversion, the bias, the opinionatedness—"Oh, don't worry about that stuff"—that's not so healthy for practice, I feel. So I was kind of stuck. As I worked on the sections about samsāra, and due to time I'll simplify, Ajahn Buddhadasa emphasized that samsāra means spinning. Wandering might be a little more accurate, but the word that really got me was spinning. He describes how everything is spinning. And this is, you know, with dhatus combining, worlds being created, passing away. I got into watching spinning, which means cycles and patterns. Going through days where I see significant periods of watching patterns. All the patterns in me, the patterns of sunrise, sunset, the phases of the moon, the seasons. If we pay attention, everything is made of cycles. The water cycle that we depend on, for example, digestive cycles, breath, breathing in, breathing out cycles. So I came to see samsāra is all about recycling. Forget about rebirth—not my favorite belief, but I am much more tolerant of it these days. But constant recycling, that's what we do with our plastic with little triangles on it, and glass bottles and stuff. It's all recycling. And this helped me. I have certain lazy tendencies. I'm not good at cleaning. There are things like flossing... actually, I'm still not good at flossing, but I'm better at cleaning now. By seeing that these things like cleaning, all the onerous chores, are just keeping my living quarters in decent shape. Cooking food over and over, doing dishes over and over. Some of those things I quite liked, like cooking, making coffee and tea, cleaning cat boxes, sweeping the floor, scrubbing toilets. Those are the ones I like. But seeing them within cycles of basically life helped me to relax and just participate in these cycles of life. This is part of Ajahn Buddhadasa's take on samsāra, as well as elements and everything else: it's all nature. Instead of picking and choosing the stuff we like and the stuff we don't like, seeing it all as nature, recycling. And of course, some awareness that that's happening with this body. Awareness is happening right now as I'm recycling teachings that go back through various transmissions to the Buddha, I hope, unless I've butchered things. And these just move and ripple and expand and change. I'm kind of running out of time, so I'll wrap up with this highlight. Seeing in the recycling, the spinning, there's an aspect to it that's just nature, and then sometimes there's the perceiving part of it as "me" and then the rest as "other." Taking the "me" part as special or central, giving it weight and importance. Sometimes in really messed up, neurotic ways; sometimes in nice, creative, loving ways. Watching the natural samsāras was like the movement—I live not quite in the woods, but next to the woods, a nice valley. It is easy to watch the sun and moon move through the sky. Watching the trees respond to weather. Squirrels, birds, things in the house, cats' interactions with my partner, and so on. There's the natural, just life doing its thing. And then there's the particular samsāra of liking and disliking, craving and clinging, ego identification. And what follows from that? These are some samples of contemplations I got a lot out of and still do. Signing on for a translation job of an important dharma book requires really practicing in these ways, as well as doing standard sitting practice of various forms, and incorporating elements. And samsāra is noticing all of the samsāra that goes on in meditation, the natural sort, like breathing in and out, and the neurotics. As Ajahn Buddhadasa emphasizes, the stuff we don't understand, the stuff we don't see clearly, that is the ignorance stuff. Not seeing clearly is where the ignorance is. Ignorance simply means not knowing, not understanding. People tend to take it as pejorative, somehow negative, but it's just a description. Often there's not understanding, and so things get neurotic, messy, and there's suffering. By contemplating such things, we inevitably observe how suffering happens. It's not required to point out the suffering. If we pay attention to the elements of experience, the world of senses, the rebirthing of all these cycles, patterns, opinions—opinions are a particular kind of pattern. So our beliefs, if we pay attention to these, we'll also see suffering and how it happens. And then we find important clues to freedom from suffering. Which can't really be taught. It can be pointed to, talked about in certain ways, but really, it's by contemplating all the stuff of life that it becomes possible to see. Freedom from samsāra. Samsāra continues, but there's freedom. Oh, and I should conclude by—I'll leave this one without much explanation because it probably doesn't take much. Ajahn Buddhadasa also observes that practice is not complete without _mettā_[^10]. It's fine to practice for our own well-being and benefit. Practice is completed when mettā (kindness) and _karuṇā_[^11] (compassion) blossom. There's a chapter on the trees of the dhamma life that we nurture, and the last tree is the tree of kindness. So I'll stop here with some of my favorite highlights from _Seeing with the Eye of Dhamma_. And we've got 35 minutes for whatever you'd like to talk about. If there are questions, I'll respond. I may not have any answers. If you want to comment on something, I'll listen. I guess we raise hands and then I call on you. Aaron, if I pronounced that correctly. ## Q&A **Aaron:** Santikaro, thank you for doing the translation of this book. I've just started reading it. And I can't help but think that the title has something to do with stream entry[^12]. Could you comment about that? **Santikaro:** To be honest, that's not Ajahn Buddhadasa's title. His title was _Little Dharma Book_, which you might have seen in the foreword. But there was agreement—I was the last one to sign on to this—the editors and various people said, "That's not going to work on bookshelves." So, because of the theme of a contemplative journey, we brainstormed and ended up with _Seeing with the Eye of Dhamma_. So in our thinking, stream entry wasn't mentioned. But I think it's a reasonable guess on your part, it might not be too far off. I actually don't think in terms of stream entry so much myself. But stream entry, one traditional notion of it, which is maybe what you're thinking of, is to have that first real penetrating insight into what in the book is called non-fabrication or non-concocting. Traditionally, that's spoken of as _nibbāna_[^13]. When there's a clear enough vision of the end of suffering, life changes course. So I don't remember stream entry coming up at the time, but it's a reasonable thought. Thank you. Chris? **Chris:** Santikaro, thanks so much. I was turned on to Buddhadasa's work by Larry Rosenberg. And who else? Jack's book about him, Guy Armstrong, Gil... there's a number of teachers that spoke of him. And I read _Heartwood_[^14] many years ago, and I just picked it up again a few hours ago to get prepped for this because I've been meaning to reread it. It finally made sense to me! When I read it 10 years ago, I mean, I needed like another decade of practice to sort of get in alignment with it. So thanks so much for the translation. I just wanted to also honor the Peace Corps. It seems as you, Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, and Sumedho all entered practice through the Peace Corps, so I want to honor JFK and the Peace Corps. Anyway, thanks so much for your work. **Santikaro:** Thank you. Yeah, Peace Corps. My reasons for entering were somewhat muddled, but it opened up cool stuff. And I have lots of Thai friends; if I ever have to leave the US, I've got a place to go. Especially my understanding of Buddhism before the Peace Corps was minimal, and so I'm very grateful for Thai culture, Thai society, and Thai Buddhism, and the Peace Corps. I wish the Peace Corps had something near the budget of the Pentagon. I'll leave it at that. **Questioner:** Hi, thank you so much for being here with us and sharing those words of wisdom. I was just wanting to get your opinion on the habits that you had mentioned about samsāra. Because I do have these mental habits that it's harder to overcome. It's been ingrained for so long. And also, especially during the pandemic, as you mentioned, I've created some physical things that I'll do—the way I pour the tea at a certain time, I mean, I've fallen into different pandemic-created habits. And jailbreaking those... would you say the ones that are easier, like physical stuff, allow you to be able to access the mind? Hopefully habitual patterns and thinking patterns? I was wondering if you could comment on that. Thank you. **Santikaro:** Yeah, I'm less concerned by the physical habits. I think of some of them, like my cooking oatmeal routine in the morning, I think of them as rituals. And unless I see them causing trouble, I'm not so concerned. But the mental habits. For me, I'll stick with the themes of the book that I've mentioned. To start to look, what are the elements that go into those habits? I mentioned the sensory worlds, but I continue to find it especially helpful when I observe an opinion as a pattern. That's a step to disentangling my identity with it. Often, on some level, if there's an opinion, it's _my_ opinion. In some suttas, this is called standpoints or bases. The mind has grounded itself in something to try to feel security, solidity, control. And to relax and see patterns and opinions—all of us, maybe all of a sudden or gradually, see they're not so solid. And watching what goes into creating an opinion... I found it helpful to ask, "Where did I get that opinion or that view?" Gil's translation of the _Book of Eights_ is great. And what's wonderful about that book is all the suttas on view. Nowhere does the Buddha say we should hold views, it's all about letting go of views. And so I'm using opinions or views, which is different than skillful perspectives. And then there are other thinking patterns, habitual planning, worry, self-deprecation, and so on. But how to loosen that ego identification is crucial. And for me using the word samsāra as a mantra, and honestly spending major parts of many days watching cycles. An opinion comes up, it's another cycle. A worry comes up, another cycle. A tension between my wife and I, it's another samsāra. But to call it that, relaxes some of the "me." It doesn't have to be _my_ samsāra. It's just samsāra. My wife and I are in a certain dance; me and each of the cats, we have a dance. And with each loosening, it's possible to see more clearly. Because if we've got some idea of, "Oh, I need to get rid of that sort of opinion," it might be conventionally correct—like, oh, that's disruptive, you'd be better without it. But the drawback is, it's _your_ opinion. It might be another _you_ because we're all multiple personalities in that sense. And so just to have an opinion about other opinions or worry about other worries doesn't break the cycles. Seeing the cycles allows us to see through them. **Questioner:** Thank you. **Santikaro:** You're welcome. Thought I saw a hand or a chat. Oh, Beth found the comments about views and opinions absolutely wonderful. Well, that's gratifying. A few samsāras just happened, and they're pleasant ones. [Laughter] Thanks both. Right, you're muted. **Questioner:** Thank you for these very interesting teachings. I appreciate it. I had a question regarding your idea of samsāra as being a recycling, basically the way nature evolution recycles material energy, that sort of thing. How is that connected with this Buddhist principle of dependent origination? For example, is samsāra seen as a manifestation of dependent origination? Or is dependent origination somehow different than what you're describing? **Santikaro:** I would say it depends partly on how you use the word dependent origination, or I prefer dependent co-arising. Ajahn Buddhadasa has a book on that. In our understanding, _paṭicca-samuppāda_[^15] is the conditional processes that lead to suffering, the conditions that support, underpin, foster, and maintain suffering. From that perspective, dependent co-arising describes these samsāras of suffering. Unlike what I called the natural samsāra, like the water cycle, or the circulation of blood in the body, or the digestive processes—these need not be suffering. Dependent co-arising is a careful look at how, through not understanding, there's a particular energy Ajahn Buddhadasa called the power of concocting that shapes how we experience life and react, and those reactions are based in clinging to self, which is unstable and basically neurotic. **Questioner:** Would clinging to self that results in suffering... is the clinging an example of the conditions that contribute to making the suffering come about? **Santikaro:** Conventionally, yeah. But clinging is what makes it _you_. Because it's not really you, it's just these natural elements combining. But the core meaning of clinging is clinging to the subject. Taking the subject of experience as "me," and that gets then layered onto the sense of me as separate. We can still try to solidify our separateness. Anger and fear really exaggerate that separateness, make it worse, make it more conflictive, and so on. **Questioner:** Thank you. **Santikaro:** Sorry about the "you" part, it's a sub-pattern I've got. Just dropping in one piece... the penultimate chapter of the book is about _sankhāra_[^16]. And these sankhāras, concoctings, are fabricating and non-concocting, non-fabricating. And it's possible to conceive of these as separate or opposites, and in a way they are. But I want to end with the theme I've been mentioning: it's by watching the fabricating, the concocting, that there are glimpses of non-concocting. And then there's nobody to be liberated. There's no need to get enlightened. Getting enlightened is samsāra. --- [^1]: **Suan Mokkh:** A forest monastery in southern Thailand founded in 1932 by Ajahn Buddhadasa. [^2]: **Ajahn Buddhadasa:** (1906–1993) A highly influential, innovative, and deeply revered Thai Buddhist monk and ascetic philosopher of the 20th century. [^3]: **Dhatus:** A Pāli word meaning elements, fundamental constituents of experience, or root principles. [^4]: **Original transcript correction:** The original transcript said "when the element," which was corrected to "wind element" based on the traditional context of the four elements (earth, water, fire, wind). [^5]: **Anicca:** The Pāli word for impermanence; the Buddhist doctrine that all conditioned things are in a constant state of flux. Corrected from the transcript's phonetic spelling "ancita." [^6]: **Vipassanā:** Insight meditation; a Buddhist practice of clear seeing or investigating the true nature of reality. Corrected from the transcript's "the passage." [^7]: **Tathāgata:** An honorific title for the Buddha, often translated as "thus gone" or "thus come," referring to one who has arrived at or teaches the truth (thusness). [^8]: **Samādhi:** A Pāli term for concentration, focus, or a state of meditative absorption. [^9]: **Samsāra:** The continuous cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, characterized by suffering and bound by ignorance and craving. [^10]: **Mettā:** A Pāli term typically translated as loving-kindness, goodwill, or active benevolence toward all beings. [^11]: **Karuṇā:** A Pāli term meaning compassion; the intention and capacity to relieve the suffering of others. [^12]: **Stream entry:** (Sotāpanna) The first of the four stages of enlightenment in Theravada Buddhism, where one has "entered the stream" that inexorably leads to final liberation. [^13]: **Nibbāna:** The Pāli term for Nirvana; the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice, representing the cessation of suffering and liberation from samsāra. [^14]: **Heartwood:** Refers to _Heartwood of the Bodhi Tree_, a famous and classic book by Ajahn Buddhadasa. [^15]: **Paṭicca-samuppāda:** A Pāli term for dependent origination or dependent co-arising; the principle that all phenomena arise in dependence upon multiple causes and conditions. [^16]: **Sankhāra:** A Pāli term for formations, fabrications, or conditioned things; translated by Ajahn Buddhadasa in this context as "concocting."