[Buddha-l] karma or kamma

[Piya Tan]

This is the well known debate as regards who defines the words we use:
the dictionary or the speaker.

If a person is new to Buddhism, both "karma" and "kamma" would befuddle
him or her anyhow.

A number of lecturers and professors in the past have drummed into me (and
I'm sure not me alone): "define your terms."

No religion or system has the sole rights to words (perhaps maybe in
Malaysia,
where non-Muslims are not allowed to use certain Muslims terms, mainly
because
the Christians were translating the Bible into Malay for their benefit).

Wrong views will often be out there: we just need to define our terms and
usages
at the start of the discussion. Or better, the listener should ask the
speaker
where he or she means by those terms.

We get new words and new meanings to words every generation or within one:
just look at the Oxford English Dictionary.

A jesuit is not a jesuit: it depends on who is using the word and to what
purpose.
Dictionaries often help when you are new with the language, or when you do
not
want others to know you are not as clever as he is.

Dictionaries are the epitaphs of a language. Poets try to give new senses to
words.
Philosophers try to confuse us with them. The still-minded meditator tries
to set
them free.

Metta,

Piya Tan




On 10/21/07, "Kåre A. Lie" <alberlie at online.no> wrote:
>
> At 17:17 19.10.2007 +0200, you wrote:
> >I am writing an article about Theravada Buddhism for
> >Christian readers and find it hard to decide to use
> >the word "karma" or "kamma". It is no big deal because
> >the problem is easy to solve but it made me think,
> >what is most correct writing about Theravada for
> >non-Buddhists, to use well known Sanskrit words or
> >should we insist on Pali? Or both?
>
> No matter what solution you go for, you will have to explain the word.
>
> More people know "karma". But that may in fact be a problem. They may
> perhaps associate the word "karma" with diffuse concepts from Hinduism or
> even New Age, so you may have to explain what Buddhist karma is not,
> before
> you start explaining what it is.
>
> If you use the word "kamma", which is more appropriate in a Theravada
> context, you can save yourself the trouble of saying what it is not, and
> concentrate on explaining what it is, since this word probably will be
> unknown to most Christian readers.
>
> Yours,
>
> Kåre A. Lie
> http://www.lienet.no
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>



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