[Buddha-l] Prapanca

[Wong Weng Fai]

On Tue, 12 Feb 2008, Jamie Hubbard wrote:

> Let's get really serious about Buddhism for a minute. What the hell IS
> prapanca/papanca? Is it just a Buddhist word for bullshit, or does it have a
> more precise meaning?

The Chinese term for prapanca is "xi lun" - "xi" as in "playful", "games", 
"dramatic", "frivolous". "lun" as in "theory", "speculation". I think 
"mental masturbation" would be a pretty close modern equivalence.

W.F. Wong