Buddhism - Three Dimensions Chan Comment 3/3

Thank you for stimulating the debate. I will try to share my limited knowledge with you. (One never knows what is out there; it is just like one never knows what knowledge is out there waiting for just a re-discovery. Our ancestor has a saying: “The little one knows the most stupid one is; and the more one learns the more one knows, but his knowledge is nothing”). I should warn you that what I am going to share with you could be perhaps just imagination or illusion. I am learning by sharing. So, please beware. Baung, please dispute if you think anything is wrong or baseless. Here come my views:
I agree with you that no-one has a complete knowldge, except Buddha who attained sambhothinhean. In the current day, there are also people who had enlightended, but they could reach only bhothinhean and not sambhothinehean.

Difference between moha and meayea (មោហ: និង មាយា)
Moha is the belief in baseless reality, i.e. the truth of illusion. I should have quoted in full in previous email. I now quoted it again with related terms highlighted: “… but the mind believes what they know is true (illusion).”
Meayea is a fraud or deceptive appearance, which is similar to meayeakar (មាយាការ: illusion). This is in fact just like a trick to make someone believe (without even facts, not to mention the very truth in Buddha’s sense). You may recall the stories told of what Buddha saw in various meditations. He saw countless illusions or deceptive appearance incl. his experiences at the royal palace, etc. If he took these as the truth then he was drawn by or into moha. Meayea is just anything – it can be act, it can be performance, it can be message – that lures someone into believing into something which is most often not “true”.
This is very clear in your distinction of the two words. To summarize: moha is our own illusion and meayea is tricks to create illusion for others or others create illusion for us.

Nipean and Pari-nipean (និព្វាន និងបរិនិព្វាន)
This was perhaps elaborated by Leang and others; but I do not have a chance to look at theirs. I just wish to share with you blindly my personal perspective.
Nirvana in Buddhism is to cancel all the greed or bad thing or desire/craving (តណ្ហា). This is rom Pali. Ni (និ or និរ) means eliminate, take away, …, in trade in mean move from one place to another. Peana or Veana (វាន) means bad acts, greed, desire, wrongdoing … One reach nipeana or achieve sukkha if one can eliminate these with pure mind (i.e. even no second memory of them).

Pari-nipeana is to achieve complete nirvana. Pari (បរិ) means full, complete, …, super, … As such only Buddha could achieve parinirvana.
You come to the root of the words that make me understand much better. In Leang's article, he stated that nipean is a state that can be reached in the current life (partial, occasional) while par-nipean is only after the death (fully, complete). This equals to your words 'nipean in yourself' as we can reach it in our current life through VM.

Tantric Buddhism, Theravada Buddhism, … or different sects of Buddhism
I believe these are just sects created by Buddhist followers. I do not really believe that Buddha created all these different branches or sects. However, my assumption is based on reading in history or stories of Buddha. This assumption may be true if all the reading I have is true. At one point Buddha foresaw that there would be misinterpretation of his teaching, …, and even prior to his parinirvana, the Sangha started to have different sects. Obviously, Devadatta wanted to be head of the Sangha and wanted Buddha to appoint him. Buddha never wanted that and Devadatta started to have his own Sanga, etcetera and etcetera.
To me the different sects … have been created by the so-called Buddhists who want to exploit the innocents.

Leang's menioned that Tantric Buddhism is practiced in Tibet, Nepal, etc. I agree with you the Buddha tried to prevent the division of religion and the misinterpretation of his teaching. But he failed, particularly after his pari-nipean. This is the characristic of religion (spirituality + mind). The mind spoils the spirituality, exploits the spirituality, and links spirituality with personal interest. For this reason, some people begin to call themselves as spiritual but not religious when the dislike the impurity of religion.

Pheavanea (ភាវនា)
Of course, pheavanea could take to mean “perfection”. However, the right meaning could be, I guess, development, prosperity, …, growth toward perfection. Based on these pheavanea-dharma (e.g. sila pheavanea, rupa pheavanea, ceta pheavanea … (សីលភាវនា រូបភាវនា ចិត្តភាវនា) = social development, physical development, spiritual development) one takes Buddha’s teaching as the world/universal development theory.

You made a precise explanation here. I could unsderstand it better than the simple word of 'perfection' as Leang told me. In the past, I wrongly understood 'pheavanea' as 'repeating some words'. With this mistake, I confuse myself what does pheavanea maya panha mean. Now, I know it clearer though 'maya' still unclear to me. The same problem with 'vedanea', I wrongly understood it as difficulty, hardship. Untill I took VM class, then I know it is the 'sensation'. The VM group I share with CAMPRO focuses on 'sensation' as the first faculty to develop. At the basic level they teach us to develop the awareness of 'body sensation' as to interpret/decode the language of the inner mind (sub-conscious level) which tells us about its changing situations: sukha, dukha, and a-sukha/a-dukha (neutral). At the higher level that I didn't attend yet, they will focus on the awareness of more subtle level.

Borom-sokh (បរមសុខ)
Khmer or Cambodian language is well influenced by Pali and Sanskrit. I think like those in the foregoing paragraphs, this word is not free from such influence, and it means great happiness. (បរម means great, maximum, super, …).

Chanroeun told me borom-sokh as bliss when we exchanged view about "pleasure and joy". Chanroeun has strong academic background in philosophy which I am lacking. We could not agree on the meaning of 'pleasure' when I read it from a spiritual book which defines pleasure as personal fullfillment at the expense of others. With this background, I told him that his word 'sabay' in Khmer doesn't reflect rightly the meaning of 'pleasure', but he couldn't find any better word than that.

Spirituality (chetoniyum, ចេតោនិយម)
I agree this is the word in Khmer. But one could also use another word for this, which could be better and has wider meaning (I think). This word is mo’noniyum (មនោនិយម)

My concern with Khmer percetion is that chetoniyum or m'noniyum could be interepreted as baseless belief. Anyway, I keep the two words in mind. Perhaps we need an extended explanation to emphasize the importance of spirituality.

My other confusion in English is why the word 'spirit' is so close to 'spirituality' in writing while the two are so different. In which, 'spirit' in Khmer could mean various things such as pro-leung, preay, beisach, khmoch, aruk, arak, etc. And these confuse me further. I don't know what are the disctinction between those Khmer words. It sounds like Khmer has more spirits than English does.

Neam-rub (នាមរូប)
I agree with you on this one. It is derived from two words neama’ and rupa’ = name and body/form. With simple interpretation, based on this, it could take to mean individual person or element.
My confusion here is that why 'neam' could be equal to 'mind', it should simply 'name' and name means nothing in this context. Now, I just accept it without question although I am not clear yet. Then I move to the practice to develop the awareness of the interaction bwteen mind and body as the essence.

Discussion about Buddhism in terms of philosophy, religion, and spirituality was made, I think. I remember reading long time ago a book written by Cambodian author/s in the 1970s (I do not quite remember the name of the authors). The name of the book could be: Buddhism and Science (I think). Baung, you may want to do some internet search on these – my guess is that there could be Buddhists who write something similar or familiar.
Many thanks for giving this clue. The author could be Khieu Chum. I will keep this in mind. In the internet, the title 'Buddhism and Science' appears a lot, but only authoried by foreigners.