The Great Discourse on Causation. The Mahanidana Sutta and Its Commentaries.

[Rudite Salina]

Dear Ajahn,

First of all I would like to thank you for mentioning this book in one of the Sutta Retreat talks.

I the introduction (chapter The Pathway for Designation) Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi writes:

Of all the tools of reference a person may use, those of greatest importance to himself are the ones that enable him to establish and confirm his sense of his own identity. These are the designations "mine," "I am," and "my self." In the Buddha`s teaching such ideas and all related notions, in the way they are ordinarily entertained, are regarded as conceptual expressions of the ego-consciousness.

I don`t quite understand the term `ego-consciousness`.

In the explanation of consciousness the Buddha says:

There are these six classes of consciousness: eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, nose-consciousness, tongue-consciousness, body-consciousness, mind-consciousness. This is called consciousness.

(SN 12.2)

So I was wondering how `ego-consciousness` fits into this.
Could you please comment.

Thank you.
With metta,
Rudite

[Ajahn Brahmali]

Dear Rudite,

I think what Ven. Bodhi here means by ego-consciousness is simply the sense of self. In other words, he seems to be using consciousness in a wide sense, as encompassing perception. In contrast, when the Buddha speaks of the six classes of consciousness, he is speaking of consciousness in the narrow sense of "knowing".

This shows you one of the problems of translation. The range of meanings of an English word (or any other language for that matter) will never perfectly match the range of a roughly corresponding Pali word. This is why reading the original Pali is sometimes necessary to get clarity around refined points of Dhamma.

With metta.