4👑☸ Cattāri Ariya-saccaṃ 四聖諦
em☸jis
Why?
It looks ugly and messy, like someone barfed in technicolor all over your computing device screen. So why use them?
1. They're very effective at communicating clearly, often much more so than a homogenous mass of monochromatic alphabet soup that most formal and stuffy Dhamma articles are written in.
2. Pāli terms are translated in word for word order as much as possible, the visual images aid greatly with learning and memorization.
3. There is historical precedent for this. The Chinese language is composed of strokes that were gradually simplified over time, but derived originally from pictures. Essentially, the written Chinese language is all ancient emojis.
4. At heart I'm a Dhamma Guerrilla ☸🦍. I'm much more interested in getting desired results, and don't care about looking pretty or following boring and dumb conventions in doing it. Yes, I know the distinction between gorilla and Guerrilla. But using that image, doesn't it make it much more memorable, and easy to grok my point? And that's the point, to make it easy to learn new words, and tie it to the practice and understanding of ☸Dhamma.
The especially important em☸jis
An explanation of them.
☸ = 8 spoked wheel
☸ = maggo = path, as in noble-eightfold-path (👑8☸).
☸ = ☸Dhamma = The turning of the Dhamma 🖏☸ wheel, that same 8 spoked wheel wheel (👑8☸). Incidentally, 🖏 the 'ok' hand signal, is very similar to later Buddhist tradition hand mudra that refers to the turning of the Dhamma 🖏☸ wheel SN 56.11 .
☸ = sacca = truth, of Ariya-sacca 👑-☸. Four noble truths = 4👑☸
Relationship between 7☀️, 5⛅, 🌄
7sb☀ = satta bojjh-aṅgaṃ = 7☀️ awakening-factors. The sun emoji, ☀️, represents enlightenment/awakening.
5niv⛅ = panca nivarana, the 5 hindrances that block jhana, samadhi, and bodhi/awakening/enlightenment. In the 'sun-covered-by-cloud' emoji, guess what the cloud represents?
🌄 = samādhi = undistractible-lucidity
🌄 = citta ek'aggata = mind (of) single-preoccupation
🌄 = ekodi-bhava, having become eka + udi, transcended into singularity (of samadhi).
🌄 emoji, is not guaranteed to look the same on all platforms, but on Windows 10, it's a mountain with the sunrise illuminating the world (enlightenment/bodhi).
* The agga in ek'agga, also means the peak of the mountain. In fact, in MN 125 the Buddha uses the beautiful simile of samadhi/jhana as ascending the top of the mountain and being able to see the world clearly, with a view that only one of samadhi has. Those at lower elevation have their view blocked by trees and so forth.
* 'agga' also has a figurating meaning of being supreme, the peak, the highest, the best. So ek'agga translated literally into English has some interesting and cool connotations that may or may not have been implied by the original pali.
examples:
1. eka agga = one-peak: example usage: That dude in samadhi has 'one-peak' mind, a really sharp mind.
2. eka agga = a singular excellence.
3. eka agga = the supreme singularity (of citta/mind). The english word 'singular' and 'singularity' denotes something of very unusual or extraordinary distinction.
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